TAG Developments, the e-assessment division of Sherston Software Ltd is pleased to announce the completion of work to develop two brand new tools for assessing student evidence and interaction that is generated through the use of Social Media.

Working in partnership with its Singapore partner iGINE Pte. Ltd. and as part of a contract won with the Infocomm Development Agency of Singapore to create Collaborative Online Learning Tools (see http://tagdevelopments.com/news/90 for further details), TAG has completed the necessary development work to release these highly innovative social media assessment tools to pilot schools in Singapore.

There are many advantages to using social media to support formal and informal learning - it engages learners through a familiar medium that they are already using, that is highly collaborative and provides equal opportunity for all learners, and that also encourages Real Life Skills, such as sharing knowledge and developing dynamic/adaptive learning. However, there are also challenges for teachers in using social media as a mechanism for assessment, including there being a wide range of disparate social media tools that students can use, leading to lots of potential evidence, which can be difficult for a teacher to untangle in order to get to the real evidence of learning and collaboration.

TAG's new social media assessment tools allow teachers to untangle the huge potential volume of evidence created within a range of social media tools, including Facebook, Twitter and MSN Messenger through the use of Latent Semantic Indexing, which enables the system to “suggest” how pieces of student’s work may demonstrate meeting certain learning objectives. However, the system goes further than this and also utilises Social Networking Analysis (Centrality) to help teachers assess interaction and group dynamics.

These exciting new tools are now being piloted in Singapore in both primary and secondary schools and TAG is also in discussions with UK based accreditation bodies about how these tools could be utilised to deliver authentic and manageable assessment as an integral part of 21st Century learning.

For further details about these highly innovative tools please contact Matt Wingfield, Managing Director - TAG Developments on 0203 176 0394 or matt.wingfield@sherston.com