Of MIICE and Children
Comments(2) | On of the problems with innovation in ICT is that it can be difficult to determine if it actually makes any difference to children’s learning. Blogging, for example, may be enjoyed by the teacher and pupils but does it actually make any difference to the quality of their learning? If it does, how can we tell?
The main purpose of MIICE (Measurement of the Impact of Ict on Children’s Education) “to put into words what most recognise is good quality in learning and teaching incorporating the use of ICT. It is concerned with those qualities which cannot readily be assessed in conventional ways.”
The emphasis is on IMPACT.
Scottish education is already overburdened with unnecessary and ineffective assessment, so do we need another scheme?
If it is helpful and provides useful information for a teacher – yes. It is a scheme that developed from the bottom up by looking for the common features of observed good practice.
You can find out all about the background at the MIICE website. Briefly, MIICE has been around since 2000 and is a collaborative effort involving the majority of Scottish local Authorities. It has produced a toolkit to aid assessment and planning, various case studies and has contributed regularly to the debate on ICT in Scottish Education.
A good starting point is the Introduction to MIICE. The toolkit (in various formats) provides statements about the impact of ICT which can be used for planning and assessing. The 2 page summary is probably a good starting place.
There are other methods of assessing ICT but MIICE is one of the few which focuses on the imact of ICT on a child’s learning.
Hi Andrew,
I ran a few blogging activities through the MIICE toolkit a while back and was relieved to see that it hit a lot of the targets.
Blogging should also help toward the hard to measure things line self esteem, cooperation and the ethos of the classroom and school.
[...] So that’s as far as we’ve gone at the time of writing but what next? I’ll do a brief eveluation (based on the MIICE materials) to see how the teachers and pupils found the project. Then I’ll move on to the next stage which is to see if the sense of audience which blogging provides can actually lead to an improvement in writing. [...]