“With
a growing emphasis on incorporating information and communications technology
(ICT) into the teaching/learning process, easier access to resources in
multiple formats, such as audio, video, animation, text, images, hyperlinks,
e-books and links to CXC social media platforms, should prove very attractive
and useful to current students and teachers alike, and particularly boys,”
Minister of Education
Senator Ruel Reid at a Press Conference at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New
Kingston on Thursday May 10th 2018 to launch the CXC Learning Hub
CXC
(Caribbean Examination Council) Exams are finally stepping into the 21st
Century.
By
the next set of CSEC (Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate) Exams in 2019,
the Paper 1 (Multiple Choice) part of many exams may be done on a computer as
noted in the article “Online
CXC Exams Coming”, published Friday May 11, 2018, The Jamaica Gleaner.
So
said Minister of Education Senator Ruel Reid at a Press Conference at The
Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston on Thursday May 10th 2018!
This was during the launch of the CXC Learning Hub, which will allow students
to have increased access to CXC past papers with solutions produced by the
examination body’s external partners.
This
shift to e-testing may be welcome news for male students. Paper 1 of most CSEC
exams aka Multiple Choice, will most likely the first to go online, will now
have audiovisuals, videos and animations (think GIF's tailored made for CSEC
Physics!!) making the examination come alive...or be a distraction.
Soon
CAPE (Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination) and CCSLC (Caribbean
Certificate of Secondary-Level Competence)…a whole world of animated Examinations
await future student sitting CXC Examinations!
So
how will this be done by many schools, most of which do not have computer labs
to seat so many students?
CXC Examination
Platform - BVI did it out of necessity
First
a bit of a background as to why this may be happening….
Jamaica
will not be the first to go this route; the BVI (British Virgin Islands) have
already gone this route. They've experience the brunt of Hurricane Irma and
lost a lot of the physical records of many of their students.
A
switch to e-testing makes sense for them, as the exam can be marked in a matter
of minutes, allowing them to know their grade at the end of the exam, if they
are so inclined. It's also not a problem in terms of cheating, as the computer
can be locked with the proper software so as to make communication during exams
difficult.
Also
less paper is used, making this a cheaper examination option. Finally the exam
results are stored in a Database hosted in a Cloud Storage Server not located
on the island; this safeguard the data from potential loss due to natural disasters.
Interestingly
the BVI did both paper 1 and 2 of the CSEC, Caribbean Advanced Proficiency
Examination (CAPE), [and] Caribbean Certificate of Secondary-Level Competence
(CCSLC) online, with mathematics and English done without a hitch.
So
says CXC Registrar Glenroy Cumberbatch, quote: “This year, [BVI] has decided to
do all of their examinations – Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate
(CSEC), Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE), [and] Caribbean
Certificate of Secondary-Level Competence (CCSLC) online, both paper ones and
paper twos”.
So
if the BVI can do it, then so can Jamaica, but for totally different reasons!!!
So
what is the CXC Learning Hub? And how does it relate to Jamaica opting to have
student do their CSEC Exams online?
CXC Learning Hub – Test
run for Jamaican Online Exam Guinea Pigs
The
CXC Learning Hub can be seen as a herald for the CSEC Online Examinations
Platform in the future as pointed out in “Online CXC Exams Coming”,
published May 12, 2018 By Ainsworth Morris, The
Jamaica Information Service.
Resources
in the hub will support CXC’s suite of qualifications:
1. CAPE
and associate degrees
2. CCSLC
3. CPEA
(Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment)
4. CSEC
5. CVQ
(Caribbean Vocational Qualification)
The
CXC Learning Hub will provide the following resources for free for learners and
teachers:
1. Interactive
syllabuses
2. Subject
reports
3. Practice
tests
4. Digital
toolkits
These
Digital Toolkits will contain the following:
1. Animations
2. Audio
3. Images
and videos.
4. Infographics
Games,
process animations and other multimedia learning objects created by CXC will be
a part of the premium content offered by the CXC Learning Hub. In short the CXC
Learning Hub is a Test Run for Jamaican Online Exam Guinea Pigs!
So
how will the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information implement this in the
future?
Jamaican and CXC
Examination Platform - Open Source will make it Secure
This
is also possible in Jamaica as many examination centers are already equipped
with labs to handle the number of student required. Most likely, they'll also
utilize Open Source for their Computers and Web Platform, as these are more
secure from hackers and anyone trying to sabotage the CSEC Exams!!
Telecom Providers, working with the Ministry of Education, can help provide high Speed Internet to stem any bandwidth issues due to so many webpages being opened at the same time, as the CXC Examination platform will most likely be cloud based.
Telecom Providers, working with the Ministry of Education, can help provide high Speed Internet to stem any bandwidth issues due to so many webpages being opened at the same time, as the CXC Examination platform will most likely be cloud based.
Finally,
should there be a shortage of computers, Laptops running the CXC Examination
platform can be provided by the Government of Jamaica, soliciting help from
various private sector organizations.
They
can even turn to competitive bid to the same contractors that did the Table in
Schools Project as noted in my blog article
entitled “Why
Tablet in School Rollout in September 2016 means Contractors and Kinesthetic
Content coming”.
Hopefully
too, this start a movement towards developing our own Open Source Platforms in
Jamaica as advocated in the Geezam blog
article entitled “Tertiary
Institutions in Jamaica should use more Open Source”...... but that is an
article for another time!!!
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