Guidelines for quality

I think I have to look at something else at the moment to be able to get my head around teh e-Learning guidelines issues. I have pulled out my copy of the NZ Curriculum, the areas that I look at are the ICT area and the Technology Curriculum.

We are now required to look at the key competencies, the capabililites for living and lifelong learning.
There are five competencies that have been identified,

• thinking
• using language, symbols and texts
• managing self
• relating to others
• participating and contributing

I think these are the areas that I need to look at. I know that some of these do appear in the eLearning Guidelines, but I would like to look at this from a different angle.

Thinking
Thinking is about using creative, critical, and meta cognitive process to make sense of information, experiences, and ideas. these processes can be applied to purposes such as understanding, making decisions, shaping actions or constructing knowledge. Intellectual curiosity is at the heart of this competency. (From the NZ Curriculum, 2007)

Using language, symbols and texts
They confidently use ICT(including where appropriate, assistive technologies) to access and provide information and to communicate with others (From the NZ Curriculum, 2007)

Manging self
This competency is associated with self-motivation, a "can-do" attitude and with students seeing themselves as capable learners. It is integral to self-assessment. (From the NZ Curriculum, 2007)

Relating to others
This competency includes the ability to listen actively, recognise different points of view, negotiate, and share ideas. (From the NZ Curriculum, 2007)

Participating and Contributing
This competency is abou being actively involved in communities. Students who participate and contribute in communities have a sense of belonging and the confifdence to participate within new contexts. (From the NZ Curriculum, 2007)

These competencies are the funadmentals of every single school in New Zealand, from Early Childhood Education, Primary, Itermediate and Secondary.

We are moving towards these over the next couple of years, that is why I am looking at these as some of my guildelines for evaluation. Do these meet the requirements of the matter.

Some of these issues that I have been looking at under the eLearning Guidelines are

SO13 Do students get appropriate ICT support in a timely manner?
The students get one term of ICT skills at year 9. That is it, previosly they had a whole year.

MO6 Does the organisation provide a reliable, secure and up-to-date IT infrastructure that meets the requirements of the course?
IT structures, is that our Learning Management System, this is constantly under development through knowledgeNET,

MT3 Does the institution review the effectiveness of its e-learning to assure alignment with institutional priorities and educational objectives?
We do not have any of these at the moment but reading this and the guidelines in the massey document will be brought up in the future.

TT11 Are online assessment tools for the course identified and evaluated?
These have only just been added to our LMS.