d.
Assessing Learning
As
with any form of teaching, when the work is done it is essential
that accurate and valid forms of assessment take place. When you
are using ICT in teaching, several dangers arise that are not
otherwise so obvious. They stem from the easy availability and
the ease of manipulation of information and ideas, and it is best
to be clear about them in this first case study.
- You
need to be confident that the information received and used
by pupils has been arrived at 'deliberately' - that is as a
function of their acquisition of investigative and critical
or other subject-based skills rather than by some accident of
the World Wide Web.
- You
need to be confident that the ideas are the pupil's own, or
that new ideas presented to them through the technology have
been assimilated in a way that is appropriate.
- You
need to be happy that both you and the pupils appreciate the
differences between presentation and content, and that the pupil
is not merely using the technology to make better-looking work
of the same standard as before.
- The
key measure of success is of course in the pupil's ability to
develop skills in relation to the key objectives of the case
study. There is a danger that providing massive amounts of resource
will simply overwhelm the pupil.
- Individual
and shared progress and achievement - often the technology will
have been used by pairs and groups, as well as by individuals.
Here you need to have a method of ensuring that credit goes
to the right pupil of pair/group for the work done or learning
achieved.
- ICT
use and opportunities to assess learning. Throughout the time
you are using ICT to develop pupils' learning it is crucial
to keep an eye on where ICT allows you to intervene with an
assessment, or whether the ICT has provided you with an assessment
opportunity that you had not foreseen. The development of a
database would be an obvious example of this, but so is observing
a pupil make intelligent decisions about the worth of a World
Wide Web site or a point of information in a CD.
For
discussion with your mentor:
- How
many of the points made above have you seen in the course of
your work developing the case study, and are there any others
you expect to come across?
 Part
3: Evaluating the Use of ICT in Teaching and Learning
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