5 Ways to Use Your Smartphone to Assess or Teach
Technology is constantly improving. With everything literally at your fingertips, it is time to embrace this within your role. You may already carry a tablet device around to store your Assessor notes, rather than struggling with mountains of paperwork. However, have you ever thought about how you could use your phone to help make both your life and the lives of your learners easier? Here are our top tips to help you.
Use the video functionality
Not many people enjoy being in front of the camera. But, recording a learner during a discussion and playing it back to them can be an incredible learning experience. This can really help them to develop their skills. Then when the time comes for their end-point assessment, they are completely ready. As well as being able to give feedback to the learner, they can also use the video recording to carry out their own evaluation of how well they think they did.
Taking photographs
All learners will need to create their own portfolio of evidence in order to complete their apprenticeship. Taking photos is a great way to gather some of this evidence. Photos can be taken as learners are carrying out their job roles, or even taking part in practical tasks. It is always good to take these photos with a smartphone as the time and date stamp will be automatically recorded, meaning the evidence has not been tampered with.
Taking digital notes
A notes app is an incredibly useful tool for creating to-do lists, or simply jotting down things you are likely to forget. You can use this to take notes when you meet new learners. It may even help to keep track of which parts of the assessment plan you have carried out with each learner. The great thing about notes is that you can also email them to yourself, ready to be uploaded to the necessary assessment records.
Use voice dictation to record sessions
As well as taking physical notes with your phone, you can also use the voice recording feature to record verbal discussions that you have with learners. Rather than asking them to carry out a written examination, you could plan a professional discussion with them. Some people learn best with audio cues as opposed to written cues. So, this is always a good alternative to written forms of communication. You can also use voice recordings to provide your learners with feedback; sometimes things can be easily lost in translation via email so this is a great way to ensure they understand what you are trying to say.
Use file sharing applications
Finally, there are lots of mobile apps which allow you to share files – from Dropbox to Google Drive and more. This is a great way to securely store your assessment documents and training resources. Then, they are easily accessible when you are on the move. You can also file each part of evidence under individual learner folders keeping everything nice and organised. By having all of this information accessible at the touch of a button, it means you don’t always have to carry around your cumbersome laptop too.
We hope you have found this blog useful, and if you have any more tips on how you can use a smartphone to help with assessing or teaching learners, drop us an email at training@brooksandkirk.co.uk.
Steve is a Chartered Manager and a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute.
He provides Educational Consultancy to the 19+ sector as well as being an Assessor, IQA, EPA and Digital Marketing Professional. When not doing any of these he finds time, every now and then, to write blogs and articles.