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The Teaching & Assessment Process

• The first step has been to reduce the number of units in each year, to free up 5 lessons for students to work on self assessment. You can see my draft KS3 ICT & Media Plan, to look at what exactly is covered.
• Students will be introduced to the guide during the first lesson of the year, and we will work through the instructions (top right of the guide) together.
• For each unit of study, students will reflect on roughly 5 strand+keyword pairs (e.g. Intellectual Property+Creative Commons). At first, I will select these for them, after some practice they should be able to select them themselves.
• Students will study as per usual, creating an artifact which they will submit for assessment.
• Students will then write their reflection, showing clearly how they have achieved each level, going as high as they can. They will assign themselves a grade using the average of their layers. This reflection, plus grade, will be submitted as well.
• Using both the submitted work, as well as the reflection, I will vet their self assessment, and determine whether it is accurate. Any adjustments (up or down), will be made before the final grade is recorded.
• Finally, students will highlight the keywords they have reflected on, using the header colour from the highest level they have achieved. As students progress through the course, they should end up with an ongoing map of their achievement:

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Credits: quote shared by The Quote on Twitter. Thumbs down image by LFMAO on Wikimedia Commons shared under CC BY-SA.…

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2. Teaching & Learning: Essential Mindsets

The aim is for students to work in groups to prepare and deliver professional …

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• Times have changed - look at the advancement in materials, tools, techniques, and compare the resulting products: what a different 70 years can make. It seems white work overalls are here to stay though.
• Media has changed - the way we tell stories has become more sophisticated and much more subtle. Less use of voice, and more use of imagery, implying a more sophisticated/educated audience capable of making their own deductions.
• Technology obsessions - the two videos show how much technology amazes us, and how we marvel at pushing boundaries and creating new things. Both focus on technologically-empowered people ("wizards") at work, as these are people that are held in high esteem.
• The cutting edge - what seems advanced and sophisticated at one point in time (e.g. the planes and music in the first video) soon becomes outdated and comical to some degree. The same will happen to the second video over time, even if that seems unlikely to contemporary viewers.
• Non-metal - both videos celebrate the use of non-metal materials, which flies in the face of what we see every day in terms of how most cars, planes, trains and boats and constructed.
• Purpose - media is made for different purposes: in the first case it is as propaganda to boost moral and promote unity, in the second it is to further brand image and as artistic/creative expression.

Colleagues, you all know that I am opposed to printing. But there is more to it than just environmentalism.

If you want to think of your work as "living" (eg actively used, collaborative, flexible, responsive, meaningful) then why consign it to static paper? Why not share your work online, build an audience and set your work free. Put it in a blog, or an online document, invite commentary, make everyone an owner.

This is the future of knowledge for our students. Lead by example. Paper is a dead end. Isn't it time to upgrade?

Fortunately Chris Betcher put his thoughts down in a shared, digital environment, and so we are all able to make use of them. Imagine if he just printing them out, and filed them away.