7.2 Working on improving your number skills The three-stage framework for developing and improving your skills provides the basis for you to become more confident in: developing a strategy for using a variety of numerical and mathematical skills, including being clear about what you want to achieve, identifying relevant sources of information that will help you to achieve your goals, and planning how you intend to improve your skills; monitoring your progress and critically ref
7.1 Introduction to improving your skills in number This key skill develops your number skills in your studies, work or other activities over a period of time. To tackle all of this key skill, you need to plan your work over at least 3–4 months to give yourself enough time to practise and improve your skills, to seek feedback from others, to monitor your progress and evaluate your strategy and present outcomes. Application of number (simply called ‘number’ in this key skill) is all about using numerical and mathematical skills to f
6.5.5 Adapt your strategy to overcome difficulties Often plans run into difficulties because of unforeseen problems or changing circumstances. For example, you may be running over your deadlines, the resources or support available to you may have changed, or your personal circumstances may have changed. Plans are only a means to an end, however. If you run into difficulties try to take some time to think about what effect they will have on your plans, and what changes you may need to make to your overall strategy to achieve the outcomes you a
6.5.4 Monitor and critically reflect on your use of IL skills As you develop your information literacy skills, refer back to the outcomes you hope to achieve and goals you have set yourself. Ask yourself questions such as: am I on track to achieve my outcomes? what difficulties in using information literacy techniques have I experienced and what have I done about them? how have the choices and decisions I made impacted on the quality of my work? do I need to mak
6.5.3 Record and critically evaluate the results of your search Keeping a record of what sources you have explored, and the strategies, keywords and search terms you have used, will help you make best use of the facilities and time you have. As part of this record you should note how useful the sources have been, what was returned from your search, and what adjustments you made to your search plan (for example new keywords, different search parameters, different combination of Boolean operators). Establish criteria (such as by date, author, subject,
6.5.1 Explore different information sources Where and how are you going to look for your information? Finding information effectively involves being aware of techniques for locating and digging out the relevant information. Find out about how the sources you have identified are organised and indexed, and formulate your questions appropriately. Set up different search strategies and criteria to explore alternative lines of enquiry. If you need to search for, evaluate and select information from the Internet or other databases, fin
6.5 Monitoring progress This stage of the framework is about keeping track of your progress. Are you using your information literacy skills effectively for your purposes? How do you know? Could you have done things differently: made use of different facilities and expertise, taken more advantage of tutorials, training sessions or local expertise, or recognised that such support would have helped you? Monitoring your own performance and progress needs practice; try to stand back and look at what you are doing as if y
Plan your use of IL skills and select methods Exploring and planning an activity often results in a number of different options, possibilities and ways forward. Some approaches will be more feasible or will interest you more than others. At this stage you will need to think about how you will be using your information literacy skills and how you will assess the overall quality of your work. Review the skills you will need to achieve your goals and the criteria you will use to check that you have achieved them. Opportunities and con
6.3.2 Identify the outcomes you hope to achieve An outcome is the result or consequence of a process. For example, you may want to select information from a number of sources for a report, and to do this you may need to improve your use of information search facilities and your critical skills in comparing and contrasting information. In this case your report is an outcome and using and improving your information literacy skills is part of the process by which you achieve that outcome. A more focused outcome might be related to recog
5.5.5 Identify ways of further developing your IT skills Think about your overall IT skills and suggest areas where you feel you need to improve, based on the experience you have gained. You might find it useful to discuss with your tutor, manager, another student or work colleague how you might do this. There may be changes you feel you need to make so that you can move forward, such as trying to extend the facilities and resources available to you, changing the way you study to make best use of the time you have, or focusing on improving your own
5.5.4 Evaluate the effectiveness of your strategy Using the records in your Skills File, look back over your IT development work and think about how your decisions, and the facilities and constraints of your working environment influenced the way you tackled the task. How effective was your strategy in improving your IT skills? Identify what was and was not helpful in achieving your goals and outcomes, and assess how your own IT strengths and weaknesses contributed to this. Evaluate your achievements against the criteria you establishe
5.5.3 Present information effectively Organise your information so that you can use it to illustrate and support your arguments or point of view. To do this successfully, you must be clear about what you want to say, and how you want your audience to interpret your information. Ensure that any illustrations, graphs, diagrams and charts are correctly labelled and that you have met any particular requirements for presentations. Use the word-count facility of your word processor to help you keep within limits. Remember to proofread
5.5.1 Develop the structure for presenting your work In presenting the results of your use of IT, you may need to integrate information of different types and formats. For example, in a report you may want to bring together text, numerical and symbolic data, equations and formulas, tables and graphs, charts or other images. Check that your intended approach follows accepted conventions, and find out what guidelines or advice are available to you. If you are bringing information together in a single document or presentation, ensure that fo
5.5 Evaluating strategy and presenting outcomes This stage of the framework focuses on identifying what you have achieved and how well you have achieved it. It involves you in evaluating your overall strategy and presenting the outcomes of your work. As you evaluate and assess your strategy, identify aspects of your IT skills that you want to develop further. At the end of this stage, use the records in your Skills File to complete the activity ‘Evaluating your use of IT strategy and presenting outcomes’ and pull together this final st
5.4.6 Adapt your strategy to overcome difficulties Often plans run into difficulties because of unforeseen problems or changing circumstances. For example you may be running over your deadlines, the resources or support available to you may have changed, or your personal circumstances may have changed. Plans are only a means to an end, however. If you run into difficulties, take some time to think about what effect these difficulties are having on your plans, and what changes you may need to make to your overall strategy to achieve the outcom
5.4.4 Monitor and critically reflect on your use of IT skills As you use IT in your work, refer back to the outcomes you hope to achieve and the goals you have set yourself. Ask yourself questions such as: am I on track to achieve my outcomes? what difficulties in using information technology have I experienced and what have I done about them? how have the choices and decisions I made impacted on the quality of my work? do I need to make any changes in the way I
5.4.3 Gathering and producing new information As your work progresses, what new information are you gathering or producing? For example are you using IT to handle ideas, plans, working documents, results of calculations, designs, predictions, evaluations and so on? Review the types of information you are dealing with and think about what IT skills you are using to bring together information and data from different sources to help you make decisions or draw conclusions. What new IT skills would help you handle this information more effect
5.2.1 Identify opportunities for using IT skills Where and how will you use information technology skills over the next 3–4 months? You may need IT to help you search for, develop, exchange and present information, including text, images and numbers. You may have to learn how to use a new software package, use email or computer conferencing, or search for, select and evaluate information from the Internet or online sources. Spend some time thinking about your study or work requirements and what opportunities you will have or can create to
5.2 Developing a strategy In developing a strategy for improving your IT skills you are aiming to: identify the opportunities you can use to develop and practise your IT skills; establish the outcomes you hope to achieve and targets for meeting them; identify the resources you might use for developing your skills, including people who might be able to help you as well as books, study guides, tutorials, specialist training, databases, libraries
5.1a Working on improving your IT skills The three-stage framework for developing your IT skills provides the basis for you to become more confident in: developing a strategy for using a variety of IT skills, including being clear about what you want to achieve, identifying relevant sources of information that will help you to achieve your goals, and planning how you intend to improve your skills; monitoring your progress and critically reflecting on your performance in sear
