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Secondary History - Evaluating the Impact of ICT in History

Module 6	Contents
	Evaluating the impact of using ICT in teaching History Thinking about the use of ICT in History Evaluation documentation Task 6.1 Forward to Module 7 Back to Secondary History Map Back to T@LENT Web Site Map

Evaluating the impact of using ICT in teaching History

In this module you will reflect on the planning and assessment work you carried out in the previous module. There is further useful information about this in Module 6 of the Primary Materials and in the booklet "Ideas for integrating ICT into the primary and secondary classroom" (published by Lewisham Education and Community Services). You will need to evaluate how useful your use of ICT was for the enhancement of the pupils' learning and also for your own professional development.

Remember ICT is not the answer to everything. There are activities where using the Internet gives no advantage over using traditional methods for gathering information: in fact there will be times when you want the pupils to use a more laborious manual method so that they truly appreciate what an Internet searches can do! Similarly, pupils will still need to be able to articulate accounts in addition to using the facilities of a wordprocessor and CD-ROMs are beneficial in some areas but not others. Your evaluation needs to take account of the benefits, if any, of using ICT in a particular context over and against other methods of carrying out the same task.

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Thinking about the use of ICT in History

We need to consider the contribution that work in History contributes to the overall development of pupils' ICT capability and record how effectively pupils demonstrate their ability to communicate and handle information as part of their overall ICT profile. We have already given some general guidance on this in Module 5 of the Primary Core. Perhaps you should have another look at that section, before looking at what follows, which is more specific to ICT in History.

The effective teacher's role involves carrying out a number of tasks including:

• assessing the ICT for content and relevance, by understanding the computer processes involved and feeling confident in distinguishing computer effects from those purposefully and intentionally performed by the pupils;
• organising access to the technology in order to provide all pupils with their entitlement, giving them structures to build on previous experiences and to reflect on how ICT was used by the class as a whole and to make amendments and suggestions for development;
• having an understanding of the terminology associated with ICT;
• monitoring the integration of ICT into schemes of work and identifying ways in which improvements can be made;
• keeping up-to-date with developments in hardware and software to enable effective delivery across all key stages;

Other issues to take into consideration when evaluating the effectiveness of ICT in the History lesson:

• when assessing the pupils' understanding of basic and sophisticated hardware and software, avoid the notion that better results can be produced with more powerful hardware or software; the simpler devices will often be more effective;
• while one set of results (such as a presentation, or a report) may look more sophisticated than another, the process leading to its production may have been purely mechanical, merely combining the use of different inbuilt functions;
• students should be able to demonstrate their understanding of an application, and be able to explain important details such as how much of the information collection or interpretation was done by their own efforts, and how much automatically by the software;
• at all times you should be looking for evidence that the pupils have understood the processes involved. ICT should be used to enhance understanding, to make difficult concepts more easily grasped. If ICT is used to cover up a lack of understanding it is not being used effectively.

The focus of assessment of ICT in History must always be related to identified teaching objectives. In some respects this is no different from assessing work carried out using traditional methods. Remember: we are assessing outcomes matched to aims, as expressed in the pupils' knowledge and understanding of History, and not assessing the software or hardware. We are assessing the History enabled by the ICT.

Additional demands

The increased accessibility of information which ICT allows leads to additional problems that we need to be aware of:

• pupils researching for information needed for an assignment should always identify the source of their information, because blocks of text 'grabbed' from the Internet or a CD-ROM could be used and passed off as their own work;
• individual contributions to collaborative work using e-mail and the world wide web should be acknowledged.

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Evaluation documentation

You will find the following useful document in your booklet "Ideas for integrating ICT into the primary and secondary classroom" (published by Lewisham Education and Community Services). It is also available for downloading in Word Format from the resources page: ICT Teacher Evaluation

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Activity 

Task 6.1 Fill out Teacher Evaluation forms for the activities carried out in the previous module. Use these as the basis for a fuller evaluation report of the activities, commenting on difficulties, how you overcame them and the benefits of using ICT in this context. E-mail your report to your tutor as an attached file.