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 **‍‍FORMATIVE‍‍ ASSESSMENT IN DISTANCE EDUCATION** **Introduction**  Welcome to my e-portfolio. My Name is Shopi Julius Mbulankende, a teaching staff member of Kyambogo University, [] Department of Teacher Education and Development Studies. I'm currently 2011a Mellon Scholarship beneficiary for PGDE/ Masters program at Center for Education Technology, University of Cape Town, []. This e-portfolio is an outcome of one of the five modules "EDN5101OS: Online Learning Design" facilitated by Prof. Cheryl Hodgkinson - Williams: cheryl.Hodgkinson-williams@uct.ac.za and Andrew Deacon: aedeacon@gmail.com. coordinated by Prof. Dick Ng'ambi:Dick.Ngambi@uct.ac.za. It documents a design process of an online design intervention [|http://bit.ly/ntBAQZ]for formative assessment of an English Literature course unit offered via distance teacher education at Kyambogo University.

Formative assessment/continuous assessment/progressive assessment or course work whatever the name an institution chooses to use accounts for much in student evaluation at a university yet is given less attention by students than is given by lecturers. Students often perceive the final examination as more important than course work yet the two equally are important and course work more important as you can be given a chance for improvement so as to score highly in final examination. In distance education, formative assessment becomes even more challenging given the virtual environment between educators and students, students and fellow students as well as students and the institution yet the literature course demands rigorous attention.  ‍‍

Given the affordances of technology, an online assessment intervention is ‘spot on’ in distance education as it is expected that thorough use of open source software and Computer Aided Assessment (CAA) such as Google Docs shall enable the use of different assessment methods within a range of approaches, including peer assessment, self - assessment, group - based assessment and objective testing (Jenkins, 2004) To avoid the common mistakes committed by junior instructional designers, I opted to follow an Integrative Learning Design Framework (ILDF) proposed by Dabbagh & Ritland (2005) which advises developers to use use ‍‍Exploration, Enactment and Evaluation in the design process. ‍‍ ‍‍To that effect, much was done on the exploration through informal conversations and informal interviews with teaching staff, students as well as observation of the available ICT’s at the university and an insight into the politics and beliefs of distance education at Kyambogo University. ‍‍

Literature on the appropriate learning theories and eventual pedagogical strategies, affordances and tools were explored and informed the designer of Google Docs as the best tool to implement an Online Learning Activity (OLA) that can be used to foster collaborative formative assessment in distance education.

References Dabbagh, N & Bannan-Ritland,B (2005) Chapter 4. Evaluation for Online Learning. Online learning: Concepts,Strategies and application. Upper Saddle River,New Jersey: Pearson.

Jenkins, M.(2004) unfulfilled Promise: formative assessment using computer - aided assessment. Learning & Teaching in Higher Education. Issue 1 ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍**Please click on the section you would most like to read about**.
 * || ** Exploration ** || <span style="background-color: #fbfb93; color: #404040; display: block; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">** Enactment ** || <span style="background-color: #fbfb93; color: #404040; display: block; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">** Evaluation ** || <span style="background-color: #fbfb93; color: #404040; display: block; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">** Reflections ** ||