Free Resources for ICT Functional Skills

The guroo functional skills service contains resources for Entry Level, Level 1 and Level 2 ICT functional skills.

These resources are based around a number of Learning Challenges, each of which is a real-life scenario. These provide contexts for practicing functional skills in an essential mix of familiar and unfamiliar situations.

In ICT for example, these include situations like a parent asking you for advice on buying a computer system,  organising a charity fun run, or applying for a well known TV talent show.

Each Learning Challenge contains a number of resources. Examples of each resources are listed below.

Where you see the Guroo 2.0 logo - these are updated or new resources that will be available to subscribers from September 2010.

Worksheet
Bright and colourful designs that you can download and print, or photocopy from the Tutor Pack. Every worksheet includes a glossary of terms and a number of related tasks, and is mapped to the functional skills standards as well as to key skills and ALAN curricula.

Click to download an example of a Level 1 ICT worksheet from the “Sing To Win” Challenge.
Click to download an example of a Level 2 ICT worksheet from the “Not A Penny More” Challenge.

New “Plan It” stage in tasks encourage learners to plan their approach and consider the skills they need. New “What If” scenarios in tasks give teachers useful extension material and homework options while challenging learners with new problems to solve. New “Try This” tasks at the end of upper level Challenges provide completely open and unscaffolded scenarios.

Solutions
For every worksheet, showing not only the correct (or exemplar) answers, but an explanation of the underlying learning.

Click to download an example of a Level 1 ICT solution sheet from the “Sing To Win” Challenge.
Click to download an example of a Level 2 ICT solution sheet from the “Not A Penny More” Challenge.

New feedback and guidance for “Plan It” stage in tasks

Interactive Online Tasks
All the tasks, solutions and learning feedback from the worksheets, available online 24/7 as interactive tasks that can be completed from anywhere, anytime. Great for Functional Skills homework.

Click to see an example of a Level 1 ICT interactive task from the “Sing To Win” Challenge.

Video
In a mix of styles, including some highly engaging material created by experienced Theatre in Education practitioners. Excellent for plenaries, these videos reinforce terminology and transferability of skills right from the start.

Click to see an example of a Level 1 ICT video from the “Sing To Win” Challenge.

New style videos

Podcasts
Audio files that can be played in class or downloaded to portable media players. Using a different approach and language from boththe videos and the worksheets, the podcasts provide yet another approach to explaining skills, their applications, terminology and usage.

Click to hear an example of a Level 1 ICT podcast sheet from the “Sing To Win” Challenge.

New style podcasts

Practice Questions
A number of online questions in different styles, reflecting the range of question types appearing in functional skills assessments. Attempts and scores are stored in the learner profile and are visible to teachers.

Click to see an example of Level 1 ICT example questions from the “Sing To Win” Challenge.

Please Note: the questions that subscribing customers see when logged in to guroo.co.uk are more “open” response than these sample questions. The examples here are limited to the question types available in VLE/SCORM type situations and therefore tend to be more “closed” response.

Lesson Plans
We provide at least 2 lesson plans for each Challenge, designed for use in typical one-computer classrooms and in computer labs. These can be adapted and extended by subject teachers, or used by non-specialists to deliver the volume of scenario-based practice that is necessary to achieve “functionality”.

Click to download an example of a Level 1 ICT lesson plan from the “Sing To Win” Challenge.
Click to download an example of a Level 2 ICT lesson plan from the “Not A Penny More” Challenge.

New Teacher Resources include not only detailed Lesson Plans (with hyperlinks to the resources) but also guidance on marking and levelling of “What If” and “Try This” scenarios.

… and in addition to all these Challenge-specific resources, there are other resources for Level 1 and Level 2 ICT such as interactive online activities, and longer practice question papers that can be completed online or on paper.

Functional Skills Standards Mapping
We’ve taken the functional skills standards for English and identified which guroo resources support each part of the standards - including where Mathematics and English resources contain elements that also relate to functional ICT. Customers get these as a set of A1 posters, but you can download them as a PDF by clicking here.

VLE Content
Guroo makes great functional skills resources for your VLE. We even supply ready-made SCORM packages for each Learning Challenge to make it easy to upload and maintain on any SCORM-compliant platform.
Click here for a sample SCORMed version of the ICT Level 1 Challenge “Sing To Win”.

Plus …

14 New Challenges, each aligned with a Diploma line of learning (but usable by everyone). Every Challenge contains cross-curriculum content and resources for all 5 levels, from Entry Level 1 to Level 2. A bank of exam-style practice questions

Subscribers automatically receive all new and updated materials as it becomes available.

Contact us to find out how your whole site can subscribe to guroo.