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Evaluation of students' use of learner website: WickED

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The Ministry of Education commissioned CORE to evaluate WickEd, educational resource website aimed at students between the ages of 7 and 12 years, providing educational resources for students who may not have access to ICT at home.

Originally WickED's aim was to provide online materials to motivate and extend student learning and to support the use of ICT by after-school ‘Study Support Centres.’ The purpose was to provide educational resources for students who may not have access to ICT at home, or whose personal circumstances require that they need a quiet, after-school-space to help them with their studies. While the original focus of WickED was to provide after-school activities for Study Centre students, the WickED site access statistics have indicated that the greatest use of the WickED site occurred during school operating hours. This has led to the site moving towards catering for more school-based usage in addition to independent student use in study centres or from home.

Key findings: 

The key findings of ther research evaluation were as follows:

  • The majority of students who attended the workshops were not previously aware of the WickED resource and repeat use was limited by both students and teachers.
  • Generally, the students liked the interactive features, for example, quizzes, wordsearches and crosswords.
  • Immediacy was also a high priority for users, students did not want to wait for feedback and preferred the immediate interaction that occurred when using the WickED resource.
  • WickED was also used in a variety of ways by teachers, for example, as a reward, as a teacher led resource and for providing opportunities for home and school links.
  • Teachers’ perceptions of the site were mainly positive and they stated that they thought the site used a suitable level of language, had an interactive nature and thought that the bright and colourful appearance created a sense of fun.
  • Teachers also felt confident that WickED was a trusted site for school use.
  • The usefulness of WickED for new pedagogical approaches in the classroom was questioned as teachers considered that it was not always suitable for inquiry-based learning and both teachers and students recommended that better search tools should be incorporated because finding the appropriate materials often proved difficult.

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This report is in our Research archives. Please check our Research activities and reports.