Smart use of technology for assessment

We may sometimes believe that we are the experts in the use of e-portfolios to support assessment but frequently we are overshadowed by the skills and knowledge of the assessors and verifiers who use our products.

Michael Reichart is an assessor with DEFLOG VQ Trust based in Germany. I first met Michael when we jointly delivered a seminar at the ITeC conference in Brussels about the use of e-portfolios to support the assessment of army personnel. At that time Michael was making creative use of his i-phone to capture his assessments.

I have now discovered he has found a great way of combining a notebook; smart phone and a video editing programme to capture evidence and then store and cross reference it in the e-portfolio.

He films the assessment with the use of smart phone(MP4); however he stands back away so as not to interrupt or lead the learner perform the assessment task and to avoid bothering the learner with questions during the assessment, as more often than not due to the limitations of the microphone the learner is not often heard. So to overcome this problem he simply films the learner with the sound off. Once the learner has finished what they are doing then they are ready for the feedback. Michael will then quickly load the film onto his notebook and show the learner the film. During this film he will ask him to explain what he is doing and ask questions and this is recorded with the smart phone. Then with the use of a video editing programme the film and the recording the video is then uploaded onto the e-portfolio, cross referenced against the standards and the assessment is complete.

Great assessment practice because it allows the candidate to demonstrate that he knows why he has performed the task in the way he has and gives time to the assessor to reflect upon and capture what he has seen.