Choosing a Format for the External Product
An external assessment requires students to design and produce a digital product for a specified audience, accompanied by a design rationale. The task sheet lists acceptable formats: a website, a short video, an interactive presentation, or a printed booklet. A student, Tomas, proposes a mobile app prototype because he has been learning app development. His rationale argues the audience (year 9 students) mostly uses phones. The teacher notes the task sheet does not list apps, that the school's marking panel has no expertise in app code, and that Tomas's prototype would require a live server the school cannot host at submission. Tomas insists the app is the best fit for the audience and that refusing it is unfair. The submission deadline is three weeks away.
1. Advise the teacher on whether to approve the app prototype, justifying the decision.
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The teacher should not approve the app prototype in its proposed form. External assessment requires that the product can be reliably submitted, stored and marked against the published criteria. A live-server app creates submission and marking risks the school cannot manage, and the listed formats signal what the panel can assess. Approving it would also create inequity, because Tomas would be assessed on skills the criteria do not cover while other students follow the listed formats. The teacher should explain this to Tomas clearly, acknowledge that his audience reasoning is sound, and offer a compliant alternative that preserves the audience insight - for example, a website designed for mobile screens, or an interactive presentation that mimics app navigation. The decision should be recorded and applied consistently if other students ask.
2. Explain how Tomas could still demonstrate his audience analysis within an approved format.
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Tomas can keep the substance of his rationale: the year 9 audience's mobile usage, the need for short interactions, and the navigation patterns he observed. He can apply these to a mobile-responsive website or an interactive presentation with large touch targets and minimal text per screen. In his design rationale he can explain why he chose the approved format, how it meets the audience's mobile behaviour, and what trade-offs he accepted compared with a native app. This preserves the analytical work the criteria reward while keeping the product submittable and markable. The teacher should confirm the chosen format meets the task sheet, check that the product can be submitted in a stable form (for example, exported files or a hosted static site), and remind Tomas that the rationale must justify design decisions against the audience, not the technology.