I recently presented at the Melbourne GAFE Summit and had the opportunity to listen to many inspiring educators. One of the sessions I went to (ran by Kimberly Hall) was all about Google for Education and their exam process. As I read through the examination examples and tests, I was chatting to a colleague who I was sitting with, and we thought about giving students the opportunity to sit the exams themselves. So that’s what we did. We’ve had some of the Grade 4s achieve 80%. Although not all were as successful, they still gave it a shot and loved it. The fact that the kids knew it was an exam for ‘adults,’ it made them want to strive for accuracy. Now they’re asking for more opportunities to give it another go. The Grade 3 children will also be sitting the exam next week.
I then thought about how I could use such an achievement to empower my students. As the ICT Leader and someone who works at a GAFE school, I’ll be recruiting ICT Leaders in the coming year. The requirement for children will be that they need to have participated in the exam and have achieved an 80% minimum socre. This will allow me to to work with students and provide them with opportunities to help other staff and students with Google APPS in the classroom.
The link below provides all the information you need about the exams.