Lesson 7: Evaluation of Technology Learning

            The standard student evaluation of learning must change. This is justifies by the fact that not only has the new generation changed into digital learners, but the traditional world has metamorphosed into a digital world.

            Assessment needs to confirm, not with literacy of the past century but the new literacy in 21^st century. This literacy uses digital tools in preparing students to face high-tech world.

            The comparison is made with the Swiss watch-makers which failed to adapt digital watch-making. The Swiss watch lost its prime position in less than 2 years of neglect to the need to go digital.

            Evaluation must be geared to assessment of essential knowledge and skills so that learners can function effectively, productively, and creativity in a new world.

            It must evaluate tools that measure the new basic skills of the 21^st century digital culture, namely:

• solution fluency
• information fluency
• collaboration fluency
• creative fluency
• media fluency
• digital citizenship

For example, in reading, single text becomes less important compared with empowerment process of being imbibed by varied informative, educational and recreational literature-textual, audio-visual, digital. Apart from reading, learners are asked to engage in the process of writing reports, essays, articles, stories, power-point presentations, video scripts, drama skills, etc. The standard paper tests will prove inadequate in assessing new learning.

            As students engage in the problem solving process, assessment will also need to focus on 4Ds (Define, design, do, debrief) that empower students to solve problems using higher-level theoretical and practical thinking.

            As product-outcome learning changes from verbal-textual to textual to digital expressions (research-based outputs in various forms such as audio, video, power-point, multimedia, etc.) evaluation must also change.

Mass Amateurization

            A term which implies a mass reach of students’ output. The personal and group creative activities in school should aim in bridging the gap between amateur creators of output to professional creators of future outcomes and products in the real world.