FORMING AND ASSESSING INFORMATION COMPETENCE

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FORMING AND ASSESSING INFORMATION COMPETENCE
(Materials of the E-Learning Support Project)

• www.ntf.ru

Svetlana Avdeeva Avdeeva_at_ntf.ru Mark
Zelman marknjpr_at_yahoo.com
St. Petersburg, 2006
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ELSP SYSTEM APPROACH

• Designing new teaching and learning materials
  that would meet the todays demands to students
  training
• Developing an in-service training and
  methodological support infrastructure for
  educators
• Designing and implementing programs of
  introducing ICT for educational institutions
• Methodological support for educators who are
  trying to use new teaching practices
• In-Service educators training
• Basic pedagogic ICT-Competence
• Training how to use new teaching and learning
  materials and ICT tools
• Effective and timely methodological support in
  the course of introducing new teaching and
  learning materials

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ELSP MISSION
To assist in providing accessible, high-quality,
and effective education services within the
system of Russian general and initial vocational
education, based at the use of modern information
and communication technologies (ICT)
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PROBLEMS THAT WE ARE FACING TODAY

• Everyone information overload
• Students gaining essential information
• Schools providing meaningful learning
  opportunities

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INFORMATION LITERACY

• To be information literate, a person must be
  able to recognize when information is needed and
  have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use
  effectively the needed information.
• American Library Association. 1989

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TODAYS INFORMATION LANDSCAPE

• 79 percent of respondents said that they turn
  most often to free information on the Internet
  when they seek information for their studies,
  work and day to day life.(Managing Online
  Information to Maximize Corporate Intranet ROI,
  by Outsell, Inc. of Burlingame, CA, July 6, 2001)

For many teens, the Internet has replaced the
library as the primary tool for doing
research (The Internet and Education.
Findings of the Pew Internet American Life
Project, September 1, 2001)
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THE ICT-USE LEVEL ASSESSMENT TOOLS ARE OUT OF
DATE
The existing methods of ICT-competence
assessment are based almost exceptionally on
forming in school-students technical skills and
algorithmic thinking. The tools for
assessing the high-level thinking skills, that
are the basis of information and communication
competence of full value, do not exist, and the
need to create them is not even being discussed.
Findings of the ELSP Preparation Unit
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THE OBJECTIVES OF DEVELOPING NEW ASSESSMENT OF
ICT-LEVEL

• To evaluate the ability demonstrated by school
  students to work with information while solving
  the specially selected problems (in controlled
  conditions)
• To make the process of assessing the students
  IC-competence level automated
• To make the assessment practical in mass school

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THE SCPECIAL FEATURES OF THE TOOL BEING DEVELOPED

• The evaluation carried out in the course of
  solving realistic tasks being authentic
• The focus on thinking skills, rather than on
  technology issues
• High-level of objectivity
• The evaluation processes being fully automated

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THE ELSP CONCEPT OF IC-COMPETENCE
A school graduate should use information and
communication technologies to access, define,
itegrate, manage, create, and communicate
information, in the amount necessary for
successful life and functioning in the conditions
of the knowledge based economy
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ICT-COMPETENCE MODEL
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WHAT IS IC-COMPETENCE

• Evaluation of the students progress in ICT for
  Russia as a whole and for each region.
• Are being evaluated
• Students progress in different regions
• Students progress in relation to given criteria
• Results changing in time

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SHORTHAND SCENARIO

• You have just received an email from your aunt,
  telling you that your family doctor suspects that
  your eight-year-old cousin might have a deviated
  septum. If the doctors suspicion is confirmed,
  your cousin will probably need plastic surgery to
  reshape her nose for health reasons. Your aunt
  has no access to the Internet, and her email has
  asked for help in telling her where to find the
  following information
• Will the insurance plan from your aunts place of
  employment cover the costs of the surgery?
• What sources can your aunt give to your cousin to
  put her in direct contact with other children who
  have had this surgery?
• What are some causes and symptoms of a deviated
  septum?
• How many children a year are diagnosed with a
  deviated septum?
• Task Fill out the table to indicate (1) any
  electronic resources that would be useful for
  answering the individual questions and (2) the
  BEST resource for that particular question. When
  you have finished, click next to send the table
  to your aunt. You will also be asked to fill out
  a table noting potential problems with some of
  the sources click next when you have finished
  that table.

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IC-COMPETENCE FIRST RESULTS

• School-students IC-competence is at a low level
• School-students IC-competence does not correlate
  with the number of computers in school
• School-students IC-competence does correlate with
  digital educational resources and new educational
  practices being used in schools

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STUDENT FEEDBACK

• Never taken test like this before
• Challenging took it seriously
• Interface was easy to use
• Required thinking skills beyond technical
• Enjoyed real-world storylines
• Tasks reflect activities at school, work, or home

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PILOT TESTING CONCLUSIONS

• Students who identify themselves as self-directed
  learners received higher scores
• ICT-competence scores align with self-assessments
  of ICT-competence skills
• ICT-competence should not be defined as technical
  skills. First of all it focuses on critical
  thinking skills and the consequent use of
  information in digital environment
• Students lack these skills

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IC-COMPETENCE NEXT STEPS

• Evaluation of educators IC-competence (risks to
  be at a low level)
• Improvement of educators IC-skills by making
  corrections tothe existing in-service ICT
  training programs
• The full cycle of creating an IC-skills
  measurement tool for school-students and
  educators
• Recommendations on the wide use of the tool
  developed

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Thank you for your attention!