New Developments


New exercises, NC levels support and new student reports - September 2011

Eleven new exercises have been added to the site. These are all part of a new section to support programming. Scratch programs are used to support many of these exercises.

A table has been added to the site, which shows how the site exercise are related to the NC level descriptors for ICT.

Student reports now show level descriptors that students accrue as a result of doing the site exercises. Student reports now also include grade information.

Further details are available in the autumn 2011 newsletter.

Animations, modifications and new exercise - June 2011

Two new animations have been added to the site. Some modifications have been made to existing animations.

Modifications have been made to two of the exercises on the site.

A new exercise on Bullying has been added to the site.

Further details are available in the summer 2011 newsletter.


Logging in/Management functionality added - March 2011

The logging in procedure has been made easier by the use of an alias for the school postcode.

Some additional searching and management functionality has been added to the site. Further details are available in the spring 2011 newsletter.

A new report has been added to enable teachers to export all completed homework data by class. This is supported by a complementary report, which exports all uncompleted homework data.


Animations added to Modelling and Graphic sections - February 2011

In response to student feedback, we have added new animations to a small number of exercises. The animations are interactive and are designed to provide additional support for students to complete the exercises.

Four animations have been added. These are for:

  1. Modelling - Key Spreadsheet features
  2. Modelling - Building a Model: Holiday
  3. Graphics - Working with Bitmap Tools
  4. Graphics - Modifying Bitmap Images

Further batches of interactive exercises are in development. We would welcome feedback from schools on the exercises listed above, prior to releasing new material.


Student reports modified/Feedback form added - November 2010

Student reports have been modified to provide additional feedback to students. This makes it easier for students to see their marks. At the same time, they can also see which homework exercises they still need to complete. Further details are available in the autumn 2010 newsletter.

A comments form has been added to enable students to provide anonymous feedback on each exercise that they attempt.

As a result of student feedback, a number of exercises are being revised to include short animations.


New exercises - June 28th 2010

Additional exercises on spreadsheet functions have been added to the modelling section of the exercises menu. These look in detail at the SUM and IF functions. A number of common spreadsheet functions, such as AVERAGE, MEDIAN and MODE are also covered. These exercises are supported by interactive models.

An exercise on sorting data has been added to the database searching section. This exercise covers the idea of nested sorting.

An exercise which explores the idea of gestural interfaces and people as input devices has been added to the hardware section. This supplements the other input/output exercise in this section.


New exercises - April 26th 2010

ICT students have a great deal of exposure to software tools. As a consequence, they are fairly adept at manipulating virtual environments. They are perhaps less aware of the physical tools that are available to support virtual activities.

To help students to develop a greater appreciation of the hardware that supports their curriculum, we have added a new hardware section to the exercises menu. This contains exercises on keyboard shortcuts, input/output devices, storage and ports.


Supporting Assessment for Learning - February 2010

Students are now given greater feedback when they complete exercises:

They are given a mark and a grade. This is accompanied by a comment.

If students achieve less than 100% for an exercise, they are given some guidance on how to improve their learning and hence their marks.

Students are now also told which questions they have answered correctly.

Students have always been able to tackle an exercise as many times as they wished. They can still do this. However, since they are now being told which questions they have answered correctly, the reporting system only records the marks for their first three attempts. Subsequent attempts are still reported to students but their marks are not recorded.

To help students migrate to the new marking system, they are shown the following message panel when they now log on to the student page.

The assessment reports for students have changed.

You have always been able to do an exercise as many times as you wanted. Now, however, you will be able to see the marks for your first three attempts.

You will also be told which questions you have got right. This should help you to think about how you can improve your learning and your marks.

Your results page will now include three columns, which will show the marks for your first three attempts. These will be labelled M1, M2 and M3.