[Advisory] Re: [Secondary] RE: The ICT Continuum Hoax

[Ian Lynch]

On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 8:41 AM, Crispin Weston
<crispin.weston@alphalearning.co.uk> wrote:
> Hi Ian,
>
> I think we basically agree.
>
> You are right to pick me up for defaming vocational qualifications, which I
> have little direct experience of - though there is evidence, I think, that
> the early NVQs were too strongly based on simple task-based performance.

Probably one reason why they are now replaced by the QCF. There is
still bad practice but that is also true of academic qualifications.

> As for the reliability of an observed performance, someone might
> successfully saw a straight line using familiar tools, with a familiar type
> of wood, at the end of a three day course of practice. Put him in an
> unfamiliar situation a week later and the result is pretty wonky.

Which is a good argument as to why we should not, in school, teach
people exclusively with particular tools eg Word or Powerpoint. Let's
say there is a critical safety procedure you have to get right first
time evey time. Having a specific assessment for that procedure is
perfectly reasonable.
In the end, it all depends on the purpose of developing the
competence.  Having said all that, someone with a lot of experience in
Word would pick up Writer more easily than someone who had never
touched a WP. and someone who could saw wood with one saw in one
context probably would be more likely to become proficient in another
more quickly than someone with no experience of sawing at all.