When assessing ICT capability there are a number of issues that you need to be made aware of. Although ICT capability can be taught without the use of ICT, much of it practical and therefore it can be hard to gather the appropriate evidence of a student’s progress in capabilities from tasks and activities. Some issues that you will need to consider include: • Possible conflict between ICT objectives and subject learning; • Assessing student group work in ICT; • Overcoming technical problems; • Avoiding putting students without computers at home at a disadvantage and; • Deciding what the student has done and what the computer has done for them. How to avoid conflict between ICT objectives and subject learning When teaching ICT capability in literacy lessons it is essential that the subject learning objectives overshadow the ICT objectives. The best way to achieve this when teaching ICT capability is to make the technology transparent. As a teacher, you should be able to help the students to focus on using ICT as a tool to achieve literacy outcomes in such a way that they are hardly noticing using the technology itself. It is crucial that you equip the students with sufficient experience to enable them to use ICT without having to stop and think. In order to be able to achieve this, when it comes time to teaching students new ICT skills and techniques in lessons it is best to “create a need, and then to be on hand to show them what to do when they are engaged in the problem” (Bennett, 2007,p81). These techniques and skills will inevitably shift away from low-level skills and routines as they progress throughout primary school. So it will be significant for you to constantly monitor the way students are solving problems and doing tasks in order for you to be able to show them new and better ways of using ICT to achieve the learning outcomes. It must remain your goal as a primary teacher for students to equip them with sufficient experience to enable them to use ICT without having to stop and think. According to Bennett et al. (2007, p. 71) the most “effective way of teaching children ICT skills and techniques is to create a need, and then to be
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