So....moving on....

I am determined that next year will not be a repeat of this one in terms of the posting nightmare that went on. ( see my previous blog post ).

To those ends, I have spoken to the school's Principal's Nominee about the procedure for contacting NZQA about this issue and what we can do with it. She is going to speak to the School Relationship Manager and go over the points that I have sent to her. They will then give us a direction and contact point that we can go to.


Here are the points that I feel are important to get across :-

• All DVC students produce an online Google site for their research, notes, analysis and photographs of mock-ups, testing and models.
• They produce their design ideas on paper with traditional media.
• Design development work done in 3D as models is photographed and presented on their Google sites.
• Design development work created using online applications is presented on their Google sites as embedded objects or screen shots of the work produced.
• This year, in order to be able to hit the submission requirements, everything had to be printed off from these sites, which was a very long job using lots of paper for coloured print outs.
• We need to be able to just send the drawings and sketchbooks that have been produced using traditional drawing media and everything else needs to stay online, with links to the student online Google sites being sent to the examiners in order for them to see the rest of the project work. The drawings are then still seen in the context of a whole project, and the analysis notes that go with them are there to be viewed.

So, I hope to be able to report progress on this.
We shall see.

NCEA external posting not a lot of fun this year.....

Ok, so it is never the most fun time during the year, getting the Level 1, 2 and 3 DVC work together and parcelled up to send away to be externally marked. ( Design and Visual Communication, that used to be called Graphics ). It is a case of leave me alone and don't talk to me and any offers of help are brushed off. I turn into mrs grumpy pants for a couple of days while it gets sorted out.

This year, I made a start on Friday as the day had moved forward from its normal Wednesday slot to Tuesday, and I know it always takes me about a day and a half to do it all. 

My HUGE gripe this year though is having to print out all the students research work, photographs of models and analysis notes that they had done on GAFE products  and embedded on their class sites.

It took a good two and a half hours of my day today printing off a big pile of work onto paper just so it could be posted to Wellington as part of the projects that the students have done. 

I agree that the examiners should see the actual drawings on paper that the students have produced, as scans and photographs of them do not do them justice, so they should be posted. No problem or argument there, but where is the sense in printing all that stuff today, and trust me there was a PILE of it, when all I had to do was print a list of shortened URLs on one piece of paper for each examiner, where they can go online and see the students Google sites with  all their work on. 

Come on NZQA, the students are wiping the floor with you in terms of working in the 21st century. I am sure all your examiners must have access to computers and the internet. Surely? Why can't the way the students work be the way they are marked and assessed too?

Ok, rant over. I have had a REALY busy day today, made worse by not being able to get on Chrome on the school desktop with my log on and Internet Explorer being such rubbish with GAFE products ( no, it wouldn't print from IE, stupid thing ). After having a mild meltdown, I ended up on some one else's desktop log on and my chrome log. Makes no sense but it worked and the printing commenced. 

Please, NZQA, sort ya life out.

Here is a link to the portfolio submission instructions.
Everything has to be able to go in the bag they send, as a portfolio.
I am going to contact them and start a dialogue about being able to supply links to Google sites for some of the project work. Wish me luck....