A digital makeover: Transforming a vocabulary assessment tool with TEL

The university in which the authors work offers postgraduate programmes for teachers working with children and young people with learning difficulties and special educational needs. A key component of the assessment on three... [ view full abstract ]

The university in which the authors work offers postgraduate programmes for teachers working with children and young people with learning difficulties and special educational needs. A key component of the assessment on three of these programmes requires the student to complete a detailed individual assessment and profile of one pupil/student. This includes a curriculum-based informal assessment of receptive and expressive vocabulary knowledge using images, to establish the range of words that the learner can use and understand. Vocabulary knowledge has long been recognised as a key factor in enabling curriculum access and school success (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997; Nippold et al, 2004) and as such is a key concern for teachers. A hard copy paper based vocabulary assessment tool was initially developed in 2006.  Moving to a digital format in 2017/18 offered a more practical means for teachers to use the tool and an opportunity to develop the tool as a more visually engaging and interactive user experience. Moreover, as  it can be difficult to engage learners with complex SEN in the assessment process, a more visual and attractive digital interactive assessment tool should increase learner engagement.

The introduction of the open source content creation framework H5P (HTML5 Package) as a Moodle plug-in sparked the inspiration to make this move. H5P is a free open source content creation creation framework based on JavaScript which the user edits in any web browser and offers a wide range of interactive frameworks to choose from. Over several months, with some support from student researchers, we produced a prototype digital version of the vocabulary assessment tool using a combination of these interactive content frameworks. Currently, postgraduate students are testing the prototype in school contexts and a research project around this pilot phase has commenced. This presentation focuses  on our experience of working with H5P to develop the assessment tool and offers some guidelines for those considering using H5P to develop interactive content.

Cunningham A. & Stanovich K. (1997). Early reading acquisition and its relation to reading experience and ability ten years later. Developmental Psychology 33, 934–45.
Nippold, M. (2004) Research on later language development: International perspectives. In: Berman RA (ed.) Language development across childhood and adolescence: Trends in language acquisition research (pp. 1–8.  Amsterdam: John Benjamins.