This chapter reviews the contribution of new information-communication technologies to the advancement of educational assessment. Improvements can be described in terms of precision in detecting the actual values of the observed variables, efficiency in collecting and processing information, and speed and frequency of feedback given to the participants and stakeholders. The chapter reviews previous research and development in two ways, describing the main tendencies in four continents (Asia, Australia, Europe and the US) as well as summarizing research on how technology advances assessment in certain crucial dimensions (assessment of established constructs, extension of assessment domains, assessment of new constructs and in dynamic situations). As there is a great variety of applications of assessment in education, each one requiring different technological solutions, the chapter classifies assessment domains, purposes and contexts and identifies the technological needs and solutions for each. The chapter reviews the contribution of technology to the advancement of the entire educational evaluation process, from authoring and automatic generation and storage of items, through delivery methods (Internetbased, local server, removable media, mini-computer labs) to forms of task presentation made possible with technology for response capture, scoring and automated feedback and reporting. Finally, the chapter identifies areas for which further Chapter 4

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The study of educational innovations has become increasingly important in education research as many countries around the world have embarked on education reforms that aim to change both the goals and practices in education. There is also a general expectation that such innovations can be leveraged or supported by the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in the learning and teaching process. However, comparative studies of innovations are relatively rare. SITES M2, as an international comparative study of innovative pedagogical practices involving 28 participating systems, thus faced important methodological challenges the solution of which was no less an innovation in itself. This paper examines the methods of analysis used and the kind of research findings that resulted from the work of three research teams that had conducted comparisons of the case studies of innovation collected, including the work of the SITES M2 International Coordinating Centre (ICC). Even though all three studies attempted to examine similarities and differences across multiple case studies, the analysis conducted by the ICC looked for characterizations of the innovations while the other two studies developed meaningful ways to compare the cases in terms of "levels of innovation" across a number of dimensions. In discussing the methodological differences across these studies, this paper pays special attention to how one could compare different innovations in terms of their levels or extents of innovation and what such comparisons may contribute to our learning from technology-supported education innovations.

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) government launched a five-year ICT strategy in schools in late 1998. This paper reports the findings of the analysis on models of change in 18 schools striving to integrate the use of ICT in teaching and learning across the school curriculum. The study shows that the strategy adopted by a school in instituting such change and the resulting variation of pedagogical practices using ICT is strongly dependent on the school leaders' vision and understanding of the role and impact of ICT in the curriculum, their goals and objectives for ICT integration, as well as the history, culture and background of the school and its general vision and mission.