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  February 1, 2010:
Postmarked team application sent. Only applications postmarked by February 1, 2010 can be accepted. Team coaches will receive confirmation and instructions by email on February 8, 2010. February 10, 2010: Louisiana Technology Challenge takes place! A list of all deadlines.  |
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If your high school has registered a team by the deadline, your Team Coach has already reserved a location for your team to meet during the morning of February 10, 2010 at a location in your high school with computers that have reliable Internet access. Your Team Coach has received directions by email for your registered team to access the Technology Challenge file(s) on "moodle". The directions will help you to log on to the password-protected moodle site used by the University of Louisiana at Monroe to teach online courses. Once you are logged in, you will be able to "download" or copy files to your location. When you are finished with the tasks, "upload" or copy the files to the moodle site. Each team will need to complete uploading all files by 11:59 AM; every minute late results in a loss of 1 point. Submissions older than an hour will NOT be judged. Teamwork is very important to complete tasks on time. Recommendation: Work together to divide up the tasks during the first 15 minutes, using different computers. It might be a good idea for groups of 2 or 3 to work together on specific tasks. During the final 15 minutes, start uploading your files to your moodle account. On the day after the competition, the Team Coach will receive the results of the competition, as described in the calendar. The top finishers will be announced on this website, on the main page. On the day of the Challenge, by 8 AM, be prepared to access the moodle account using the directions your Team Coach received with the login and a password. You will get a list of challenging tasks. The Technology Challenge consists of 2 parts: Internet Search (40 points) and 3 Chosen Tasks (20 points each). A perfect score for the Technology Challenge is 100 points. In the event of ties for winners, judges will be asked to evaluate the quality of writing. Judging Q. What do judges use to evaluate the tasks? What is the rubric? A. The approximately 25 judges see the directions for each task and use the following rubric to determine a score from 10 to 20 points. If no file is received, the score is zero.  2. The particular task number is written here. Each team does 3 tasks. 3. Each judge's initials go here. 4. These positive qualities can increase a score by 1 to 2 points, depending on the judge. 5. These negative qualities can decrease a score by 1 to 2 points, depending on the judge. 6. The judge writes in the number of points, from 10 to 20 points. We tell judges to start every evaluation at 15 points. Depending on what judges perceive to be important, the score goes up or down. Each of your 3 tasks is judged by 2 to 4 judges. The results are then averaged in an Excel spreadsheet; each task's average is "rounded up" to the nearest tenth of a point. Approximately 10 judges evaluate your 4 files. While the rubric is subjective, the process of using averaged results from many judges tends to "even out" individual discrepancies. If there are ties, the top finishers are rechecked by 3 more judges for an evaluation of the quality of writing. Q. Generally what do judges seem to think is most important? A. Grammar and spelling are important. Many university professors feel strongly about the importance of communicating clearly with complete sentences, even if the technology applications are impressive; this holds true in any modern workplace. Q. How important is teamwork? A. Teamwork makes a huge difference. In past years, Team Coaches have told us that working well together is extremely important. Q. What should I, the Team Coach, do during the Challenge? A. Team coaches
Finally In the interest of fairness, there is no advantage in completing more than 3 chosen tasks; if your team submits more than 3 chosen tasks, only the first 3 tasks will be judged. |