My first experience marking stuff

First of all... HAPPY NEW YEARS everybody! May you and yours have a successful and fabulous year ahead! We are having a very foggy new year so far. It's so foggy that you can barely see a few meters ahead of you. People still manage to drive like maniacs, even when they can barely see. They also flash their hazard lights... I guess they use them differently here. Back home, we use them when there is something wrong with our cars and we are driving slowly. The hazard lights indicates' Be careful around me! I have a bad tire' Or while parked, the hazard light indicates 'I will get the hell out of the way as fast as I can, I swear!'. I am not really sure why the people of Dubai flash their hazard lights on a foggy day while driving 110 km/h... and it's not just one or two person doing this... everybody was flashing their hazard lights...

Anyways, for the last of days at work, I've been involved in marking. I've been helping my supervisor mark the assignments for the information literacy class. For this assignment, they have to complete a bibliography with five different sources. They use a document called "evaluation calculator' in order to determine the quality of the source. I find these assignments difficult to mark- not because it's full of grammatical errors and such, but I am just not all that sure they understand the point of the assignment. There are different evaluation calculators for different types of sources, such as books, articles, and websites. For all the different kinds of calculators, the top portion is the author, title and publisher fields. Then it's the 'criteria' section, which ask the student the purpose, audience, authority of the source, and whether or not it has a bibliography, how the source can be used, and whether or not it's biased or current. Each of these fields have a drop down menu. The student is to select the item that is suitable to describe the source. The last section is the 'annotation' section. Students are to write a few sentences about how useful the source is, and things like that.

This seems like a straight-forward assignment, you are probably thinking. I thought so too, when it was first shown to me. But I find a lot of times, students contradicts themselves. While they say that the source is 'very one-sided' in the 'bias' field, they don't explain how it's one-sided in the annotation section and will say things like 'this is a very helpful source'. I also find that students are not very good at picking out the authority of websites. They've evaluated government websites (published by the European Commission or the Australian government), and in the authority field, they will select "not sure". Furthermore, in the annotation, they will say things like 'I am not going to use this source for my topic because it doesn't list any authors". They don't realize that it is a government publication (as the government or entity is usually considered the 'author' of the site'). They also don't understand that although we read government information with a grain of salt, information published by the government is usually pretty reliable.

I just realize that there are so much I know that I take for granted. At a glance, I can tell (even as an undergraduate student), the difference between a newspaper article and a academic journal article. The students here would evaluate a newspaper article and decide in the annotation section that they are not going to use it because 'there is no bibliography'. I don't think they understand what kind of sources to use for what purpose. Most of us would know that there usually isn't a bibliography for a newspaper article. I can tell by scanning through a website whether or not it's government, commercial, non-profit or personal website. I understand how each of these sources can be used. I really hope that I can these students these skills.

This is the final assignment for the information literacy portion of this course. It's suppose to demonstrate that they are able to find, select and evaluate the sources. For the most part, I don't feel that they really understand, based on the assignments I have marked. Having said that, I am glad I got to do a little bit of marking before teaching, because I get a better sense of what areas I can emphasize on when I am teaching.

Although I get frustrated about living in Dubai, I do think my job is important. It's the only thing that's keeping me here right now. Information literacy is my passion, as I think it is my job to teach these young women how to be critical. I understand that they had been 'programmed' not question anything told to them, as I had been 'programmed' to always ask 'why?' They are raised in such a different environment, but in order to be a successful person living in the world today, one must be informed and critical. Whether or not they are looking for a job (it is becoming increasingly common for Emirati women to work), raising their children, or looking for information for any other personal or professional reasons, it is important to know how to find what's needed and whether or not the information is reliable. I think this is going to be a very interesting challenge. I wonder how much impact I can actually make on these students' lives.

By tomorrow, it will the a brand new year. A fresh start. I don't usually make new year's resolutions because I never stick to them, but this year, I am going to try my damn hardest to stop being such a drunk. Not going to quit drinking or anything silly like that, but you know, make an effort not to kill a bottle of wine by myself every night. And for the third time, I am going to quit smoking. As of tonight. Wish me luck!!

Hope you guy are having a wonderful new years!! Muah!