I Should Be Marking

No pithy title for this one, but it does what it says on the tin.

GCSE ICT is changing from 2010 with completely new specifications across all exam boards. One of the major changes is that ‘coursework’ is out, and ‘controlled assessments’ are in. These are not practical online exams in the style of Edexcel GCE Applied ICT, but more like the DiDA Set Project Brief (SPB) with a certain number of hours for students to work independently but under supervision.

There are a number of short course and double options, but I’m only looking at single award qualifications for now.

So here is my take on some of the specifications and sample assessment materials I have come across.

AQA

3 modules - 1 written exam (40% / 90 minutes), 2 controlled assessments (20% / 15 hours & 40% / 30 hours).

The content in the specification looks pretty similar to what we have now (Edexcel) with hardware, software, applications, legislation, control and so on. The sample paper also looks OK, although in the middle there appears to be a spelling test in which students have to correct 3 errors in a paragraph of text. Errors include a missing capital letter, the word ‘of’ repeated (”The great advantage of of word processing”) and a misspelling (”wthin”). Now while lack of proof reading is a problem for students, it seems a little irrelevant for the middle of a 90 minute exam. Bizarre.

The second unit looks very much like the kind of webquest we would give to Year 7 for a cover lesson, doing some research in advance of a foreign exchange trip and you get more than half marks for “plan[ing] how to tackle the problem”.

The third unit is a bit more like the traditional GCSE coursework in that students would have to complete two activities, e.g. create a website for a band and a spreadsheet model to track costs and expenses.

OCR

This course has four units - B061 (60 minute exam), B062 (20 hour controlled assessment), B063 (60 minute exam) & EITHER B064 or B065 (20 hour controlled assessment).

The first exam (ICT in today’s world) features many of the topics from the current syllabus, although without most of the more technical aspects. The sample paper looks at, for example, input/output and storage in the context of a mobile phone as well as the traditional spreadsheet and database questions.

The second unit looks like a traditional courseowrk unit, making a spreadsheet model in the example documentation.

The third unit is a written exam in a business context with pre-release material. I haven’t seen a sample exam paper yet but it should keep the Business Studies teachers who have been shuffled into doing ‘a bit of ICT’ quite happy at least.

The fourth unit is either to produce some multimedia product (e.g. a multimedia advertisement or simple computer game) or a programming project (e.g. a spelling game for youngsters with a low reading age). This adds a touch of ‘iMedia’ to the syllabus, although it isn’t clear whether the school will have to swing one way entirely or whether individual classes/students will be able to opt for one unit specifically. It is nice to see some options though.

Edexcel

Edexcel astound me. They appear to have spent the whole of their planning budget producing a very flashy but insubstantial PPT presentation which is then not available on their website. I have a copy of it on a USB pen and all I can say is that it looks worse than DiDA. There is no sample syllabus, no sample assessment materials and no clue as to what would actually be involved in the course. They have paid someone to make some particularly unflattering cartoon images of three of the lead people though. At least it makes that part of the decision simple.

WJEC

The single award has 4 units - 2x 90 minute exams (20% each) and 2x 22.5 hour controlled assessments (30% each).

Units 1 and 3 both look very much like traditional GCSE exam papers with the topics you would expect, along with some new looks at animation techniques (e.g. rotoscoping) to go with the spreadsheet, database, HCI, legislation, etc.

Unit 2 is about obtaning and presenting information (topics look to include letters, flyers, spreadsheets and databases) and Unit 4 is based around the creation of a multimedia product (Flash, websites, maybe PPT)

OCR Computing

Yes, you read that right. OCR are releasing a pilot GCSE in Computing.

There are three units - a 90 minute exam (40%) and two controlled assessments (30% each).

The exam picks up on all the things missing from the ICT exam, including logic, denary to binary to hex conversion, some pseudocode, detailed looks at CPUs, Operating Systems, image filetypes, compression and other techy goodness.

The second unit is about researching a current trend, e.g. backing storage. Research should look at books to see what WAS done and look online to see what will be done in the future. It has the potential to be quite dry, but also quite interesting once you start looking at RAID and other technologies. I know a (small) number of pupils who would have thrived on this stuff.

The third unit is a practical programming unit with 3 tasks. In the example there is a Scratch game, a password assessment tool and a database problem.

It certainly looks challenging, but the geek in me loves it.

Summary

Edexcel is hopeless. Based on what I have seen I’m not touching their new course with a barge pole.

AQA seems a little odd with some of the content choices that have been made, but is probably the closest to the old GCSE in terms of the exam paper at least.

OCR looks OK. The first exam seems to be pitched at a fairly low level and the third unit is still a bit of a mystery.

WJEC looks to be the closest match to the previous GCSE model, although with 3 hours of exams and the longest controlled assessments, it’s a bit assessment heavy.

OCR Computing sounds like just thing I’ve been looking for for my more technically minded and capable students. It will be interesting to see what sort of numbers we can get signing up from our current Y8 cohort (who look to be a more challenging yeargroup) but I would love to do this.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

Addendum

A kind soul has pointed out to me that the OCR ICT Unit 3 sounds very much like the current Module 4 from the GCSE Spec B which is not so much business oriented as it is about a detailed look at how ICT is used in the real world. Apparently one of the more interesting and worthwhile elements of the course. I’ve not run that spec personally, so can’t comment beyond that, but hope it clears up the situation a little.

The more I look at Assessing Pupils’ Progress (APP), the more I like what has been done. The problem I have is that I need to devise some kind of recording and reporting mechanism, and this is proving a little tricky - so let me explain what I’ve got so far.

Based on this grid, it seems that most of the criteria can be split into 3 sections, and then into 3 sub-sections that are assessed as meeting Level 3, 4, 5 or 6. Levels 7 and 8 are a little more tricky, but are also rare (IME) and so I’m concentrating on 3 - 6 for now.

So I can give each student a Level for each of the relevant descriptors, and this will build up over the course of KS3 into a picture of exactly what the student has achieved, and when. But how?

The solution needs to be accessible to all ICT teaching staff, and if it produces a nice output to show students, then so much the better. We could do this in a GoogleDocs spreadsheet, but there would be over 700 worksheets (at 1 per pupil). We could try using a Pivot Table, but you’d still have a significant issue of scale. I think the solution needs to be a database.

I’m not an expert in databases. I can quite happily plow through GCSE and AS level problems, but in the real world it gets more difficult. I’ve knocked up an E-R diagram (below) that outlines my thoughts, but I don’t know how efficient or elegant that database structure really is.

In terms of platform, I could make an Access database, but then it wouldn’t be readily accessible. I don’t have the skills to implement a MySQL/PHP solution and the only online DBMS solutions I have found (e.g. Zoho) don’t work beyond a basic flat-file graphing and analysis tool.

So, thoughts and ideas welcome!

NB. Actually, I would probably split the Descriptor entity and have 1-many with a ‘category’ table (each category having 3 descriptors).

Following a very hectic week last week I am positively enthused with a vast array of ideas laid out before me. Writing this blog helps me enormously in terms of reflecting upon and describing my ideas in a way that makes it easier for me to recall them, understand them and refine them. But, I have been posting quite a lot over the past few days though and didn’t want to flood the blog with daily posts. Instead, I decided to have a go and putting my thoughts down in a MindMap - specifically, using MindMeister.

I found it to be an incredibly cathartic and useful exercise and my thoughts on the topics at hand are now much clearer. And what struck me was that I have never really used a mindmap before! I’ve been forced into doing a couple at school, but have never really used them as a way of keeping my own thoughts and ideas in order.

This, of course, led me to the idea of using mindmaps in better ways with my students. We get them into Bubbl.us to create a planning document for some of the larger projects - but it would be nice to spend a little time comparing tools and techniques, followed by students actually using a mindmap for something a little more significant. It ties in with a lot of the independent learning that isn’t really going on in education right now. (Point me to a staffroom where nobody whinge about students being spoon-fed). There are also the collaborative and creative sides to mind-mapping.

In terms of tools - you have

• hand-drawn mindmaps
• online apps such as Mindmeister, Mind42 and Bubbl.us
• desktop apps such as Freemind
• online & offline apps auch as Xmind

So I think I’ll get some of my Y7, Y9 and probably Y12 & 13 students looking at mind maps in the new academic year. I’ll let you know how I get on…

Feel free to have a look at the resultant mindmap for yourself.

I was planning to write two blog posts; one descriptive and one subjective. Thankfully, Chris Harte has already done the first for me, so I can concentrate on the reflection and thoughts - which could go on a bit, I warn you.

I remember back at the start of March (I know, because I checked), I saw a blog post by Lisibo about speaking at a TeachMeet, and I wrote my own blog entry saying that my aim was to attend one within the next 12 months. Not to speak, but to attend. And so here I am, barely 3 months later and I have exceeded my own goal. The next one will have to be world domination (or at least he downfall of published league tables).

Without gushing too much, I had an absolutely brilliant night. The attendees were fantastic - supportive, friendly, keen, enthusitic and much more besides. Our hosts and sponsors provided us with accommodation, wine, canapes, wine, notepads, wine, a little cash and some free wine (all of which were greatly appreciated).

The presentations themselves varied in content, but each and every one had ideas that I need to write a separate (or several separate) posts about - and I certainly will. I’ve already been in touch with a number of new (to me) colleagues in a variety of subject areas and have even managed to carry some of that enthusiasm through a full day of teaching.

Now if I can find a way of entering students early for GCSEs after turning them into more independent learners that have collaborated via e-twinning, demonstrate their work using documentaries, Go-Animate, Crazy Talk and Glogster and use PEEL to assess their understanding whilst monitoring their alpha waves and playing the Helicopter Game simultaneously with their eyebrows then I will have achieved something very positive. Otherwise, I just don’t think I’ll have time to fit it all in!

If anyone wants to see my part of the presentation, you can watch a fairly low-res video of me talking very quickly for 9 minutes and/or view the full presentation and see a list of links to real-world examples of the tools in action at my website.

Well, today was the day of the much anticipated (by me, at any rate) Achievement Show 2009. An early start, a reasonable train journey (2.5 hours) and a brisk walk (the recommended Tube station bringing me out at exactly the opposite side of the stadium to the only available entrance) and I was in.

Having never been to this type of conference before I had absolutely no idea what to expect. There were 10 or so exhibitors’ stalls, a round room made of cardboard with no roof for the smaller and more frequent talks and 10 other ‘zones’ (rooms) for larger and longer talks.

I watched a couple in the round room and was relieved that it was a relatively small room with around 50 chairs, but the noise level was awful. The first speaker had to get half way through his talk before being provided with a radio mic and the sound stopped dead halfway through the room as the only speakers were at the very front.

I bumped into a couple of twitterers (@mikeherrity and @gideonwilliams, in strictly chronological order of meetings) and delivered my presentation at around 14:20 (so only 20 minutes behind schedule). The presentation went well and was packed out (standing room only by the end), if rushed (although I think that suited the style of the presentation anyway and I certainly can talk!). I saw quite a few people scribbling like mad as I romped through the tools in the presentation and hope that a few people caught my website address and email at the end.

Overall I have to say I was a little disappointed by the rest of the show. There were a couple of talks that made me think (using e-book readers, annotation and authoring packages, Learning Platforms, creating podcasts/videos for revision) but nothing really new and a lot of the talks were clearly sales pitches (am hoping that Thursday night’s TeachMeetNE will be quite different). Also, the ‘Speaker’s Corner’ to which we were apparently to retire could not have been further from where we were talking without being outside the stadium.

A lot of the more major talks were centered on leadership, Maths, English, Science or Diplomas - none of which are immediately relevant to me.

I did talk to some nice people from Channel 4 Learning who were trying to sell a subscription to their service (just £5k for the first year!) and must get around to FINALLY trying the Yenka sequencing application. And I did get a day off timetable.

I think that (without wanting to sound arrogant) I am spending a lot of my time talking to innovative people trying lots of exciting things, and as such, the topics that make it to conferences like that seem a little stale in comparison. I’m not in SLT, I don’t use Sharepoint and I don’t want to spend several thousands on a whole school resource (I do think that a significant proportion of those there were Assistant or Deputy Heads).

Or maybe I’m just a miserable git.

I did enjoy myself though

A few months ago we installed Mahara, an open-source ePortfolio platform that integrates extremely well with Moodle (colloquially known as Mahoodle - and yes, we are quite sad).

I’ve had a bit of a play and found it initially a little hard to grasp. I looked at it and thought “now what?”. But with a bit of time to see how it works it is actually very, very useful. The trick, IMO, is to introduce it steadily, one area at a time.

So, my Year 8 students have been working through a series of graphics tutorials and the plan was to put them somewhere public (within school) for some peer review before moving on to their asessed task. The approach I took was this:

• Files and folders
  Login, go into the filing system within Mahara, create a folder and upload the graphics work completed. So we were starting with something fairly familiar - a filing system. Students always find it frustrating that you can’t simply drag and drop files in the same way you can with most operating systems, and it is a chore to have to upload your files. But such is life - at least the task is easy to comprehend. It also brought up the issue of tags, and tagging data. Although I haven’t gone into great detail about the semantic web, it’s still a useful talking point.
• Create a view
  This waqs the part I was most concerned about. I can describe and even demonstrate how to do this, but it requires a little bit of thought and common sense - something that Year 8 students are not always renowned for! We stuck with the defaulot 3 column view and just added the images we had uploaded, adding a title and setting the width to 250 pixels. Those who picked it up quickly could then experiment with using different widths to create a more dynamic layout and adding text boxes to describe how their work was completed (leading to discussions about how the ‘Description’ field for each image would be a more efficient way of us achieving this.
• Setting view access
  This is a fairly straightforward task and I simply set up group names before the lesson and had students share their work with a specific group. Then they had to go and join that group so that they could see others’ work.
• Feedback
  This, inevitably, was the bit the students found most engaging - and rightly so! The ability to leave comments and feedback, and then go and see what has been said about your work really had the classes enthused. One thing that would be nice is a front page notification of comments, much as you get in blog systems. I’ll have to investigate that one!

By guiding the students through one step at a time they found it quite manageable and now seem to understand what the system is for. Some described it as ‘a bit like Facebook’ and I had to agree in part. We talked about the social network aspects of it and I told students that I wasn’t going to be pushing that aspect in lessons (as making it compulsory negates the point IMO), but that they were free to use any aspect of the software that they came across. Take-up across the school has been positive, considering we simply put a rather cryptic link up on the Moodle homepage and just left the system open for the early adopters.

Overall, I had a good time, and can see a lot of benefit to Mahara - especially once the next version comes out with better exporting capabilities.

Caveat: This is more of a geek dad post and, although there are educational lessons to be learned, I’m not going into that aspect too much.

Most websites that require an account have a lower age limit of 13. And most youngsters under the age of 13 either click the ‘Yes, I am over 13′ button or lie about their age in order to get in. As teachers, we are sometimes frustrated when we want to use sites like Animoto, Prezi, Xtranormal and other sites. So why IS there an age limit?

The issue was brought to a head for me this week because of Facebook (which operates the same age restriction). My 10 year old son signed up 6 months ago, although he doesn’t know the password and his email notifactions go to me first. All has been fairly well and about half of his class is signed up, along with about half of the parents - and everyone seems to be everyone else’s friend.

As part of his Catholic school’s work in Years 5 and 6 there was a trip organised to visit a Mosque, and some of the parents were less than happy about this (although I don’t want to turn this into a religious debate so I won’t go into the details). The debate (running through the comments on one of the parent’s status updates) got quite heated and some very harsh, ignorant and upsetting things were said. All in full view of the 10 year old pupils who were meant to be going on this trip.

The issue I’m taking here is not that some parents disagreed, or that some were spiteful and ignorant, but that 10 year old children were able to read this stuff. And I, as a parent, had to have a long, hard think about whether I really want my son to be using Facebook if this is the stuff he might have to wade through. Had he browsed to a site with this kind of stuff on I would be worried.

Thakfully, the parent removed the status completely, along with all record of the comments and after a discussion with Mrs. Clarkson, the decision is to stick to the status quo. It does raise an issue, however, about the way some ‘grown-ups’ use Facebook and I’m still not entirely happy about my son reading about some middle-aged woman’s drunken night out and subsequent one-night stand. (Note: That hasn’t actually happened AFAIK, but you see my point).

So that is why there are age limits, and that is why we need to make certain that younger children are supervised in these potentially harmful environments.

A couple of months ago, Andy Field shared a course on his school’s VLE entitled ‘Wouldn’t It Be Great‘, in which students had to investigate the future of technology and make a creative and interesting presentation (a literal presentation, in front of the class) using whatever technology they liked.

I thought it was a marvellous idea and promptly stole it for use with one of my own classes.

I was so proud of the results, I created a Wiki to show off their work (not the actual presentations, sadly, but the media files they used during them). I’d be grateful if you could have a look and maybe comment on one or two pages as a I know the students would get a kick out of that.

Looking at the feedback I think the students enjoyed themselves, and I know I did.

Wouldn’t It Be Great Wiki

Addendum:

Those of you who follow Andy on Twitter will know that his daughter recently had cochlear implants and can now hear, thanks to the wonders of modern technology. If that’s what we can do now, then yes, I think the future will be great.

Prompted by comments in this thread on the TES forums, I’ve been challenged to come up with “10 indispensible/extraodinarily useful piece of information that you gleaned from your CPD time on twitter (please not just a list of sites) but things/ideas that have transformed your ( an will transform our) teaching.”

First of all, I wouldn’t say that any one tool or communication method has transformed my teaching - but Twitter has enhanced it. A tool doesn’t have to lead to a renaissance in order to be valuable, and this is as much an exercise in reflection as it is anything else.

So here are 10 semi-random¹ things I can think of that have been beneficial to me (as I’m my primary conern when evaluating my use of any CPD resource).

1. EdTechRoundup - I suspect many on the TES forum wouldn’t be impressed at this, but through using Twitter I discovered ETRU; a weekly FlashMeeting of teachers and educators interested in using technology. Discussion topics have included Copyright (leading me to set up a Wiki on the topic with Theo Kuechel (@theokk)), relative merits of different (indeed, any) VLE, semantic web search engines (e.g. Google Squared) and much, much more besides.

2. Assessing Pupil Progress - I have been involved in a number of discussions about APP and how to improve the way we assess, record and feedback progress to students with the likes of Toby Holman (@tobyholman) and James Greenwood (@jpgreenwood). As I result I have found a couple of Moodle Blocks (Progress and Criteria Reference) that need a little tweaking but will help to make it simple for staff to flag passed criteria and feedback will be automatic, allowing students to better understand where they are - and why.

3. Wouldn’t It Be Great? - Thanks to Andy Field (@andyfield) I discovered a fantastic idea that I could steal and have just today finished a 6-week unit of work researching ideas on how technology will affect our lives in the future and then using different tools to present their ideas to the rest of the class.

4. Google Docs - Through Twitter I have met people like Mark Warner (@markw29) and Tom Barrett (@tombarrett) who have started off collaborative Google Docs presentations - and idea that I’ve borrowed as a way of collecting ideas in a sensible place, and in a nice format. Equally, I have met people like Drew Buddie (@digitalmaverick) who did something similar with a Wiki listing dozens of online tools. You can see some of the presentations at Ideas To Inspire and some at my website (mwclarkson.co.uk).

5. Checking policy - I have had a lot of discussions in which I have been forced to defend my standpoint, notably with Karl Goddard (@karl_goddard) about the use of Macs in schools. It is good to have our ideas challenged and although I didn’t change Karl’s mind, I went away from that discussion with more confidence that I’m doing the right thing.

6. Supporting others - I really enjoy sharing resources, websites, links and ideas with colleagues in other departments. I made the decision to produce a monthly newsletter to distribute amongst staff and thanks to Mark Berry (@markbezza) I managed to get more ideas and a better sense of audience as his magazine ideas were much better than mine.

7. Gifted and Talented - Thanks to an idea I got from a video shared on Twitter (I forget precisely who) I am in the process of setting up an after-school Digital Media club, the first project for which will be to interview people in the local community from ages 1 to 100 and present the data in meaningful ways. There are possiblities for citizenship, data handling parts of ICT and much more besides. In addition, Andy Wallis (@andywallis), a teacher on the isle of Islay, is planning on running an identical scheme. This should be a nice opportunity to compare results and see how our communities are both similar and different.

8. Everyday advice - This one is a little harder to quantify, but I get ideas, inspiration, feedback, suggestions and much more every day. I get to find out what ideas other teachers have come up with, what they’re doing in their lessons, what their students are particularly proud of and much more. And I like to think I give the same back in return.

9. Resources - I’ve discovered a multitude of websites, online tools, software and much more. I now use Celtx for all of my media pre-production (scripting, storyboarding, etc.) for example. A tool I had never heard of until someone mentioned it on Twitter. The same could be said for dozens of applications that have not revolutionised my teaching, but have provided me with better, more efficient and more engaging options.

10. Support - Of course I have only met a fraction of the 500-odd people I follow in person, but they are people I recognise and have what might be considered a friendship with. I’m looking forward to attending a TeachMeet next Thursday (guess how I discovered that was going on!) at which I will be meeting two more Twitterers I have been conversing with (Helena Butterfield (@langwitch) and Doug Belshaw (@dajbelshaw)). If I’m in a bad mood or have had a crap day then I know I can talk to these people about it. I know that if one of them has had a bad day then I will return the favour. I’m not claiming to have this relationship with all of the people I talk to, or even many. But there are enough and it feels nice to have the support of people in similar situations - who have bad lessons occasionally, frustrating students, annoying filtering policies and more besides.

11. Feedback for students - When my students produce a piece of work that is publically accessible online then I’ll sometimes post a link on Twitter and look for feedback. My Y7s thought this was marvellous just before half term and it kicked off some really good discussions. Their argument that we should allow IM during lessons so that they could improve their writing skills was soon shot down when one of my followers questioned the value of that given the txt speak used in that medium. So a Y7 student in Teesside got involved (indirectly) in a conversation with a Science teacher from Surrey and agreed that he needs a better justification if he wants to have access to those kinds of tools during the school day.

Should everybody reading this rush out, sign up and feel compelled to stay online for 18 hours a day? Of course not. But the question was asked, can I justify my high opinion of twitter as a CPD tool with 10 practical uses. I feel I can - at least to myself. And that’ll do for me.

¹ Semi-random because my memory is appalling and I’m not prepared to look back through all of my previous messages for ideas and benefits that don’t spring to mind immediately.

When I first learned to create a web page, back in 1996, I used Notepad and hand-coded the HTML. When I first started teaching back in 2004 I fervently believed that we should start out teaching web design by hand-coding (or at least editing) HTML.

In the last year or so I have accepted that, at KS3 at least, a very minimal knowledge of HTML for the most interested is actually sufficient - although CSS (another form of code, note) would really be better.

And yet I create a lot of online content (including discussion) using a WYSIWYG editor in Moodle, a blog (like this or in comments on others’), a Google Profile, using Twitter, using Facebook…

Now actually I have recently created my own static website (gasp!) and using an iFrame (urgh!) which has to be hand-coded (or at least it does in Dreamweaver). And anyone doing any web development, or even customising their blog or CMS significantly will need to do a bit of tweaking somewhere - so where does that leave us?

Should I be teaching HTML, CSS, AJAX, setting up a CMS, writing widgets, PHP, WYSIWYG, RSS…? What students need is a balance of skills that are likely to be directly useful to all plus the understanding to allow them to explore further in the future. I’m tempted to stick to WYSIWYG static sites at KS3 with a splash of HTML and eventually CSS (once I get to learning it myself!) and covering the use of wikis/blogs/CMS as alternatives. I’m not 100% I’m right to do that though.

Any thoughts?