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About ITQCentres are supported by Londonlearning with a specialist course website and further documents for download in the course management online facility. IAM Award, Certificate & Diploma in IT User Skills (ITQ) The reform has resulted in a major rationalisation of IT qualifications. The new ITQ qualifications provide, for the first time, a coherent approach to school, FE and HE curricula, vocational training and professional development.
New ITQ units in the QCF from the Institute of Administrative Management
N.B. At Level 2 the Certificate in IT User Skills is 16 credits, broadly equivalent to a GCSE Grade A*- C IAM FAQsQ. How did Londonlearning come to develop the online courses in ICT? A. The Chairman of the Head Masters Conference (HMC) approached Londonlearning. He was concerned that despite the millions of pounds spent by top Independent schools in the UK on IT, young people were still leaving schools and colleges without the necessary ICT skills demanded today by Universities and employers. Existing qualifications and courses such as CLAIT were no longer felt suitable so Londonlearning was asked to design a new solution to be delivered and assessed using modern technology. Q. What levels are the courses available? A. The courses lead to qualifications at three levels, all approved by QCA and on the National Qualifications Framework. Level 1 is suitable for beginners in ICT. Level 2 is broadly similar to GCSE level, Level 3 is broadly similar to AS level. The courses are all mapped against ITQ and are supported by e-Skills. Q. How were the online qualifications developed? A. Londonlearning started with a blank piece of paper. Current teacher and learner needs were identified through working in consultation with Heads of ICT from leading independent schools. This resulted in a course designed by teachers for teachers. The Institute of Administrative Management is the Awarding Body for all three levels. Q. What are the key features of Londonlearning's online courses from IAM? A. The Londonlearning course offers:
Q. Why is there a need for another ICT qualification? A. Most current UK qualifications either do not require candidates to apply their IT skills across the curriculum or do not concentrate sufficiently on developing important skills in Microsoft Office applications. For example, GCSE requires some essay writing, not so much skill demonstration. The result is that a lot of assumptions have been made about a person's actual ICT skills. Our research shows that the reality is that often learners are not as competent as many teachers think. Q. How can I tell what a learner's competence level is? A. Let them try an exercise from the course. In the UK we have found that learners soon realise they are not as competent as they should be and go on to do something about it. Q. What ages are the awards typically aimed at? A. Typically in schools the Level One award is started at 8 years old, the Level Two award at 13 years old and the Level 3 at 16 years old. However, there is no reason that they can not start a Level earlier than this provided the pupil achieves competence. For example, talented pupils at Westminster School in the UK are starting the Level 3 award at 14 years of age. The principle is that learners can progress at their own pace. This also applies to adult learners where the target age range is 16 to 90! Q. Can adults do the course? A. In the UK we now have teaching and administrative staff, parents and individuals enrolled on the courses so age is really immaterial. An FE College might decide to offer 16-19 year olds the Londonlearning course with typical education based contexts or the 'adult' course with learning exercises contextualised for the home or work environment. Q. How do the courses work? A. Candidates engage in interactive learning through short online tutorial modules in Microsoft Office applications delivered via a PC. They then attempt exercises set in a school context that test their competence in the application. When they achieve the skills they have to apply them in other subjects across the curriculum and collect their evidence in an electronic portfolio. Q. What is the main difference between Londonlearning's ICT product and others such as ECDL? A. Londonlearning's product was designed by teachers for teachers, unlike ECDL and MOUS which have origins in business. All the Londonlearning exercises and tutorials are contextualised for education and learners have to apply their skills learnt, not merely jump through hoops and probably forget what they've learnt. Londonlearning offers tuition, assessment and reporting in one package without the need for any administration by the teacher. ECDL is typically more expensive to run than the Londonlearning online awards. Most of our centres were previously doing ECDL or CLAIT before switching to Londonlearning. Q. How much time should be allocated for the course? A. A school or college has total flexibility as to how it might operate the awards, which as a guideline for Level 2 require 90 hours study, 60 hours doing the tutorials and exercises at a pc and 30 hours applying the skills across the curriculum or in context. Some centres timetable 90 hours in one year, others timetable 60 or 90 hours over two years. Some centres encourage learners to do the course purely in their own time. One of the first students to complete the Award for example was a sixth former who accessed the course materials from the network in the library and during the evenings, he never had a timetabled lesson. Typically, in Year 9 and 10 (Age 13 - 14), pupils get one 35 minute lesson a week. For ITQ, 120 hours is recommended for total learning time. Q. How long is the pupil registration valid? A. Indefinite. Q. What happens if a pupil moves on without completing the course? A. Provided they can still access the materials, either because the other school is running the awards or access is still granted to the school Intranet, all they must do is attend a Londonlearning satellite centre to take their exams in a proctored environment. Q. What is a Londonlearning satellite centre? A. Londonlearning is the approved centre by the Awarding Body IAM for the online courses. IAM is accredited by QCA. Schools and colleges become satellite centres for Londonlearning who issue all candidate numbers. Schools have to enter into a 'Satellite Agreement' approved by the Awarding Body with Londonlearning to offer the courses. Q. What is IAM? A. THE INSTITUTE OF ADMINISTRATIVE MANAGEMENT (IAM) is a QCA accredited Awarding Body and the leading organisation for today's administration professional. Established in 1915, the Institute of Administrative Management is the only professional body for both practising and aspiring Administrative Managers. Professionals who are responsible for the management of Systems and Processes, Human Resources, Communications, Information Technology, Facilities, Training & Development and Finance. The IAM offers qualifying programmes in administration and related fields and has students in the UK and 65 other countries. The IAM strives to promote Professionalism in Management and Excellence in Administration and supports the profession of Incorporated Administrative Manager. Q. How and when do candidates register for the awards? A. As soon as an agreement is signed between Londonlearning and the satellite centre candidates must register for the course. Under the terms and conditions of the agreement at least 20 candidates a year must be entered for the Level 1 course and/or 30 candidates for the Level 2 course. Once candidate details are received by Londonlearning candidate numbers are issued to the satellite centre. Centres must then supply a candidate log-on identifier to candidates to access the course materials. Q. Is there any order for running the course modules? A. No, this is up to each teacher. Q. Is there a danger that the IT teacher might be regarded as superfluous? A. IT teachers are freed by this approach to concentrate on weaker pupils and/or to focus on more demanding IT tasks. It is true that non-IT teachers can deliver this course but it is highly desirable that they are under the direction of the Head of ICT. Q. What are the key benefits to IT teachers? A. They get a life back! One Head of Department believes the course has saved him 2 hours marking a night. Importantly it provides ICT co-ordinators with a vehicle to deliver ICT across the curriculum. Also, at any time, a teacher has a detailed record of exactly how a learner is progressing. Q. What are the key benefits to learners? A. They can learn independently and save themselves hours and hours that can be spent on other learning activities, through being able to use Microsoft Office correctly. Q. How have Heads of ICT implemented the course in the UK? A. Typically they have concentrated on getting learners familiar with independent learning during the first year. Once learners and staff have started to access the course materials from the school or college network in lessons around the centre then ICT co-ordinators have started to engage with other Heads of Departments in when and how to implement the cross curricular or range of evidence gathering. For example, Maths departments often teach additional material using spreadsheets and liaise with the Head of ICT about using the course materials and setting assignments that learners can include in their portfolio of evidence. Q. How is the Reporting Engine used? A. Teachers and learners monitor progress against the "I can skill statements" that accompany the course. The reporting engine records competence in the exercises that measure the skills in a database. The database is often projected onto a whiteboard to motivate learners to compete to complete the course successfully. The database also generates individual reports and learning plans for learners. A manager or Head teacher can monitor the progress of every learner in ICT using the database and inform parents and other stakeholders upon enquiry. Q. How quickly is a learner's work assessed? A . Assessment in the coursework exercises is instant. Feedback for the external tests is guaranteed within 24 hours. We have demonstrated one centre with 142 candidates having their external tests marked and returned within 20 minutes. This enables learners and staff to act on the results in their following lesson. Q. Have many learners failed? A. As candidates only sit the exams when they are competent in the ICT skills, determined by the marking engine, the success rates in this Pass/Fail award are running at over 90%. HODs seem pleased with this. They have a right of appeal too if they think the Marking technology is not providing correct assessment. Q. When are certificates awarded? A. When the candidate has passed all the exercises, the two external tests and submitted an electronic portfolio of 8 pieces of work demonstrating they can apply the skills at the level. Q. What Quality Assurance must a satellite centre provide? A. Centres must certify that to the best of their knowledge the work submitted is the candidate's own work; that the exams are conducted in a proctored environment; that the candidate maps the IT skills contained in their electronic portfolio and that teachers signatures are collected confirming that submitted coursework is 'fit for purpose'. 25% of candidate portfolios should be sampled before sending to Londonlearning in the first year. Q. What do pupils like about the online awards? A. They don't have to wait when they want help. They say that learning skills correctly like this saves them so much time in their other work. They like this form of interactive learning. Q. What do teachers like about the online awards? A. It releases them from the assessment burden of marking key skills. It gives them a vehicle to co-ordinate ICT across the curriculum. It hits all the Inspection buttons. Q. What do Heads like about the online Awards? A. They can monitor progress. They see independent learning. Parents become involved. They see a bottom-up approach to staff development. They like cutting edge technology deployed in their schools. They like the fact that learning continues even when specialist staff are absent. They like the International accreditation from the Institute of Administrative Management. Q. Can I talk to teachers who have run the course? A. Yes, we are happy to put you in touch with colleagues in term time at centres in England, Scotland or Wales. Q. What support is provided? A. Technical support and Inset Q. What other countries are the Londonlearning courses currently available? A. China, India, Bulgaria, Greece, Spain, Kenya, United Arab Emirates and USA. |
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