asTTle Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning, Ministry of Education, University of Auckland, 2001-2004
When Professor John Hattie and the Ministry of Education wanted to fast track the development of a software tool to deliver his assessment methodologies to New Zealand Schools he asked Atlantech for assistance.
Not only was the project delivered on time and on budget but the software won the Computerworld 2003 Award for Excellence in the Use of IT in Education: Tertiary, Community and Commercial.
In making the award to asTTle, the judges specifically rated it best for innovation. This point was echoed by the Minister of Education, Trevor Mallard, in welcoming the asTTle win. "The Auckland University team have produced a tool of immense benefit to teachers that must surely have significant international potential. Using asTTle, teachers can quickly and easily check how well they are making progress in a way where the whole focus is on helping kids do better which is of course what we are most keen to see achieved."
"This is the best new education investment this government has made."
- Minister of Education, Trevor Mallard
The Requirement
The asTTle project was commissioned by the Ministry of Education to develop a tool to enable teachers to assess their own teaching and their students learning compared to their peers across the country.
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| Teachers use asTTle to help improve their teaching and identify areas where students need extra help. |
The software tool had to be made available to every teacher from Year 5 to Year 12 and provide the core curriculum areas of Reading, Writing and Mathematics in both English and in Maori.
The asTTle software generates tests from a pool of questions according to the content and difficulty levels the teacher requires. Students' answers to questions are input and scores are generated and can be compared through comprehensive reporting with nation-wide norms.
Our Role
Auckland UniServices asked Atlantech to provide strategic IT guidance, software design and project management expertise to meet the extremely tight deadlines agreed with the Ministry of Education.
We created an RFP and managed the selection process to select an external development team to do the Java development for the project. We project-managed the software development process for release of version 1 in July 2002 and version 2 of asTTle in January 2003.
Atlantech continues to work with the asTTle team in their ongoing development and delivery of the software as they add more years and address new subject areas.
For more information on how Atlantech can make SW project a reality contact us or email mike@atlantech.co.nz, our Software Development Manager.