Seeds of Change: The Potential of the Digital Revolution to Promote Enabling Assessment

Abstract

There is widespread international recognition that the content of formal education needs to change in order to equip future citizens for a rapidly changing world. The digital revolution, in particular, provides both new challenges and new opportunities for learning. We argue that such progress is being held back by a lack of change in assessment practices, which remain substantially the same as they were two centuries ago. In this chapter we explore the potential of new digital tools to transform both formative and summative assessment. We discuss some of the reasons for the relatively slow progress to date in this respect and offer some examples of ways in which the use of digital tools are already making it possible to assess in educationally exciting, new ways. We argue that such novel approaches could contribute a great deal to promoting the enabling power of assessment.