Abstract
This paper examines some aspects of the assessment of the effectiveness of learning with information and communications technologies (ICT) in real-life learning contexts, and looks at the role of ICT as a tool in assisting this endeavour. It argues that real assessment of learning with ICT is a challenging task, and that assessment strategies that are simple and economical to use need to be balanced with use of strategies that acknowledge the complexity of the learning processes and outcomes being assessed. To illustrate the case the paper draws on research work being undertaken by two groups within the Department of Science & Mathematics Education at the University of Melbourne. The first is a group of staff and research students who are examining the learning of students in a postgraduate teacher education course on robotics. One researcher within this group is comparing the learning of novice programmers working in both syntactic and symbolic programming environments, looking at the need to take account of differences in learning styles and preferences among individuals when learning is assessed. The second group is a research team exploring novel and sophisticated uses for ICT itself as a tool in educational research, particularly in the study of the complex learning processes of groups of students. This work, initially devised for studying the learning interactions occurring in classrooms, is being adapted by another researcher in the robotics research group to study the learning by groups of adult learners of scientific concepts such as gearing.
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© 2005 International Federation for Information Processing
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McDougall, A. (2005). Issues in the Assessment of Real-Life Learning with ICT. In: van Weert, T., Tatnall, A. (eds) Information and Communication Technologies and Real-Life Learning. IFIP — The International Federation for Information Processing, vol 182. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-25997-X_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-25997-X_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
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