Assessment Using ICT

Assessment Using ICT

EDUC1049 – Blog Assignment

ICT are at the core of learning and teaching in the 21^st century. Queensland’s future depends on how successfully we integrate ICT in the curriculum and daily learning and teaching (State of Queensland, 2002)

My beliefs about ICT use for assessment are strongly founded upon my own schooling experience, particularly during the later years in which it was becoming more prevalent. I am a strong believer that ICT can potentially renovate traditional means of assessment. As also within the classroom, ICT as a tool can potentially offer engaging learning, but also become a burden for teachers and distraction for students. And likewise, my experiences with assessment using ICT have been mixed. I have been fortunate enough to experience both sides of the spectrum, effective ICT use for assessment, and poor use. 

The follow are two ICT tools I have used for, or as a means of assessment:

Wikis: I was presented with a group task in which we were required to upload various sections of a task periodically. The Wiki was intended to be act as a public place for all group members to interact with, uploading and reading each other’s ideas. Unfortunately, this didn’t turn out to be the case. As an alternative we created a private Facebook group through which we were able to perform all of the same tasks, using the wiki solely to submit the assessment tasks. I believe this is the result of our prior disposition and use of Facebook, all group members used Facebook often, thus it was far more likely that we would log on Facebook and see any new posts or changes in our group as opposed to on the wiki. This was an example of poor use of a wiki for assessment, however it did demonstrate that the underlying concept has validity to it, as the Facebook group was used for the exact same purpose.

Wordle created from Changing Assessment - Towards a New Assessment Paradigm Using ICT (Redecker, C. 2013) with Wordle

Blogs: During my University experiences I have been tasked with the creation of a number of blogs, these have generally been far more engaging activities then traditional tasks – supporting the perception that technology can provide a more engaging means of assessment. Despite most blog tasks requiring a typical written aspect like most conventional tasks, I believe the visual elements of designing a blog and the idea of creating their own content on the internet appeals to students. Furthermore, unlike an essay, blogs accommodate multimodal communication, alternative means of communicating messages or ideas and a great way to compliment text. The skills developed from blog creation are in my opinion increasingly important, visual design skills and digital literacy for example, are gradually becoming necessary as technology becomes ever present in society. As they are a product of the internet, they also encourage researching and gathering of diverse sources of information. Overall I believe blogs are a great tool for assessment, providing an engaging alternative to regular tasks that fosters 21^st century literacy skills.

“ICT offer many opportunities for supporting assessment formats that can capture complex skills and competences that are otherwise difficult to assess” (Redecker, C. and Johannessen, Ø, 2013).

Conclusively, I personally believe assessment using ICT has great potential, particularly in the development of digital literacy, but also in supporting traditional assessment practices in contemporary mediums.
Supporting these aspects, is the text Online Learning Techniques: Using Wikis and Blogs for Assessment in First Year Engineering wherein the authors introduced blogs and wikis to the assessment, concluding that they “provided an effective tool for assessment, enabling regular feedback to be quickly and easily provided to students” (Smith, Mills, & Myers, 2009).

References:

State of Queensland 2002, Information and communication technologies for learning: school information kit (2002-2003}, Queensland Government, Brisbane.

Redecker, C. and Johannessen, Ø. (2013), Changing Assessment — Towards a New Assessment Paradigm Using ICT. European Journal of Education, 48: 79–96. doi: 10.1111/ejed.12018

Kent, Peter and Chris Campbell,Macmillan masterclass : assessment for teaching today, Melbourne : Macmillan Education Australia, 2013, ch.5 pp.34-43

Smith, E. J., Mills, J. E., & Myers, B. (2009). Using wikis and blogs for assessment in first-year engineering. Campus-Wide Information Systems, 26(5), 424-432.