ICT and Computing in Education
Whisper
Originally uploaded by daniel_pfund
I had a tutorial lesson today. Or maybe citizenship. Or PHSE. You get the jist…
The aim of the lesson was for the students to understand the concept of budgetting. In addition to the central aim I wanted them to appreciate what their finances might be like in the future and to compare their expectations with harsh reality.
So, printing off a semi-random budgetting sheet found on letting agent’s website we proceeded to fill it in as a class. It took the full hour.
We discussed the cost of renting vs buying, shopping at different types of supermarkets, repayments on loans for different standards of car and, with some degree of shock for the students, the difference between gross and net salaries!
At the end of it we packed up, threw the paper in the bin and went to lunch. I didn’t formally assess their work, they didn’t produce evidence of having completed tasks or showing progression in their knowledge and understanding. I would have been graded as Requires Improvement, or probably Inadequate.
And yet, I’m absolutely certain that EVERY student in that class learned something. They might not remember the figures, but they were surprised by how inaccurate their preconceptions about incomes and expenditures were, and they bought into the lesson really well.
I could have built in more activities – learning checkpoints, scaffolding, differentiated resources and mini-plenaries. And in many cases those tools are incredibly useful. But every once in a while I like to just spend the full lesson exploring something and not necessarily weighing the pig every 10 minutes to see if it’s gotten fatter.
But I’m in the middle of my appraisal, so sssh… it’s a secret! 
Originally uploaded by Pkabz
Apologies for the lack of posts recently, but real life has been taking over of late.
Thankfully, I was emailed today asking about how I deal with assessment at KS3 so I can kill two birds with one stone.
The email wasn’t so much what or how I assess, but how do I communicate this with the students and how do they respond to it. In many subjects a stuck in sheet at the front of the book serves to maintain a persistent and consistent platform for feedback and responses – but in ICT lessons we don’t use exercise books, and I’m loathe to start just for that reason.
We could always give students pieces of paper, or have them filed in the room, but this seems similarly arbitrary and far from ideal.
We did try using Moodle for a good few years, with a course set aside just for assessed pieces of work to be uploaded and feedback given. It required one upload assignment for each assessed unit and while the feedback was persistent (students could always go back and look at it) it was still very unidirectional.
Since about the middle of last year we’ve been using the Moodle Dialogue Module. While I was loathe to start adding non-core modules because of the hassles involved in upgrading further down the line, the functionality really couldn’t be found any other way.
Installation and setup is simple, although it’s virtually essential to be using groups*. I find it easiest to get the students to initiate the dialogue (you need to be enrolled as a teacher for the students to see you) although you can start a dialogue with an entire group at a time.
Both sides can write messages and upload files and the conversation is private between you and the student. This way the student can upload their work with a brief self-assessment, you can leave detailed feedback and they can respond. Every 3 or 4 lessons we bring the students back to the dialogue and look at what their specific targets are and can measure their own progress.
We’re also in the process of designing some large display boards with level descriptors so students can refer to these as they go.
It’s not perfect, and one of the bugbears is that impatient students will hit the submit button 3 or 4 times, creating 3 or 4 entries that can’t be edited or removed after the 30 minute grace period.
On the whole, though, it’s working very well and in the whole discussions and working parties on assessment and feedback our system has been praised by SLT – so it can’t be that bad!
* Top tip: Set up the groups before you enrol the students and give each group a unique enrolment key. Put a different enrolment key on the course and when students sign up with their class’ enrolment key they automatically appear in the right group.
Originally uploaded by theirhistory
I’ve been kicking around an idea for a few months now.
Actually, no, that’s a lie. I’ve been following some other people kicking around an idea for a few months now and I’ve been feeling like this has the makings of a very good idea. Possibly.
Chris Allen (@infernaldepart) and Brian Sharland (@sharland) keep posting messages about Digital Badges, and a blog post by Dave Stacey (@davestacey) has really filled me with enthusiasm (and a bit of awe at the scope of his pedagogical vision). The basic principle is quite simple; instead of assessing each piece of work as Level 4a, Level 5c or whatever you use the Scouting model of awarding badges as a way of recognising achievement.
This has a real advantage for me that it’s not about me looking at each piece of work and grading it at one of several levels, it’s not about hawkishly passing judgement on the student every time. The emphasis is instead focused on rewarding work, and specifically in rewarding progress.
At Beaver Scouts, my daughter recently earned her ’1 night away’ badge. Does this represent any learning objectives? No. Does it represent an achievement? Absolutely. It won’t be long before she earns her ’5 nights away’ badge, then 10, 20… I think my son should be approaching 50 by now. Progress, achievement and rewards.
And actually, it’s not entirely dissimilar to the real world. When I have to write a particular document it is ultimately pass/fail. My SEF either comes back needing amendment or it is accepted, I get to keep my ‘administrative paperwork’ badge and everything else that comes along with it.
All this is helped by Mozilla’s Open Badges framework. The idea is that people can complete tasks and be awarded a digital badge for their efforts. They even have a virtual backpack on which you can proudly display your badges. And being open source (hence the Open Badges name), anyone can create their own badge, or set of badges.
There are two issues I still need to overcome, however, if this is going to work.
One, I need a way to embed the badges in the student mindset. They need to be displayed somewhere in a way that is “automagic and omnipresent”. It’s no use asking them to sew them on their jumpers and I don’t like the idea of students having to go to a third party website just to check their badges and to see the badges of others. One idea I’m looking at is a login script that will display the student’s badges on their desktop. I’m also hearing rumours of a potential plugin for with Edmodo and/or Moodle.
The second one is that in order for this to work, it needs to be consistent across the department, approved by SLT and mapped to levels so that we can still report using the existing systems. None of that is necessarily insurmountable, I just hope that my departmental colleagues are willing to give it a go.
I genuinely think that there is an opportunity here to provide feedback, offer recognition and to motivate students in a fundamentally different way.
I remember that as part of my PGCE I had to write a document to describe common misconceptions that students have in ICT lessons. I don’t remember what I wrote, to be honest, but I’m sure that I wrote it from my perspective and didn’t actually ask the kids – just based the document on my own observation.
Fast forward a couple of years and I started using the (free & excellent) Yacapaca KS3 assessments to baseline our Year 7 students as they entered the school. I used this to generate an apporximate level for each student – but didn’t delve too much into the specifics.
Fast forward another couple of years and I finally decided to delve a little deeper into the question-by-question analysis that is available. 20 minutes later and I had a list of common misconceptions based on the students’ answers, rather than my own ubsubstantiated observations. For every shocker listed below there was another question that was answered well and I haven’t included particularly difficult or unfair questions (such as how many managed to identify the correct HTML syntax for a mailto hyperlink).
Before I show you my findings, what does this mean? Well, first of all it is not meant as any kind of attack on our Y7 pupils or on the primary sector. It is what it is, and I am sure that my school is far from unique in our results. We are a very successful school with a largely affluent intake (>99% of students have an Internet-connected computer at home), so there is no shortage of access to equipment. I see it as an indication of the level we need to be aiming at as we start KS3.
Next time you tackle a spreadsheet unit, think about your language. If over 70% of the class don’t understand the term ‘profit’, then how can you expect them to create a formula to calculate it?
So here is the list:
18% of students thought the best way to copy a real photograph was to cut and paste.
54% of students thought that a table of data would be a better graphical aid than a colour coded diagram.
66% of students misunderstood the differences between cut & paste and copy & paste.
22% of students thought a database is a program for writing documents.
18% of students thought that a DTP package would be suitable for sending emails.
16% of students thought a joystick could be used to copy a photo onto a PC.
60% of students were unable to identify ‘fields’ and ‘records’ in a database table.
36% of students thought that a search engine would find files within their own workspace.
56% of students thought that the word count, spell checker or grammar checker would be a useful tool for improving the layout of a page. [Correct answer: print preview]
44% of students thought that a printer, scanner or speakers were required to access the Internet.
49% of students thought that a spreadsheet, word processor or database would be used to design a flyer [11%, 27%, 11%].
67% of students were unable to recognise a decision in a flowchart.
48% of students thought that ‘including lots of animation and music’ is an important factor in web design. [On a personal note: AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!!!]
Only 22% of students thought that most important way to ensure that a business website will be useful would be to obtain a list of requirements from the staff.
Only 41% of students correctly identified that a web designer would need an Internet-connected PC. 25% suggested a high quality printer, 21% suggested a plotter and 13% suggested datalogging equipment.
68% of students thought that a flashing light, buzzer or monitor was an input device.
72% of students failed to identify that the primary benefit of a financial model was to try different prices.
38% of students thought that too much text or too many hyperlinks would significantly slow a website down, rather than too much multimedia content.
50% of students failed to identify which fields to search in a database table.
79% of students failed to recognise formulae as a spreadsheet tool used to make predictions.
76% of students were unable to identify the definition of ‘profit’.
52% of students failed to identify a database as the best tool for storing details of inventory.
25% of students thought that the total costs and income would need to be calculated BEFORE being entered into a spreadsheet model.
