Session Information
06 SES 09, E-learning 2.0
Paper Session
Contribution
Informatics is a school subject with a short history and large variety of implementation styles in different countries. Initially (in 1970-ties), it was introduced in the secondary school curricula as a derivate of its "parent discipline" in the academic world - computer science. Hence, it was focusing on algorithms, data structures, programming. In 1990-ties computers became common office tools and it caused the pragmatic change in the focus of school informatics. Even today, in some countries the main goal of school informatics is to provide competences needed to pass European Computer Driving License exam. On the other hand, there are counties where informatics as a separate subject has disappeared from the lower-secondary curriculum (Eurydice 2004). Instead, pupils' ICT competencies are increasingly addressed by a cross-curricular theme. This has been the case also in Estonia, where the previous national curriculum for primary and secondary schools (2002) defined a cross-curricular theme 'IT and Media'. The learning outcomes of this theme were defined as a set of ICT competencies, but not the same way ECDL does. Instead, the new ICT competencies where anchored in the everyday needs and situations of the school context - not the expected needs of the future workplaces of today's students. This approach creates additional challenges for schools and teachers in assessing the learning outcomes related with ICT competencies. During 2002-2005, the Estonian Ministry of Education organized nationwide ICT competency tests for a random sample of 50 schools (other schools were able to participate in test on voluntary basis). The results of these tests were quite positive (Villems & Tooding, 2006), but demonstrated also that most of the schools still kept teaching informatics as a separate subject in the generic style of ECDL, without situating the learning in school context. The research conducted in 94 Estonian schools by Pata & Laanpere (2008) argued that situated learning of ICT competencies under the cross-curricular theme requires changing the assessment tools and methods, e.g. e-portfolios. Portfolio-based assessment has been one of the most popular authentic assessment methods (Barrett, 2006).
In 2010, Estonian Ministry of Education and Research released the new national curriculum for basic schools, which requires that all schools apply e-portfolio for assessing learning outcomes in informatics starting from 2011. Every student is expected to document the study process and reflect his/her achievements using the e-portfolio.
This paper introduces the first empirical study in Estonia which focuses on the portfolio-based assessment of informatics-related learning outcomes, in accordance with the new national curriculum. The special focus of this study was on the potential of new social media tools for building e-portfolios.
Our research questions were:
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of e-portfolio as a method and tool for assessing the learning outcomes in basic school informatics course?
- What are the suitable evaluation criteria and procedures for informatics-related e-portfolios based on social media?
- What are advantages of Elgg vs self-selected social media tools as the basis for creating learner portfolios?
- How should Elgg be adapted in case one plans to use it as a platform for building e-portfolios in school settings?
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Barrett, H. (2006). Using Electronic Portfolios for Classroom Assessment. Connected Newsletter, Volume 13, No. 2. Eurydice, European Commission. (2004). Key data on information and communication technology in schools in Europe. (2004). Brussels: Author. Pata, K., Laanpere, M. (2008). IKT ja teised läbivad teemad üldjhariduskooli õppekavas. Tallinn: Tiigrihüppe SA. (in Estonian) Villems, A.; Tooding, L.-M. (2006). Study on ICT Competency of Estonian Pupils. V. Dagiene, R. Mittermeir (Toim.). Information Technologies at School (436 - 446). Vilnius : Publishing House TEV Vandervelde, J. (2008). E-Portfolio Rubric. A+ Rubric. Accessed online 12.04.2010 at http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/eportfoliorubric.html.
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