Class Assignment: iRubric

For one of my class assignments, I had to find and evaluate a website that addressed an area that I consider myself to be weak in. Although I am well aware of what rubrics are, I have never used them to grade an assignment. I found that creating the rubric was extremely time consuming and tedious. I was unaware of all of the sites on the web that will help you create them. After rummaging through several sites, I was impressed with a website called rcampus.com and their section called iRubric. To complete the assignment, I have to post a 250-word opinion piece to this site. So here it is!

"iRubric is a comprehensive rubric development, assessment, and collaboration tool. Designed from the ground up, iRubric supports a variety of usage in an easy-to-use package. Best of all, iRubric is free to individual faculty and students ." (Quote from the iRubric website) iRubric is a website that currently has over 47,000 rubrics that have been created on this site. Over 17,000 of those are available to use or modify to fit your needs. It also offers you the option of creating and sharing your own personal rubric.
The site is very well organized and easily navigable. Rubrics are divided into categories and can be searched by subject (math, writing, etc.) or type (presentation, project, etc.). The site is free and offers the capability to save the rubrics you feel are useful. It also offers a search to look for specific rubrics. One recent search found a rubric for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
This website could prove to be invaluable to any teacher. While we are all aware of how beneficial rubrics are, it can be a time consuming task to create a fair and objective rubric for every assignment. This site can easily cut down the time and work required to develop a great rubric. The site also allows teachers to set up a gradebook for rubrics. This allows teachers to score, comment and print out individual grades for each student and keeps a record for the teacher. It also allows teachers to send electronic versions of the rubrics to students for them to understand the expectations and self evaluate their performance.
I would highly recommend this website to other educators. It is a great place to locate existing rubrics to meet your needs or to build your own. It offers the ability to modify existing rubrics and to collaborate with others to develop new ones.
In closing, I would like to note that iRubric is only one section of a much larger website entitled RCampus. The website defines itself as an "Open Education Management System". There are places to create e-portfolios, exchange books, and receive tutoring. I will be searching the site more to determine what tools it offers that will enhance my educational abilities.

Welcome to the world of BLOGGING!

It's July 2008 and I have finally joined the world of blogging. I have considered doing this many times, but I could never think of a good reason. That all changed during my Instuctional Leadership class. ( I am working on my Masters Degree in Education) It is a requirement that I set up a blog. That was just the gentle nudge I needed to get started.

So let's go......