IT Skills Emplacement: Learning environment and assessment

T/115 paper describes attempts to devise effective strategies by which to develop students' communication and information technology (C&IT) skills. The success, or othenvise, of three modules which are supported by learning material mounted on the Internet were compared. It is shown that basic C&IT skills do not necessarily require many hours of practical demonstration. It is also shown that while lecturing staff may wish to offer a reward to students undertaking a new task by weighting an assessment heavily, students may perceive such weighting as a risk and opt therefore not to demonstrate their C&IT skills. In contrast, it is shown that where minimal instruction has been given, hut where the assessment weighting is low, and an experiential learning environment has been created, students were keen to 'have a go'.