TeachITza.com: IT PAT- Practical Assessment Task

IT PAT : Practical Assessment Task

The IT practical assessment task or PAT counts toward 25% of the final mark of the subject. The PAT is supposed to show the application of the knowledge, skills and values obtained by the learner in IT throughout the year.

See the departmental guidelines (information on topic and how it will be assessed):
ITPAT2008.pdf (PAT document in English)
PATITAFR2008.pdf (PAT-dokument in Afrikaans)

GR. 12 RESEARCH PROJECT
The current grade 12 topic is fairly open-ended. Learners should construct a topic around 'The Mobile World' and the following scenario is provided:

One and a half billion people, all over the world, are walking around with powerful “computers” in their pockets and purses. The fact is that they often do not realize it, because these “computers” are often referred to by another device name. One such device could be today's high-end cell phones which have the computing power of a mid-1990s personal computer (PC). Marc Prensky, Innovate, June/July 2005
(Read complete article What Can You Learn from a Cell Phone? Almost Anything!)

Topic suggestions for grade 12 research section of PAT (The Mobile World):

- Mobile Learning (m-learning) also mentioned in PAT document
- Mobile security devices
- Mobile research (in school encyclopaedias, dictionaries, etc.)
- Mobile language development (multilingual resources)
- Mobile banking
- Mobile shopping
- Mobile reporting and news gathering
- Mobile health monitoring / medical information
- Mobile television and interactive entertainment

Some places to start looking for information on m-learning for example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_learning
http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/issue/view/29
http://www.mlearn.org.za/papers-full.html

GR.12 PROGRAMMING PROJECT

Scenario for the 2008 Grade 12 PAT:
The school management team has approached the Grade 12 IT learners to develop a software solution to administer such events. The learners are requested to write a program in Java / Delphi that interacts with a database program and uses a GUI to interact with the user to solve the problem. In addition to the program, the learners also need to develop a technical manual and a user guide for the program.

The programming project is open-ended, i.e. you may choose your own topic or focus area within the context of the given scenario.

Examples of possible school-based events to choose from:
o A Grade 8 variety concert
o An athletics competition for Grade 8 learners to identify potential athletes
o RCL (Representative Council of Learners) elections
o Field trips
o Competitions e.g. LAN parties
o Soccer round robin, etc.

Also see the PAT programming project outline template by Mike Scordilis: PAT-example.rtf