Aims and Objectives

• Explain the purpose of the assessment of digital literacy
• Describe different digital literacy assessment tools and methods and their application
• Explain the reasons why assessments should be on-going during the development of digital literacy skills for learners (min 3 reasons)
• Describe the elements of a digital literacy assessment environment. (including description of ALL of the following elements: positive, planned, collaborative, engaging and accessible)

As we can see from the video above digital skills are important to everyone in the modern day. From ordering your weekly shop, booking a ticket to the cinema or just simply arranging to go out for a drink with your friends. Without digital skills communicating becomes harder in the modern day.

"BUT, we always managed before!!!"

Well did we, people adapt to their environment and we use whatever is around us, now the favored tool for communication is social media, 10 years ago it was email, 20 years ago it was the telephone, 150 years ago the telegraph the point is people adapt.

You could survive quite well in the modern day without embracing all of modern ways of life, but the point is they for the most part make you life easier.

Why assess digital literacy skills

1) Assessment helps to improve teaching

a) Initial assessment and diagnostic assessment

• By assessing your learners from the beginning it makes it easier to specifically target potential problems
• It enables you to put in place the necessary resources
• To group your students appropriately
• To allow peer learning i.e. buddying
• To gauge a students ability

b) Formative assessment

• To gauge a learners progress and to identify any problems throughout the program
• To allow you to direct any necessary support effectively

c) Summative

• A final assessment to allows the learner to show they have developed a necessary understanding to the required level.

2) Assessment helps to justify the resources used

By assessing your learners throughout the process you are able to target your resources and support most effectively. Learners with additional needs would be identified and appropriate support put in place.

Digital Literacy Assessment Tools!

These are both examples of initial assessment and diagnostic tools currently in use for literacy and numeracy assessment. They consist of a series of questions some that are multiple choice. As the user progresses the questions will adapt to a higher or lower level depending on previous answers. These can produce a relatively accurate result, however their results can be skewed as the learner is able to guess answers and this does not prove understanding.

Use the above digital literacy survey to check your digital literacy skills

The digital skills questionnaire is a series of opinion based questions designed as a self diagnostic. This approach can be fairly accurate in terms of initially assessing ability. The flaw to this approach is that it requires honesty and it is in our nature to be overly self critical, therefore may not produce an accurate result.

Why should assessment be onging

1. Assessment should be ongoing as it will show learners progression and development. This is essential to ensure learners are progressing at the required rate and that teaching practices are effective
2. Assessment should be ongoing as it will ensure resources are targeted correctly. This is essential as resources may be limited in terms of time and cost and therefore must be deployed in the most efficient and effective manner.
3. Assessment should be ongoing as it will allow practitioners to evolve their practice to be more effective. This ties in with point 1 poor results are often as a result of poor practice. Ongoing assessment allows this to be monitored and allows adaptations to be made.

The digital literacy assessment environment

The above image shows a potential modern 21st century classroom, this projects a positive, planned, collaborative, engaging and accessible environment.

1. This shows a positive environment, as the motivation for the students should be higher as the use of the technology, alternative teaching methods will keeps things fresh and exciting.
2. The classroom is planned to such an extent as to facilitate and integrate the most modern technology. This includes the use of smart devices, wireless networks and access to the world wide web and social media.
3. Collaboration is achieved using modern systems such as office 365, for this to happen the modern environment is equipped with wireless networking allowing the connection of most smart devices.
4. An engaging environment is achieved through the use of modern technology, the use of social media; new interactive presentation tools such as Kahoot! bring an element of fun as well as making assessment possible.
5. The environment is also very accessible with support for practitioners and peers giving enabling even the least able learners to engage within the environment. The use of initial assessments also allows easy direction of resources to the proper areas.