Preparation for the face-to-face session
This preparation, comprising activities 1-3 will take around one hour. We expect you to complete these as the course facilitator will be addressing the activities at the beginning of the face-to-face session. It is particularly important that you register for the e-skills Staffroom before the session in order to access the resources.
Activity 1 Registering for the Staffroom
The objective of this course activity is to be able to access areas of the Staffroom that will be used during the face-to-face session.
Before the facilitated session, go to the e-skills Staffroom (http://staffroom.e-skills.com/ [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] ).
From here you can register by clicking on the grey register button on the right side of the page. You will need to register your school for access to the Staffroom. There is a database of schools already available on the Staffroom. If your school is not listed, contact cc4ghelpdesk@e-skills.com as soon as possible and at least four days before the facilitated session. Insert ‘Vital course registration’ as the subject of your email and your registration will be organised within 24 hours of receipt.
Activity 2 Exploring the Staffroom
The objective of this course activity is to become more familiar with the layout and structure of the Staffroom and the content held within the 14-19 and CC4G sections.
Enter the Staffroom and visit the 14-19 learning content area by using the drop down menu option on the right hand side of the page. Browse the Learning Journeys available and familiarise yourself with the structure of a learning journey and its component nuggets of learning. You may also be interested in the content for younger learners, which can be found by accessing the CC4G area from the drop down menu.
Activity 3 The specification for the multimedia unit
The objective of this course activity is to familiarise yourself with the assessment requirements for the multimedia unit.
The three awarding bodies that accredit the Diploma in IT are AQA/City and Guilds, Edexcel and OCR. You may have already made a decision about which of these boards you are using for the diploma. Go to their website and look at the assessment criteria for the higher level multimedia unit. You may already be familiar with this. If not, look at the four learning objectives that are assessed during this unit (N.B. Edexcel has only three learning objectives). These are summarised in Table 2.
| Learning objective | AQA/City and Guilds | Edexcel | OCR |
| LO.1 | Researching multimedia and understanding business audiences | Understand how multimedia is used to meet business-relevant objectives | Understand which types of digital media can be used to meet different business-related objectives |
| LO.2 | Enhancement of web pages through the use of multimedia content | Be able to design, develop and test multimedia products that are fit for audience and purpose | Know how to enhance web pages for a given purpose by adding multimedia components |
| LO.3 | Designing, developing and testing a multimedia product for a specific purpose | Be able to elicit and use feedback from test users to identify opportunities for improvement | Design, develop and test a multimedia product which meets the needs of a specific audience and purpose |
| LO.4 | Evaluation and improvement | Assess the effectiveness of the multimedia product |
Read through the details of your chosen awarding body specification in preparation for the section in the face-to-face session that reflects on how the multimedia learning journey can be assessed using any of these criteria.
Principal learning objectives for higher level can be found in the following documents:
AQA/City and Guilds (page 71):
IT: Level 2 Principal Learning
Edexcel (page 183):
Edexcel Level 1 and Level 2: Principal Learning in Information Technology
OCR (page 61):
Introduction