Choosing a suitable project

To be successful in your Gold project, you need to do something that is of benefit to the community and write a Blog to describe what you did. First decide what you want to do. The best projects are genuinely useful to other people. Not necessarily complicated but not too simple or just repeating things that it is easy to find on the Internet.

As an example, we have assessment criteria for a new maths INGOT here. Could you design some web pages that would help a young person learn to count from 1 to 10? Big colourful letters, words like one, two etc next to the numbers, maybe a video uploaded to You Tube showing words and numbers and you saying them clearly when the numbers are displayed.

How will I get the marks? 

Your assessor can only give you marks in keeping with the published mark scheme. Here are the details.

Setting up - 9 marks

In the first Blog entry you must:

• Provide a title for your BLOG and project in the format "Gold INGOT project Center Number, Candidate Number <n> - "Title" (1 mark) (Your candidate number is in your record on the certification site. Your assessor will give it to you if you ask)

• Provide a paragraph briefly explaining your project and why it will be useful and what steps you need to take to be successful.  (1 mark)

• You should indicate any other information you need to be successful, (1 mark) including the software tools you intend to use and why. (1 mark)

• Make a declaration that any work presented in the Blog is your own. (Assessors should ensure that candidates understand the copyright and licensing issues of using other people's work without permission as well as any evidence of plagiarism being grounds for disqualification) (1 mark)

• Make a declaration that your work is made available under the Creative Commons share alike license. (Your assessor should be able to expain it to you. You are saying other people can freely use your work but if they make another resource using your resource they have to make their resource available freely too) (1 mark)

• Provide references to the UK National Occupational Standards that are relevant to your proposed work. (Minimum of 5 relevant references at level 2) Outside the UK Candidates may make reference to local standards that are similar in demand to the UK NOS. (1 mark)

• Provides additional links to the NOS throughout the blog (2 marks) Outside the UK Candidates may make reference to local standards that are similar in demand to the UK NOS.

Dialog with assessor - 2 marks

• The blog must show that you make suggestions about improvements, revisions or changes in plans due to things you find out as you go along.

• Candidate responds positively to suggestions made by the assessor (2 marks)

Screen shots and illustrations - 2 marks

• Your blog should include pictures. These might be screen shots or digital photographs to show what you are doing and why. These should be viewed in the page, not simply picture files attached to the page.

(You get 1 mark for using pictures and 1 mark for effective use that significantly enhances the work and correctly formats)

File attachments - 3 marks

• You need to use file attachments to the blog or links to allow digital resources that you have created to be downloaded and/or viewed by others. These can include data files, digital audio, digital video or still pictures and can include additional explanations to support in communicating your work. In general it is best to display work in new pages when possible, rather than simply attaching a file like a Word document. If you attach a presentation, make sure it does something more than simply display slides - you could just as easily achieve that by adding pages and links to your Blog.  Use extracts from lengthy video and audio files rather than the entire file or make a link to a video site such as You Tube and up load your video there. You have 2 Mb of space which should be plenty for your Blog if you do it carefully.

(1 mark for using relevant attached files)

(1 mark for at least two different file types attached or linked to the blog)

(1 mark if candidate shows appreciation of the desirability for all attached files to be in data formats that are fully open and not subject to patents or dependent on proprietary software to view or use them)

Quality of communications - 6 marks

• 6 marks if you clearly communicate your project so that its line of development is clear including on-going evaluation of the effectiveness of their own and others' uses of information sources and ICT tools, using the results to improve the quality of their work and to inform future judgements, 3 marks if the gist is apparent but it takes some effort to follow and evaluation and response to it is weak, 1 if the work is available but without any clear structure.

• 1 mark for use of a spell check to ensure at minimum all non-technical words are correctly spelled. Use I not i and capital letters at the start of sentences. This is formal writing and so SMS type text is not acceptable.

• Time management - 5 marks

• 2 marks for keeping clear track of time spent and saying you have spent so far written into several place throughout the BLOG, communicating this to the reader

• 1 mark if the Blog is complete with at least 10 page sized entries or equivalent, 2 marks if work is significant but there is evidence of inefficient use of time e.g. through lack of focus. 3 marks for productivity reasonably in keeping with 20 hours of guided learning)

Evaluation - 3 marks

Final blog entry should provide an evaluation which:

• Compares what you achieved with what was intended (1 mark)

• Says what improvements or enhancements could be made (1 mark)

• Provides information about the limitations of the blogging software in achieving their goals (1 mark)

Application developed or service provided -10 marks

10 marks if work involved demonstrates capability in software tools employed consistent with UK NOS at level 2, effective use of ICT to explore, develop and interpret information and solve problems in a variety of contexts and if the resources produced are judged useful in their own right as is.

7 marks if work involved demonstrates capability in software tools employed consistent with UK NOS at level 2, effective use of ICT to explore, develop and interpret information and solve problems in a variety of contexts and if the resources produced are judged useful but need some refinement before fully usable or in the case of services needed external additional support.

5 marks if work involved demonstrates capability in software tools employed consistent with UK NOS at level 2, effective use of ICT to explore, develop and interpret information and solve problems in a variety of contexts but outcomes are not useful without significant additional work or external support.

3 marks if the work involved demonstrates some capability in software tools employed consistent with UK NOS at level 2 but a significant proportion is below this level.

1 mark if some attempt has been made to complete the task and some learning has taken place.