News Gove bemoans UK technology education at BETT

Time to start learning, he says. Quite.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2012/01/12/gove-bemoans-uk-technology-education/1

 

I did a bit of networking work in a lot of secondary schools about 4 years ago. The thing that shocked me was the teachers used ICT lessons as a bit of downtime for themselves as the kids were able to keep themselves entertained by playing flash games on the internet.

When I first saw this going on I put it down to a one off incident and thought nothing more but repeatedly seeing it happen over a couple of years was so upsetting.

My 2 boys will be being taught ICT by me when they hit secondary school age.

 

I think it'll be interesting to see how they'll find enough decent quality computing teachers, especially with no additional budget over current courses. Otherwise it may well be a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted - it's a little late in the day to be thinking about this when many developers have already jumped ship. Hopefully this can keep what we have going, and rekindle more interest in UK development.

On the other hand, for those not interested in it, computer science can be very dry (even for those who are interested in it), unintelligable and dull, which is hardly an improvement (then again so is RS, English, History, Geography (in my opinion, based on my experience of schools teaching said subjects) but those are still in the curriculum).

 

When I was at school we had business studies which was basically how to type (pre office) and we had Computer Science most of which was taught on the BBC.

I believe this is a good model although basic computer use is so important these days it would probably be better to integrate it into other subjects as using a computer is not a really a separate skill any more. When I say basic I mean an office suite and searching.


/Ramblings of an old man

 

On the contrary I think current education is far too computer-centric and core skills are being neglected. Over reliance upon computers is having a detrimental effect upon childrens to even write!

 

Interesting. I'll have a look into this.

I'm letting the oldest have fun on the PC for the moment. He's only 3 but he's an absolute demon on trackmania and renegade ops! He can easily be put in front of the PC and find his way onto the Ceebeebies games website via a shortcut on the desktop. He's fully grasped the operation of using a touch screen tablet thanks to all the free or very cheap educational apps available on the android market.

The wife isn't best pleased though. She says I'm making a little gamer out of him. I keep saying it's time invested in his ICT education. I'm right.

 

Urgh, secondary school ICT education is hilarious. By which I mean, a total farce.

We have maths and humanities teachers taking ICT lessons which mostly involve PowerPoint and an old version of Flowol. For their final two years, they have to make 'e-portfolios,'* which is basically a website in Dreamweaver.

Their most complicated task is making sure all their hyperlinks work, which can be hard when your teacher has no formal ICT training.

If I were a kid taking ICT now, I'd be transferring to another subject. Graphics is nice, we have Photoshop CS5 (awesomewin) and a teacher who's taken a Photoshop course.



The only thing I'd like to bring up from the article, is that Scratch was mentioned. I think we looked at that (for a Science department after school club of all things,) but there was something wrong with it. It's been a while now, but IIR it may have used the GTK framework which allows the kids to access the local C: drive under Windows, a big no, no.


* 'e-portfolio,' I don't know who comes up with these names, but I guess it's shorter than 'teal coloured, tables based website from 1998.'

 

I love the comments here, even though (or because) they are identical to comments posted on every other wbsite. Just because some of you had poor ICT teachers, it doesn't make ICT poor as a subject. I have had poor waitresses, doctors, taxi drivers etc. but don't feel the need to call for their jobs to be scrapped or apply my subjective experiences to the rest of their profession. In my school, we do video editing, sound editing, computer control, Flash animations, graphics, 2D design and the office stuff too. Like it or not, most students have an idea of how to use office software, but try asking them to create an agenda, or a presentation aimed at adults and then aimed at children and you will quickly see the gaps in their knowledge. Being told what I should and shouldn't be teaching to my students by people who don't teach is akin to me giving a brain surgeon advice on the best procedures. By all means, reform the curriculum but after 16+ years of teaching, I can honestly say that I have never been consulted on a single change; maybe speaking to the actual teachers might have helped with a more useful reform.

 

I am really fed up with the ICT bashing favoured by many people across many different sites and in the media. Just because some of you had poor ICT teachers, it doesn't make ICT poor as a subject. I have had poor waitresses, doctors, taxi drivers etc. but don't feel the need to call for their jobs to be scrapped or apply my subjective experiences to the rest of their profession. In my school, we do video editing, sound editing, computer control, Flash animations, graphics, 2D design and the office stuff too. Like it or not, most students have an idea of how to use office software, but try asking them to create an agenda, or a presentation aimed at adults and then aimed at children and you will quickly see the gaps in their knowledge. Being told what I should and shouldn't be teaching to my students by people who don't teach is akin to me giving a brain surgeon advice on the best procedures. By all means, reform the curriculum but after 16+ years of teaching, I can honestly say that I have never been consulted on a single change; maybe speaking to the actual teachers might have helped with a more useful reform.

I can guarantee that in 10 years, people will bemoan how they were forced to code and create apps in their computer lessons but they have never used those skills again. Instead, they will be asking why they weren't taught how to create a decent CV or plan their finances with a spreadsheet

It is all cyclical!

 

i left school 9 years ago and even then i used to think why is ict nothing to do with the actual computers its just how to use word, excel and powerpoint. our main project was to come up with a company and make promotional materials and accounts sheets for said company but it didnt even have to use formulas at all and the criteria for the promotional stuff was that it was eye catching so it was about being creative not ict at all. we had teachers who just did ict only but like has been said they seemed bored and used the lesson like a break period.

everything i know about how a computer works and how to put them together has been self taught from the internet (mostly bit-tech) and some books none at all from school.

 

i was never taught how to write my cv or plan my finances on a spreadsheet in my lessons. like has been mentioned our teachers didnt seem to care for our actual education about the computer and we did sometimes play games in lessons because we werent actually being taught anything by the teacher who would come in and tell us to get on with what we were working on then they would promptly sit in their office for the rest of the time.
i agree that some schools are a lot better than others when it comes to ict but everyone i have spoken to about thier own ict education has the same point of view that they should have learnt about the actual computer and how to troubleshoot when it goes wrong instead of what they did learn as cv, letter and finance layouts can be learnt or downloaded from the internet and it is quite easy to teach yourself how to type in a search box to find such things.

 

when i was in school, if i wanted to do computer studies, you had to take rsa typing, which, back in the early-mid 80's was seen as a girls only subject

 

When I was at school 15 years ago, we had business studies and then also a 15 part IT class teaching DTP, Word Pro etc. Fast forward to today and my kids school teaches Networking, Game design (coding and artistic, using scratch and/or modifying games like the quake 3 engine), HTML (Dreamweaver and code, depending on the childs ability and if they choose to do it) and/or website design, flash, photoshop, building PC's ... on top of all the basics like Word Pro, DTP, Spreadsheets, Powerpoint etc. Writing a CV and learning about taxes or "daily life" is done in Citizenship, a basic lesson I assumed was a country wide thing. Even my sons "workshop" class has became "Systems and Controls"; an amalgamation of workshop, electronics and computing programming.

I know my kids secondary school is more of an exception than the rule (it even calls itself an I.T and Maths College) but all my friends kids in the area that attend other schools get access to similar educations when it comes to computer studies. Maybe we are just lucky down here in the mid-south but I assumed that this was they way things are in schools these days across the country. These are of course choices above the usual basic ICT on how to use a PC, as they should be. No point teaching a student to build a PC if they want to be a lifegaurd or bricklayer. The basics, yes of course; same as we don't teach every child to be a chef, but they are taught to cook various meals, use a microwave, food mixers ... perhaps Jamie Oliver can get on to Gove about that

 

I remember IT lessons at school...

... me teaching the teachers how to use the school's new PC

 

And you can't find out how to troubleshoot or build a PC from the internet?

So, to follow a lot of the logic I have heard from others, science students should be able to heal people, maths students should be off solving our national debt crisis, business studies students should all have their own businesses too; I don't want to think about those who have had any sex education classes

It is not our job to churn out programmers or developers, rather we are supposed to turn students into discerning users of ICT. We give them the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in their chosen field, not the field chosen for them by Livingstone or Gove or me.

If students want to go into an area in more depth, then great! They can choose to do that in their own time or at a later date, as many people do.

I'm not against change, but I am against people tarnishing my subject based on their subjective experiences.

 

@CashMoney IT and ICT are not the same thing, ICT must be taught by secondary schools, whereas IT is optional (for the school not the student) and is usually taught at a higher level (collage). at least thats my understanding.

My thoughts are that the skills taught in ICT are useful but there currently no skills that relate to the computing industry and there needs to be.
You have to learn art for 3 years and that imo is a more specialized subject than computing, my point being that i think theres room for computing on the curriculum to have its own subject separate from ICT.

 

I couldn't agree more.

Also, if you look at the qualifications being pushed by the govt now, they are all well past it; they require a written exam at the end and far too much "chalk & talk".

Sadly enough, one of the qualifications that had the potential to allow more choice is the bane of the govt because it was abused by most schools to boost the 5 A* - C. There were units on web design, graphics, animation, employment in ICT and more, but most schools did the "easier" units instead.

Having taught this as a proper option subject, I enjoy seeing the students producing a banner advert in Flash and then incorporating that in their website, alongside the buttons and other images created in Fireworks. We also used PowerPoint to create a multimedia branching presentation that could be used to teach young children the alphabet and sign language. Can't see how many people can say that the content I have mentioned is less engaging than coding

If students want to code/program then there are many good 16+ options for them, just like there are for budding sociologists, psychologists, social workers, rocket scientists and medics.

 

We have bread a generation of secretarys and paper pushers, nothing more.

I didn’t take a single ICT lesson in post 13 education, mail merges and spreadsheets simply didn’t interest me. In fact I found it insulting when I did the taster lessons, a trained monkey could do such tasks.

I am an IT Technician and was 100% self taught when I started my apprenticeship in 2007.

The government needs to cash in on all of the enthusiastic and very bright young boys and girls that show an interest in IT. Where I currently work there are some exceptional minds who far surpass my knowledge of some aspects of IT and yet are stuck hammering out ****ing spread sheets and concert posters.

A few kids could quite competently pick up my day to day job and we are talking about 13-15 year olds!

You get this in every subject, but IT is by far the worst.

I had a shitty unchallenged and unstimulated school life, needs to change or we are going to breed a generation of mindless consumers rather than thinkers and developers!