Intellect: ICT classes should be scrapped

ICT, in its current form - not good

I agree. I'm from a Computing background. Grad 1993. I've almost completed a second PGCE to teach ICT at secondary school level - chosen because I want to make a difference to what the students learn. I am hoping that the right people will be able to contribute to the development of what could be a fantastic suite of IT/Computing courses. As an already qualified and experienced HE lecturer and trainer in industry, I feel driven to work in Secondary education, because of the huge effort required to give students the skills that their ICT courses should have given them. It's a real shame and it doesn't need to be this way. But, I don't blame all the ICT teachers. They have to follow the National Strategies Framework / National curriculum and they are under a lot of pressure. One student told me that he has just spent two years on his course taking screen shots to show that he can do very basic ICT tasks, such as copy files and spell checking documents. He said he hasn't learned much new. Yet there is so much to learn.
Elaine

By eagles17 on 20 Apr 2011

Same / different in Scotland

I'm a probationary Computing teacher in Scotland and can say there's a degree of doing this already in place up here.

The new "Curriculum for Excellence" which is used in Primary schools and the first year of secondary (rolling up through secondary on a year by year basis) includes core ICT skills. Children are expected to become competent at basic skills, identifying & using appropriate packages for tasks, game design and so on.

However, you always have to remember that children come from a huge variety of backgrounds. Some will take to ICT like little ducks to water, others will struggle, some will have no issues with basic file handling while others will never be able to organise their work, but could be outstanding developers.

At present, at the school where I work, we have one period per week for each S1 and S2 pupil to get through our varied Computing classes. We cover internet safety, programming, animation, multimedia and a host of other topics using as wide a variety of packages as possible. Our uptake for the certificate courses in S3 is high - a record, I believe, for this forthcoming year.

As Elaine / eagles17 says, we're bound by the curriculum up here as much as the folk down south are. We're also currently restricted in our certificate courses by the huge gap between Intermediate 1 (the lesser qualification) and Int 2 (slightly higher). There's little crossover in subject matter making it hard for pupils to advance from one to the other, or indeed drop down. Hopefully these issues will be rectified with the upcoming replacement certifications in the next 2-3 years.

The major difference I've found is that I was brought up programming as I *had* to if I wanted anything to work on my ZX-81, Amstrad CPC-464 and so on. These days is you want a utility to do something, you download it from the 'net!

Kids aren't as interested in the nuts and bolts of getting something working. They just want it to work in the easiest possible way.

The issue isn't channelling the "gifted" children into the more technical channels, it's finding these increasingly rare types in the first place to encourage this. CfE does encourage primary schools to begin simple games development at an early age which may help, and we do Scratch development in S2 which has *really* captured the imagination of many of the 60 children I teach at that stage.

However, there's no single solution for the simple reason that there is no such thing as a generic child.

By Mosher on 20 Apr 2011

Re-introduce Computer Science

It's a real subject (unlike ICT) and should cover the basics of programming and use ideally C and some Visual Basic.
Once the basic skills are established, split later years into Computer programming and computer design - pure coding or web/database/illustration topics.
Perhaps we can avoid sinking into an Idiocracy.

By cheysuli on 20 Apr 2011

Guess what - it's complicated...

I attended an ICT leaders course recently, where cloud apps were being discussed and found myself the only person actively promoting their use. For most secondary ICT teachers trying to innovate is like steering an oil tanker down a delta - network management, software investments, e-safety issues, curriculum, exams etc are a such vast cargo.
I recently advocated a change of the discipline's name to: TAT (Technologically Aided Thinking) because of course ICT isn't a real subject, but too many teachers will quietly avoid embedding the use of the technology in their day-to-day teaching because: the kit's old or clunky, their personal skills aren't up to it or they simply haven't realised how much the world is changing...
Digital Literacy is just an aspect of Literacy/English really - but just try advocating in public for media studies as an core skill and see what that gets you from the press...
I do at: http://www.digitalglue.org

By magiclanternman on 20 Apr 2011

Computer Science

When I was at school, we learnt how a computer works - but that was back when a review of a new computer in a magazine like PC Pro would take 6 pages and include details on what each custom chip on the motherboard did!

German magazines, like c't, still provide in-depth analysis of new chips as they are brought out (3-4 pages on how the latest caching techniques and extensions to the Sandy Bridge processor family, for example.

On the ICT side, most of the students I've seen, both here in Germany and in England still don't understand the basics of Word formatting with styles, for example, let alone anything useful.

When it comes to the technical side of computers, it is generally even worse.

Without knowing how a computer works, you can't really be a good programmer. A grounding in the basics (not in-depth on individual processors), how caches work, how a processor interprets instructions etc. is vitally important in making a good programmer.

The apprentices we take on for programming jobs these days don't seem to have a clue about optimisation for processors, even the basics, like always testing for a positive outcome, where possible, aren't taught - testing for a negative takes an extra clock cycle or two.

It doesn't sound like much, but add it up into a large application, especially on a web server with thousands of users accessing it at the same time, it can make a huge difference.

On one site, the menu system could take upto 30 seconds to execute a SQL query! And the server would collapse under 50 users, the whole thing was load-balanced over 4 servers. When a PayPal newsletter featured the site, the admin would sit there all day and all night and have to restart the MySQL database every couple of minutes!

After a couple of hours of analysis of the code and the SQL, the query ran in under 0.5 seconds (down from 30) and each server could handle several hundred users and the admin didn't have to restart the server every 2 minutes, when the newlsetter appeared.

That was something the whole team, of under 25s, didn't understand, because nobody had ever taught them about such optimisation techniques.

There was nothing "wrong" with the original code, in terms of logic, just it wasn't optimised.

By big_D on 21 Apr 2011

The problem for ICT is they most aim to teach basic office skills...in otherwords how to use MS office.

I frankly learnt more about computers from reading/watching console hacking conferences and reading wikipedia in lessons.

There were few exceptions of course (e.g. 1 term in year 6 on lego robots, 1 term in year 8 or 9 on basic HTML, how barcodes work, etc.) But they were overall in a minority.

Year 2 GCSEs on the other hand were more 'fun' when we switched to OCR diplomas and did things like web design in Dreamweaver or A levels where we had more choice (did one course in Photoshop which has been useful since).

That said, I would have preferred it if they had also taught us how to e.g. program or how computers actually work on a more technical level.

That said, the other pupils probably wouldn't have cared and would just play games or facebook using a proxy.

Just wondering, does anyone know a good book for trying to learn how to program in C?

By tech3475 on 21 Apr 2011

Wow! a Pressure group talking sense?

What a breath of fresh air, someone talking sense about computers and schools for a change.

Teaching kids "Office skills" in ICT actually never went that far, as far as I can see. Yes, they had to learn how to open and save a file, create and delete one, but did they learn VBA programming skills to make the Application produce results they wanted? No. Did they even learn how to create useful things like multi-table relational databases? No.

If a serious change is to be made, it will need a huge pile of money to equip schools one computer per child and to train teachers to use it effectively. That'll take at least ten years though at the glacial pace of change UK government moves at - by which time (as usual) the world will have moved on.

By SwissMac on 21 Apr 2011

Would it be helpful if sixth formers were offered software-specific courses?

Those choosing to go into office life after their A-Levels would at least have some qualifications on their CV that may make the difference to an employer looking for a school-leaver who has such a targeted skill.

By cookster on 27 Apr 2011

At the mercy of legislation

I am new to teaching but have a Computer Science degree and have worked in both public and private business sectors before taking up teaching, which I love, having worked in a similar role in the past.

Whilst I agree that the fundamentals of ICT are inherently flawed, it must be remembered that teachers did not write the specifications. People who are years out of date working for out of touch governments with political agendas to see high pass rates mandated the course content.

I teach ECDL, AS/A2 Computing, Level 2 and Level 3 BTec IT and am soon to start GCSE Computing. I am really looking forward to the GCSE Computing as it means that we will be able to challenge our more able pupils from an earlier age. IF THE SYLLABUS permits then I will look to teach them how to make mobile and web apps, but frequently there simply is insufficient time if we as teachers are to give EVERYONE the chance of passing. That means having to slow down and spend more time dealing with the naughty / disinterested / disheartened / bullied / individual needs groups and individuals.

Try teaching 30 individuals with headaches, PE in 30 minutes, just been dumped and a whole raft of other concerns that using a spreadsheet is important. I manage to find ways (i hope) but it is sometimes at the cost of the kids in the room who might run their own business some day. Simply put, until the curriculum builds in sufficient leeway for teachers to teach to learn rather than to meet examination criteria (oh hang on that's the BTec, nope too many low level criteria there too making A4 written reports) kids will switch off.

As for my classes, well I am trialling a scheme with one where they conceptualise a game / app / application of what they learnt doing ECDL into a business idea and then the class will go on to design it as a collective with my tuition. Sadly not all schools have the luxury of this level of skills but in an ideal world they would invest in training and development for their staff and allow them the freedom to challenge kids to learn for the sake of learning and not for a 90 minute exam (oh they are mandated by the government too).

Perhaps a Super BTec where it is simply a case of the teacher witnessing evidence of work and no writing reports? Kids simply learn through doing and teachers can have the freedom to explore avenues of interest for groups and individuals - would make for a great experiment (that would need tons of planning) to implement a year-long skills based learning programme... sounds like fun!

By Jon_Torbitt on 9 Jun 2011

Remember Your Classmate

14 years in industry and 4 years teaching now, a first class degree in computer science.

Yes I would would love to teach computing and not ICT. However in the Ofsted outstanding school I teach at you have to be realistic, you need to teach all pupils at all abilities, think back to some of your class mates, could you really imagine all of them programming at GCSE? Computing will suit the gifted, talented and passionate, but there are few of them. Do I enjoy teaching OCR Nationals, where they screen shot how to send an e-mail, how to copy a file - not really - mostly because I have to explain how to do it to the majority of kids who have no idea how to. This may be difficult for a PC Pro reader to grasp, but hey, you were probably the gifted, talented and passionate one. True kids know how to Facetube, they know how to game, they know how to click without thinking, sadly without ICT that is probably all they would know how to do. One last thing - programming might not be mentioned in the national curriculum, but control is, what better way to teach that than controlling those little sprites in Scratch?

By mulder101 on 8 Oct 2011