The use of ICT audits

In the same way that nearly all ITT courses monitor trainees’ subject knowledge through the use of an audit which tracks the development of their subject knowledge over the course of the PGCE year, nearly all ITT courses have developed a system of auditing trainees’ competence in ICT, either from their acceptance at interview or from the start of the course, right through to the end of the course.

The audit serves a range of purposes. These include:

• A baseline assessment of individual trainees’ abilities in ICT when they start the course
• An indication of which applications trainees are already familiar with and which are still ‘black holes’. This can influence your choice of focus in the first taught sessions on the course.
• A guide for trainees to the ‘ontology’ of ICT in history: what is there for them to think about?
• A basis for professional dialogue and a developmental tool for both the subject tutor and the school based mentor.
• A way of keeping ICT on trainees’ professional agenda when they are on school placement
• A way of measuring the ‘value-added’ element of trainees’ progression during the course.
• A basis for target setting in trainees’ use of ICT
• Enabling you to draw on what they bring with them to the course in terms of their ICT experience and capability

Some general points about the use of ICT audits:

• There can be tensions between these functions and it is difficult to devise an audit that is well suited to all these purposes.
• Audits need to be followed up.
• Who follows up the audit? Are you going to set targets, is the mentor going to set targets or is the trainee going to decide on which facets of ICT competence to prioritise?
• Audits need to be carefully constructed. A well intentioned but cumbersome audit is more trouble than it is worth, and will be a bureaucratic nuisance rather than something that is genuinely useful.
• Is the audit going to have any ‘punitive’ or disciplinary purpose or is it just an aide-memoire for trainees. Is it up to them to make best use of it?

In resource 10.3.1, some examples of ICT audit are given, together with brief commentary from some subject tutors on what they hope the audits will achieve.

Activity 10.3.1 What are the similarities and differences between an ICT audit and a list drawn up of strengths and weaknesses relating to ICT?

Activity 10.3.2 Progression in the use of ICT