experiences; • Enables the teacher to see things from the children’s perspective. (Chadwick & Webster, 2010, p. 95) It is important to remind them what they are assessing and how to do this successfully. You can achieve this by displaying questions and prompt cards in continuous provision areas. They must be continually communicated and supported by adults to encourage children to enter into the process of self-review. Self-Assessment: How effective are they? Another way of tracking skills is by using self-assessment. Self-assessment is a useful life skill and can aid in the reflection and development of general metacognitive skills (Kennewell, Parkinson, & Tanner, Developing ICT capability, 2000). For senior primary in their final year, these assessments needs to include more detail than the formal teacher assessment record so that they know and understand what is expected. In doing so it will provide valuable information to the secondary school of their choice. I will discuss this in more detail later in Using Assessment Effectively. If you provide students with more freedom to use ICT in appropriate ways and make them responsible for recording their progress, then many of them are likely to be more motivated. In addition, by giving them an indication of the range of ICT techniques that they will need to demonstrate over a period of time will point them in the direction in which they need to be heading. Self-assessment sheets will alert you to issues of which you may be unaware of. They should look professionally produced and be tabular in structure. It is important that the language and terminology you use be appropriate for the students involved. It has have spaces for the students to indicate that they have demonstrated the particular technique as well as space to show the activity that was involved. Furthermore, you need space to write comments and to confirm that the student has actually completed the task (Ager, 2003). Ten tips to remember about how to use self-assessments (Higgins, Packard, & Race, 1999, pp. 84-85): 1. Identify small steps: break down the ICT task that you have planned into a series of relatively easily
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