I Should Be Marking

Today I took a trip up to Newcastle for my official ICT GCSE 2010 session with OCR (and am still on the train back as I type this up, so my thoughts haven’t had long to formulate yet). On first glance I was equally taken with the WJEC and OCR offerings and much less impressed with AQA and Edexcel. My HoD had similar thoughts and expressed a preference for OCR – so off I popped.

The course leader was not an OCR salesman as I expected, but was a teacher from the chalkface who is employed by OCR (so yes, still a salesman – but not the detached type I was expecting).

I won’t go through the finer details, but the session had positives and negatives for me. Amongst the positives were a clarification on what is meant by ‘controlled assessment’ (I’ll comment on whether I think what I learned was positive in my next post I think, but the fact it was clarified is good) and a little more detail on each of the units that will be run. Amongst the negatives, I didn’t learn *much* beyond what was in the documentation already available. The course leader appeared to be explaining what was already there with a few insider tidbits – so a course for the moderately pro-active really.

There was quite a bit of discussion from the delegate side of the bench about the 2nd exam (B053 for those in the know) which apparently is being organised by the examiner of the current OCR Spec B course. As such, we will get a pre-release document each September in preparation for the January and June exams that will have a bullet point list of areas to explore (10 on the exemplar provided). The exam will then expect students to have researched those topics, but if you have a different interpretation of the somewhat vague bullet point (e.g. the use of Web2.0 technologies to facilitate the creation of shared resources) then your students could find themselves in bother. A couple of people described the exam papers as being ‘off the wall’, while the course leader described the examiner as a ‘blue sky thinker’ (I can already hear the grumblings from the TES forumites).

Overall – I like that there is a coding unit. I like that we won’t have to do 4 identical (but different) coursework projects, that we will be given problems rather than having each student invent their own and that whether you choose Multimedia or Coding – you don’t have to do the whole bloody course in MS Office (or OOo).

Sadly, there is still coursework I mean ‘controlled assessment’, which will almost undoubtedly require oodles and boodles of screenshots (the course leader was quick to point out that is states ‘evidence’ – but it’s hard to see what other evidence OCR and QCA will be willing to accept). But then, you can;t have everything…

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.

We’ve discovered an interesting trend at school. Although results have consistently gone up and the students are generally good at written work, they’re not as strong when it comes to reading – particularly whn required to analyse what I would consider to be fairly basic chunks of writing. I could rant about spoon-feeding, league tables, a culture that is afraid to allow students to fail and so on (and, to be honest, I have. At lenght. And frequently) but instead I’m looking at methods to improve the situation.

Required Reading

It’s long been a school rule that tutors get their form group to read, silently, for 15 minutes in morning registration once a week. In practice, I know that in some groups this works well, and in others it really doesn’t. My Y11 form seem particularly resistant, with even the bright and usually willing pupils complaining that they would prefer to read in their own time.

Audio Short Stories

A solution to this that is in the pipeline is to take short audiobooks (e.g. Roald Dahl’s ‘The Landlady), give the students a printed copy of the text, play the story through and set some simple multiple-choice questions as a group quiz or competition. I quite like this idea, although I can see it getting old quite quickly if over-used.

eBooks

Now this is the main point of the post. Back in June I attended the Achievement Show, and saw a presentation by Rising Stars relating to the use of eBooks in school (KS2 & 3). There are a couple of ideas including reading books on mobile devices (becauase they are inherently more appealing than reading from paper supposedly, although that’s a whole issue in itself), students turning their own stories into eBooks (a fairly simple process) and potentially even using the device itself to perform some task – writing a review, annotating or highlighting parts of the story, using a built in dictionary to explain the words, all sorts of things.

I’m quite keen to have a deeper look at the practicalities and benefits of such a scheme and have put together a small mind-map outlining my thoughts.

Without wanting to repeat myself too much, I need to consider the pros and cons of various devices. I already use a smartphone for reading books, and SUMSonline are offering a good deal on refurbished Dell Axims with their maths software already onboard – but the screens are going to be quite small.

Sony eBook readers are lovely devices, but are pretty bulky, expensive and can;t do anything else (this is could be a good and a bad thing depending on your point of view).

The DS and PSP option is similar to PDAs, but with more opportunities for blurring the lines between entertainment and education (see comment in parentheses, above).

We have a class set of Asus EeePCs (7″, 4GB versions) which may be rendered obsolete in the next upgrade cycle. Again with the plethora of distractions and the bulkiness, but they are already networked and have a keyboard for performing some of the comprehension/reviewing/discussing type tasks.

So. Lots to think about.

Any ideas?

And so the first week of the new school year is over. Low points included trying to teach 21 A-level students in an ICT suite with only 18 computers and high points included some small but really positive steps with some very challenging students.

I’m not one for waiting until New Year for resolutions, but I do have a couple of targets for myself this year:

• To be less quick to lose my temper/snap at students.
• To be better at promptly checking and chasing up homework at KS3.
• To avoid doing *any* school work at home before putting my youngest to bed on a workday

So far I’ve not had a chance to test the middle target but I’ve done well on the other two. I’m quietly hopeful for a good year,

For the first summer since becoming a teacher I managed to really relax. While that’s marvellous, I’ve done the teacher equivalent of ‘forgetting how to write’ over the summer and have forgotten where I was with APP, what tweaks to the KS3 SoW were planned, how to blog, even my attendance at ETRU and my use of Twitter are taking a while to get back up to race pace.

I have had a PD, a working school day and a Year 12 ICT lesson. And we have the biggest cohort of AS ICT ever in the school (2 more than we have computers in one of the ICT suites) plus a reincarnated A-Level Computing class (following a 12 month hiatus due to a lack of willing students). So it’s looking good and I’m enthusiastic about the next 11 months!

I’ve taught the Edexcel GCSE ICT every year since I started. My first mentor told me to do coursework unit after coursework unit until the last half term and then to bang through the theory as quickly as possible.

Being an NQT, I did as I was told. And the results have been pretty solid (>90% C grade or above last year and expect to do well this year too). It does create a bit of stress though, and students do worry about the theory side of things.

So in one of my free periods a few weeks ago I put together a broad Scheme of Work in which one of the 5 lessons per fortnight is dedicated to theory – and split the Learning Objectives from the syllabus up into good sized chunks.

I’m now sat here starting to plan each theory lesson (or at least the first term’s worth) and  can’t decide if I’m doing the right thing. Our results are clearly good. The students DO pick up bits of theory during the coursework – I do actually teach them something! And this is going to be a hell of a lot of work to plan many more lessons in a very independent learning style – especially when you consider that this is the last cohort due to the new GCSEs the following year.

I think that it would be a really worthwhile exercise and potentially a very interesting way of tackling the course – but is it worth all that effort to totally rewrite all the SoW and resources for one year when the current method is clearly working? I’m very tempted to say no.

What to do, what to do… Sleep on it I think. Thoughts and opinions, as always, are very welcome.

I’m sure I’ve blogged about this before, but a few months ago I started a collaborative Google Docs presentation (in the style of Mark Warner’s Ideas to Inspire) aimed at gathering ideas to share with colleagues at work.

Since then I’ve had much inspiration and many ideas from a range of people (particularly Mark Berry) and have so far printed up two issues of ‘Techy Tips for Not So Techy Teachers‘ (although I would love to go for a non-paperbased version, I would miss the very market I am aiming for) and have had a few positive comments from individuals.

Have done a bit of work today on the next two, I’ve published all four at mwclarkson.co.uk. Feel free to use as you see fit, but please do provide a link back to me (here / my website/ my twitter account) if you do.

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.