Use of ICT and Multimedia in The Central Exams: Experiences in the Netherlands:

Abstract

There is much that can be said about the competences of teachers and students needed to learn ICT and Multimedia in the Physics curriculum. The same applies to the teaching and assessment of those competences. Essentially, we are concerned with the goals of the education and the goals of the assessment. If we are concerned with the process of learning, formative assessment is appropriate, but if we want to know what has been learnt, summative assessment, using assignments with scoring instructions is better. In the Netherlands we have a context-based exam curriculum in which specific contexts have been prescribed since the 80s. So, schoolbooks, and as a result of that, most of the Physics lessons are context-based as well. Because of the principle “test what you teach”, all exam questions are context-based too. With the help of ICT (data acquisition, video-analysis modelling, data-analysis or a simulation program) a lot of problems on several subjects are becoming more clear. Teachers and students can use software like COACH for doing measurements on film fragments and modelling the results. In the COMPEX project in the Netherlands, working over 3 levels corresponding to lower vocational, higher vocational and pre-university education, we used Applets, Excel, Data processing, video measurements and modeling in the tests. Because the students used the same software in their lessons, they had the skills to use the software. The questions and answers were on paper. The purpose of the project was to assess the skills competences they learned in the physics lessons.