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Certs for Freshmen: IC³ Comes to Colleges
10/15/2007
Certiport has come up with a new model for promoting digital literacy in college and university students. Based around its IC³ certification, the four-component program is aimed at assessing and developing digital skills in students as they enter into higher education. Broward Community College in Florida piloted a program this semester using IC³ on incoming freshmen.Certiport's four-part model based on IC³ includes "mapping the school’s curriculum of basic computing and Internet courses to globally accepted digital literacy standards, assessing the digital literacy level of incoming freshmen, creating personalized learning plans for students in need of remediation, and providing students with the added opportunity of earning ... [a] credential."
Earlier this semester, Broward Community College in Florida began testing its incoming students for digital literacy skills using Certiport's IC³ benchmark examination. Those who failed to make 85 percent or better on IC³ exam were required to take a college-sponsored computing course covering Certiport IC³ objectives.
Broward's digital literacy entrance assessment is part of a pilot program in Florida targeted at the school's incoming 10,000 freshmen this year. The college had previously required students to take a one-credit course in computing to help improve their digital literacy but found that to be insufficient.
Only 15 percent of those 10,000 students passed the exam. The remainder are now being required to take a three-credit remediation course during their first semester. That 15 percent, incidentally, is about double the expected success rate of incoming freshman based on research reported by Certiport.
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About the author: Dave Nagel is the executive editor for 1105 Media's educational technology online publications and electronic newsletters. He can be reached at dnagel@1105media.com.
Have any additional questions? Want to share your story? Want to pass along a news tip? Contact Dave Nagel, executive editor, at dnagel@1105media.com.
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