Opportunity and Excellence?
Tony Degerdon
teaching of IT at KS3 the gov now turns around and says this about 14-19.
"Information and Communications Technology (ICT) will also remain
compulsory. However, we expect pupils increasingly to develop their ICT
skills through other subjects. In time, ICT may no longer need to be
discretely specified as a statutorily required National Curriculum subject.
Many pupils will, of course, wish to pursue ICT in more depth and to gain
appropriate qualifications;"
*sigh*
So instead of developing a culture of using IT for your other subjects at
KS3 and then providing focussed or vocational courses at KS4 so that they
can have a relevant qualification we are going to use all the computer
facilities to teach discrete IT at KS3 so that they can't use it in their
other subjects, and then from KS4 on we are going to hope that other
subjects develop a sudden desire to use IT.
Anyone else got any thoughts on the govs 14 - 19 opportunity and excellence
post consultation conclusions?
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/14-19/index.shtml
Deg.
`p
"Tony Degerdon" <tony.d...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:b55hvq$3sk$1...@venus.btinternet.com...
teachers, there weren't enough colleges running the PGCEs, they closed
down the most of the courses so that there's only half a dozen left; now
there's an IT industry recession, the jobs are gone (exported to cheaper
places like India and gone for good thanks to the gov'ts policy of
allowing IT visas to train the cheap labour here lol) so now there's the
experienced talent around looking for career changes and considering
teaching so . . . . . . Doesn't it make you proud to be British that
our politicans could debate how many angels can dance on the head of a
pin.
This is the looking glass gov't after all, Degsy. Why do anything the
easy way when you can totally f*** things/people up by changing policy
tack every 10 minutes.
Politicians. You've got to love 'em, the alternatives are all illegal
any way. ;-)
--
`p
gertie@grumbles
<tony.d...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> So having just about forced schools to adopt a discrete approach to
> the teaching of IT at KS3
[Snip]
> Anyone else got any thoughts on the govs 14 - 19 opportunity and
> excellence post consultation conclusions?
yes
I speak as a primary teacher with two children in KS3 atm
I think this is very sensible.
The KS2 ICT curriculum covers wordprocessing, DTP, web pages,
multimedia, databases of various kinds, sensing, control, monitoring,
internet resources, vector and bitmap graphics, and prolly more; at
least two half-term units on each.
Many children are reaching a very high level of competence in some of
these areas by end of KS2, which can be consolidated in KS3.
Those who want to pursue vocational or in depth studies can choose to
do so - what do the rest get out of repeating the same stuff or even
studying them further? The time can be better put into other
subjects, using ICT where helpful.
Offer computer science instead, as a separate CGSE subject.
--
Gertie.
Award-winning bog cleaner, agony aunt and now Latin scholar.
Veni, vidi, Vim (I came, I saw, I cleaned)
Who is this General Failure chap anyway - and why is he reading my HD?
Ian
If so surely there would be demand for teacher training from those who
have lost or can't get a job?
(exported to cheaper
> places like India and gone for good thanks to the gov'ts policy of
> allowing IT visas to train the cheap labour here lol)
Seems reasonable way of getting developing economies to grow. Seems a bit
unfair to simply protect the knowledge base here at the expense of poor
countries. I think the US will be hit hardest, especially given the
interest in India and the Far East in using free software products.
> so now there's the
> experienced talent around looking for career changes and considering
> teaching so . . . . . .
So the universities should see the opportunity and start up the courses -
if of course there really is an opportunity
> Doesn't it make you proud to be British that
> our politicans could debate how many angels can dance on the head of a
> pin.
Our politicians aren't that much different from others.The probelm is in
people relying too much on them and not getting on and making things
happen themselves.
> This is the looking glass gov't after all, Degsy. Why do anything the
> easy way when you can totally f*** things/people up by changing policy
> tack every 10 minutes
If you support high standards in your school, the way you do it is
unlikely to be an issue. Government policy is largely an attempt to
provide crutches for those who don't know how to do it ;-)
--
IanL
ZMS Ltd - Education Management Consultants
WWW.thelearningmachine.co.uk
WWW.theINGOTs.org
Ian
> In article <b55hvq$3sk$1...@venus.btinternet.com>, Tony Degerdon
> <tony.d...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>> So having just about forced schools to adopt a discrete approach to the
>> teaching of IT at KS3
>
> [Snip]
>
>> Anyone else got any thoughts on the govs 14 - 19 opportunity and
>> excellence post consultation conclusions?
>
>
> yes
>
> I speak as a primary teacher with two children in KS3 atm
>
> I think this is very sensible.
>
> The KS2 ICT curriculum covers wordprocessing, DTP, web pages,
> multimedia, databases of various kinds, sensing, control, monitoring,
> internet resources, vector and bitmap graphics, and prolly more; at
> least two half-term units on each.
>
> Many children are reaching a very high level of competence in some of
> these areas by end of KS2, which can be consolidated in KS3.
Many perhaps but by no means all. A bigger priority is to get larger
numbers onsistently to a good standard at the end of KS2 and to raise
expectations so that those standards are equivalent in demand to what is
expected in Ma, Sc and En. I believe we are still some way away on that
score.
Yes, specialist qualifications in KS4 and post 16 should not be compulsory
but it should be mandatory to get all to a minimum skill level in the use
of things like document production, information searching and drawing
diagrams. I certainly wouldn't put spreadsheets and databases in the same
league as priorities. Very few people in a work situation will construct a
data base and most will use them without really knowing when they search
the Internet. When databases came to the fore back in the 80s, there was
no Internet and really priorities need to change with the technology. Ok
spreadsheets have greater application but mostly incircumstances where the
mathematical demand is far greater than the technical skill in setting up
the sheet. In a subject like maths or business spreadsheets can easily be
taught in context, whereas it makes much more sense to teach document
production as a separate core skill a) because its more complex to do the
regularly required things correctly and b) because its the thing that will
get used the most.
Tony Degerdon
news:pan.2003.03.18...@ntlworld.com...
> On Tue, 18 Mar 2003 08:09:27 +0000, gertie@grumbles wrote:
>
.....snip.....
> > The KS2 ICT curriculum covers wordprocessing, DTP, web pages,
> > multimedia, databases of various kinds, sensing, control, monitoring,
> > internet resources, vector and bitmap graphics, and prolly more; at
> > least two half-term units on each.
> >
> > Many children are reaching a very high level of competence in some of
> > these areas by end of KS2, which can be consolidated in KS3.
>
> Many perhaps but by no means all. A bigger priority is to get larger
> numbers onsistently to a good standard at the end of KS2 and to raise
> expectations so that those standards are equivalent in demand to what is
> expected in Ma, Sc and En. I believe we are still some way away on that
> score.
You always say this and it always confuses me. The 14-19 paper makes the
distinction between teaching IT to GCSE level and what it calls 'Computing
Skills'. When you talk about what you would like to see more of it sounds
as though you mean 'Computing Skills' and I don't really see how they can be
equated with traditional subjects like Ma, Sc, En.
One of the problems with the KS3 strategy at the moment is that they have
run out of 'skills' to teach and so they spend half the time teaching people
about other subjects through the context of IT. This includes things like
teaching people about what logos are and what they are used for; teaching
people about what kind of information people will want to know about the
weather and teaching people what key words to look for when trying to
establish if a source is a fact or an opinion. All good stuff but hardly
worth inventing a new subject called KS3ICT and training up staff to deliver
it when this is already being delivered in other subjects (I hope).
If you reduce IT to a simple skills based subject then would you really want
parity with Ma, Sc and En? You certainly wouldn't need that amount of time
to do it, and I don't think you would want a cumbersome assessment regime
either. What would be wrong with using a simple tick box approach like
Ingots?
Deg.
Darren Smith
"gertie@grumbles" <ger...@grumbles.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:4bd5044f...@nospamplease.net...
> The KS2 ICT curriculum covers wordprocessing, DTP, web pages,
> multimedia, databases of various kinds, sensing, control, monitoring,
> internet resources, vector and bitmap graphics, and prolly more; at
> least two half-term units on each.
Err .. studying further will give them knowledge of topics not covered in
primary such as layered graphics/pixel editing, video editing, sound editing
and the such. I'm not saying that these can't aren't being taught at some
primary schools but there is not enough time to teach everything. Also can
you imageine teaching relational databases to y7 'coz they did databases in
primary school!!!
> Many children are reaching a very high level of competence in some of
> these areas by end of KS2, which can be consolidated in KS3.
In my humble experience primary school kids are coming to me in KS3 with
higher skills at particular topics but none of them are any good at design,
testing or evaluation.
> Those who want to pursue vocational or in depth studies can choose to
> do so - what do the rest get out of repeating the same stuff or even
> studying them further? The time can be better put into other
> subjects, using ICT where helpful.
Strange comment. Why study maths further? Why study science further? I get
the impression you don't fully understand what we are doing at key stage 3.
Most of us are not teaching Office and skills exclusively.
> Offer computer science instead, as a separate CGSE subject.
Why ... ??? That's like saying offer biology instead of physics. Different
subjects.
--
darren
gertie@grumbles
<da...@dagza.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
> Strange comment. Why study maths further? Why study science
> further?
Many people don't, once they become optional subjects.
> I get the impression you don't fully understand what we
> are doing at key stage 3. Most of us are not teaching Office and
> skills exclusively.
Hmmm ....I was going on my own children's current KS 3 experiences in
two separate secondary schools, and those reported back to me by
ex-pupils.
> > Offer computer science instead, as a separate CGSE subject.
> Why ... ??? That's like saying offer biology instead of physics.
> Different subjects.
I didn't really see it like that.... I was seeing it as ICT is
learning the tools - like people learn to read and write ... then
they use the tools to study something different.
Like it or not.....
I had a very useful meeting with a year 7 maths teacher and other
year 6 teaching colleagues from the secondary's feeder primary
schools last week, and with similar groupings from other secondary
and feeder primaries.
By the end of the afternoon, some of the secondary teachers were
beginning to realise that they had been undervaluing what work is
done in the primaries; had been making the children go back to a low
level and repeat work they had been competent for some time; had no
idea what we are teaching and one even said she felt primary teachers
had every right to feel aggrieved at how dismissive secondary
teachers could be about what was done before they got the children at
11.
They even learned some things about the maths skills of the teachers
present and from them, and had the grace to admit this.
This represented huge progress - I would like to see the same sort of
recognition in ICT.
;o)
For the children's sakes.
--
Gertie.
Award-winning bog cleaner, agony aunt and now Latin scholar.
Veni, vidi, Vim (I came, I saw, I cleaned)
A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
Ian
> "Ian" <ian.l...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> news:pan.2003.03.18...@ntlworld.com...
>> On Tue, 18 Mar 2003 08:09:27 +0000, gertie@grumbles wrote:
>>
>>
> .....snip.....
>
>> > The KS2 ICT curriculum covers wordprocessing, DTP, web pages,
>> > multimedia, databases of various kinds, sensing, control, monitoring,
>> > internet resources, vector and bitmap graphics, and prolly more; at
>> > least two half-term units on each.
>> >
>> > Many children are reaching a very high level of competence in some of
>> > these areas by end of KS2, which can be consolidated in KS3.
>>
>> Many perhaps but by no means all. A bigger priority is to get larger
>> numbers onsistently to a good standard at the end of KS2 and to raise
>> expectations so that those standards are equivalent in demand to what
>> is expected in Ma, Sc and En. I believe we are still some way away on
>> that score.
>
> You always say this and it always confuses me. The 14-19 paper makes
> the distinction between teaching IT to GCSE level and what it calls
> 'Computing Skills'. When you talk about what you would like to see more
> of it sounds as though you mean 'Computing Skills' and I don't really
> see how they can be equated with traditional subjects like Ma, Sc, En.
We teach English Language mainly because of the basic skills it provides,
ability to spell, punctuate and so on. Literature is different in that its
a more in-depth study of applications. If we didn't have a tradition of
teaching maths 12% of the time we would at least think that teaching the
basic skills in maths used by most people most often would be the highest
priority. Many people argue that a lot of the GCSE maths that is taught is
not that useful to most people but its embedded and here to stay. I draw a
distinction in IT between the skills most people need which should be
universal and a more in-depth study for people who have a specific
interest. Unless we conjure up a curriculum that operates on a 30 or 40
hour week its simply not possible to give every subject 10% or more of
compulsory curriculum time so I would rather we achieved the highest
priority with some quality for all than put in place unworkable political
policy as is far too evident in the past. I go round a lot of schools and
we are still in a position where many teachers and pupils still don't
layout work properly in a word processor, and worse don't even know there
is anything lacking in what they are doing. Getting such practicalities
sorted out is to me a much more important issue than worrying about
whether or not all kids are doing a GCSE in IT.
> One of the problems with the KS3 strategy at the moment is that they
> have run out of 'skills' to teach and so they spend half the time
> teaching people about other subjects through the context of IT.
All this tells me is that the people teaching the subject and/or
specifying the skills don't know enough.
> This includes things like
> teaching people about what logos are and what they are used for;
> teaching people about what kind of information people will want to know
> about the weather and teaching people what key words to look for when
> trying to establish if a source is a fact or an opinion. All good stuff
> but hardly worth inventing a new subject called KS3ICT and training up
> staff to deliver it when this is already being delivered in other
> subjects (I hope).
I agree, but its most likely due to a limitation in the specification of
the skills required and in the ability of those given the task to teach
them.
> If you reduce IT to a simple skills based subject then would you really
> want parity with Ma, Sc and En?
Why has it got to be all one thing or all another? I'm suggesting that
unless you actually give value to the skills, they won't be taken
seriously, unless you explain and specify them in a way teachers can
understand them - particulary the ones who have come into this from non-IT
technical backgrounds - they won't be taught properly, and unless there is
sufficient access for practice they won't be embedded. This is why I'm
advocating several things at the moment INGOT accreditation, better
training and understanding of the importance of technical skills in
teachers and lower cost access to generic software.
> You certainly wouldn't need that amount of time to do it,
I think time is what is sadly lacking for most kids. Time actually using
and practicing the skills because most still do most of their written work
in exercise books when most of us at work use a computer for this type of
thing. They do their IT in an IT room in some slot in the week. Imagine if
that was the way English was taught. No access to books, reading or
writing except in the library and oh dear its constantly booked out for
exam classes.
> and I don't think you would want a cumbersome assessment regime either.
Neither do I. Let teachers assess by direct observation, make it 100%
teacher assessment but make sure the teachers are accredited to teach the
skills properly and assess them. You can then scrap the very expensive
exam system which does not so far seem to be very successful in raising
standards in IT in general. You can scrap all the farce of NOF type
training because any subject specialist worth there salt and armed with
basic technical skills can apply these in the context of their subject. I
have a neice with a good GCSE grade in IT who is completely flomoxed by
the most simple technical issues with her computer. She knows about
relational databases well enough to answer paer and pencil test questions
on them, but will never ever need to set one up. She doesn't know diddle
about compatibility issues between file formats which is a far more
important practical skill in her situation.
> What would be wrong with using a simple tick box approach like Ingots?
Nothing as long as its kept manageable. While I'm saying I want the
expectations of standards as high as in Ma, En,Sc, I'm not saying I want
identical teaching or examining methods. IT will never get the routine
specilaist time allocated to the core subjects so why impose all the bad
side in terms of the way these are examined?
Regards,
Ian
> In article <b57qcd$2md$1...@news7.svr.pol.co.uk>, Darren Smith
> <da...@dagza.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>> Strange comment. Why study maths further? Why study science further?
>
> Many people don't, once they become optional subjects.
>
>> I get the impression you don't fully understand what we are doing at
>> key stage 3. Most of us are not teaching Office and skills exclusively.
>
>
> Hmmm ....I was going on my own children's current KS 3 experiences in
> two separate secondary schools, and those reported back to me by
> ex-pupils.
>
>> > Offer computer science instead, as a separate CGSE subject.
>
>> Why ... ??? That's like saying offer biology instead of physics.
>> Different subjects.
>
> I didn't really see it like that.... I was seeing it as ICT is learning
> the tools - like people learn to read and write ... then they use the
> tools to study something different.
>
> Like it or not.....
Its just a tool...Well, tools can be very well or badly used, even
dangerous in some hands. To an extent all subjects are just tools and all
have an intrinsic enjoyment factor in their own right. Why learn history?
Its a tool when making decisions in politics etc. IT is no different
really, its just convenient to make it different for people who have a
particular curriculum political perspective.
But as with numeracy and literacy, some aspects of the tools are essential
just to function in the modern world. At the opposite end of the spectrum
there is saving some processor clock cycles to make the programming
solution as elegant as possible. There are a million steps in between but
no discrete dividing line so analysis into compartments might suit a
psychological need to think in that way but it bears very little
relationship to reality.
> I had a very useful meeting with a year 7 maths teacher and other year 6
> teaching colleagues from the secondary's feeder primary schools last
> week, and with similar groupings from other secondary and feeder
> primaries.
>
> By the end of the afternoon, some of the secondary teachers were
> beginning to realise that they had been undervaluing what work is done
> in the primaries; had been making the children go back to a low level
> and repeat work they had been competent for some time; had no idea what
> we are teaching and one even said she felt primary teachers had every
> right to feel aggrieved at how dismissive secondary teachers could be
> about what was done before they got the children at 11.
Twas ever thus. This isn't confined to any particular subject and it works
both ways. However, with IT I would expect the effects to be more marked
because there is a bigger variation in teacher competence in IT simply
because its newer and exacerbated by varying degrees of computer home
ownership of pupils. Taking pupils from several different primaries also
makes it difficult for Y7 to be predictable with regard to consistency.
> They even learned some things about the maths skills of the teachers
> present and from them, and had the grace to admit this.
>
> This represented huge progress - I would like to see the same sort of
> recognition in ICT.
Always takes two to Tango.
Sharon Turner
Absolutely Gertie! :-)
Sharon
John Cartmell
<tony.d...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> One of the problems with the KS3 strategy at the moment is that they
> have run out of 'skills' to teach and so they spend half the time
> teaching people about other subjects through the context of IT.
Is this a serious comment? How many hours of IT per week and what have they
covered?
Assuming that had had sufficient time to prepare I doubt if I would 'run
out of "skills" to teach' even if I had 50% of curriculum time so something
is going badly wrong!
--
John Cartmell jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527
Acorn Publisher magazine & http://www.acornpublisher.com
Fleur Designs (boardgames)
Tony Degerdon
news:4bd593c...@cartmell.demon.co.uk...
> In article <b57pcb$j4g$1...@titan.btinternet.com>, Tony Degerdon
> <tony.d...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> > One of the problems with the KS3 strategy at the moment is that they
> > have run out of 'skills' to teach and so they spend half the time
> > teaching people about other subjects through the context of IT.
>
> Is this a serious comment? How many hours of IT per week and what have
they
> covered?
> Assuming that had had sufficient time to prepare I doubt if I would 'run
> out of "skills" to teach' even if I had 50% of curriculum time so
something
> is going badly wrong!
OK perhaps I put that badly. The point I am trying to make is that there is
a problem in just teaching 'technical skills'. For one thing you end up
with people teaching daft things just because they are supported by some
package or other. An example of this might be the teaching of 'Web Queries'
which are included in the strategy. For another thing you end up with
people who are are very good at using IT but completely useless at making
use of IT.
As a consequence you have to teach the IT skills in a context which the
strategy does very well. The problem comes in that the contexts are drawn
from across the curriculum and so in the discrete IT lessons you have have
to teach the context before you can teach the IT. Some teachers are
confused enough to think that teaching about the context is the objective of
the lesson rather than the IT.
If you are going to teach 'technical skills' then I think it has to be
skills that people can make use of straight away. If they don't use the
skill for a year then it will die. There would be no point in teaching
people 'skills' for 50% of the curriculum time 'cos they wouldn't have time
to use most of those skills so you would just be teaching them for the sake
of it. If you stop to think about the range of skills that people are
actually likely to use at KS3 outside of an IT lesson then I don't think you
need to teach all that much.
If on the other hand you want to teach children about IT rather than just
give them useful skills then that is another matter and we can debate
whether this is something everyone should study or whether this should be
optional.
Deg.
John Cartmell
<tony.d...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> OK perhaps I put that badly. The point I am trying to make is that
> there is a problem in just teaching 'technical skills'.
Skills out of context don't make sense but you need to teach skills to
make sense of the context - but not all and ... &c
[Snip]
> As a consequence you have to teach the IT skills in a context which the
> strategy does very well. The problem comes in that the contexts are
> drawn from across the curriculum and so in the discrete IT lessons you
> have have to teach the context before you can teach the IT. Some
> teachers are confused enough to think that teaching about the context is
> the objective of the lesson rather than the IT.
That's why IT teachers need to be professionals - ie professional teachers
and professional IT teachers (even if the IT has to be self-taught). There
is much that you need to teach as background to IT that you haven't got
time for so I've always tried to use that as the context - eg teach
WordProcessing using the subject of Printing as the subject of the work
that the kids are word processing, an explanation of the differences
between vector and bit-mapped graphics as the subject of a presentation of
the two styles of graphic, &c
> If you are going to teach 'technical skills' then I think it has to be
> skills that people can make use of straight away. If they don't use the
> skill for a year then it will die.
The answers that 'hard' technology seems to have settled with is short
skills and short project using the skills generating need for more skills
building up to more complex sets of skills and large projects. In the end
you need more time and will always end up with skills that haven't been
included in projects and even some that are only described and not even
taught. Which you choose and the balance of skills and skills using
projects is up to the professional to design knowing the facilities
(especially time) and the capabilities of the kids.
> There would be no point in teaching people 'skills' for 50% of the
> curriculum time 'cos they wouldn't have time to use most of those skills
> so you would just be teaching them for the sake of it. If you stop to
> think about the range of skills that people are actually likely to use
> at KS3 outside of an IT lesson then I don't think you need to teach all
> that much.
Rubbish total utter rubbish. Sorry*. Say that about any other subject and
rethink what you said. Try "If you stop to think about the range of skills
that people are actually likely to use at KS3 outside of a history lesson
then I don't think you need to teach all that much (in history skills)."
> If on the other hand you want to teach children about IT rather than
> just give them useful skills then that is another matter and we can
> debate whether this is something everyone should study or whether this
> should be optional.
*And yes you covered it here! ;-)
Can we debate whether English, Maths, Science and PE should be optional? IT
is now too damned important to be made optional - or left in the hands of
the idiots in charge of the curriculum at present ;-(
Tony Degerdon
> On Tue, 18 Mar 2003 18:43:23 +0000, Tony Degerdon wrote:
...snip....
> > This includes things like
> > teaching people about what logos are and what they are used for;
> > teaching people about what kind of information people will want to know
> > about the weather and teaching people what key words to look for when
> > trying to establish if a source is a fact or an opinion. All good stuff
> > but hardly worth inventing a new subject called KS3ICT and training up
> > staff to deliver it when this is already being delivered in other
> > subjects (I hope).
>
> I agree, but its most likely due to a limitation in the specification of
> the skills required and in the ability of those given the task to teach
> them.
I don't think so. I think it is partly due to do with the need to teach IT
skills in context and partly because people are scared that if they are only
teaching technical skills then it is not 'real' teaching, so they dress if
up in finery to make it seem like other subjects.
...snip........
>
> > You certainly wouldn't need that amount of time to do it,
>
> I think time is what is sadly lacking for most kids. Time actually using
> and practicing the skills because most still do most of their written work
> in exercise books when most of us at work use a computer for this type of
> thing. They do their IT in an IT room in some slot in the week. Imagine if
> that was the way English was taught. No access to books, reading or
> writing except in the library and oh dear its constantly booked out for
> exam classes.
Agreed. We need the use of IT to be embedded into the curriculum to a far
greater extent than it is now, and we also need to be happy with the idea
that sometimes people are just using IT and that in these situations we
don't need to assess it or measure their progress. After all we don't assess
peoples reading skills every time they use a book, nor do we try to make
sure that the book is more complicated than the one they read last week.
Sometimes a book is just for reading!
This is pretty much what is says in the 14-19 paper but it applies this to
KS4 onwards only. I don't see how you can suddenly expect to develop a
culture of IT use across the school when you hit KS4.
....snip.....
> > What would be wrong with using a simple tick box approach like Ingots?
>
> Nothing as long as its kept manageable. While I'm saying I want the
> expectations of standards as high as in Ma, En,Sc, I'm not saying I want
> identical teaching or examining methods. IT will never get the routine
> specilaist time allocated to the core subjects so why impose all the bad
> side in terms of the way these are examined?
And thats why you always confuse me because when you call for standards in
IT to be equivalent in demand to those in Ma, En and Sc then it makes it
sound as though you want to turn it into a body of knowledge an
understanding to be assessed and levelled in the same way. And that is
exactly what people are trying to do of course right up to including IT
levels in the school's PANDA grade.
The best thing for IT would be as you say to clarify the difference between
developing necessary IT skills and the study of IT/Computing, and then to
use simple competency measures of these skills together with an assessment
of how well IT was being used within the school.
Deg.
Tony Degerdon
> In article <b5dio7$30l$1...@sparta.btinternet.com>, Tony Degerdon
> <tony.d...@btinternet.com> wrote:
...snip.....
> > There would be no point in teaching people 'skills' for 50% of the
> > curriculum time 'cos they wouldn't have time to use most of those skills
> > so you would just be teaching them for the sake of it. If you stop to
> > think about the range of skills that people are actually likely to use
> > at KS3 outside of an IT lesson then I don't think you need to teach all
> > that much.
> Rubbish total utter rubbish. Sorry*. Say that about any other subject and
> rethink what you said. Try "If you stop to think about the range of skills
> that people are actually likely to use at KS3 outside of a history lesson
> then I don't think you need to teach all that much (in history skills)."
And that is exactly where you miss the point. Most other subjects are not
about delivering simple useable skills. The exceptions may be that Ma and
En (and other subjects too) are about delivering Numeracy and Literacy
skills. You are confusing developing IT skills with learning about IT.
> > If on the other hand you want to teach children about IT rather than
> > just give them useful skills then that is another matter and we can
> > debate whether this is something everyone should study or whether this
> > should be optional.
> *And yes you covered it here! ;-)
> Can we debate whether English, Maths, Science and PE should be optional?
IT
> is now too damned important to be made optional - or left in the hands of
> the idiots in charge of the curriculum at present ;-(
Of course we can debate the usefulness of other subjects. I don't think
that every child needs to study the subject of IT. I do think that every
child needs to be taught IT skills in such a way that they can see how to
make use of them in other contexts.
One of the problems with the subject of IT is that people keep assuming that
everything that is done using a computer is IT as a result we now have
established qualifications where learning about business documents is
described as learning about IT. The next thing you know we will replace:
Art teachers with IT teachers and Photoshop;
Technology teachers with IT teachers and CAD/CAM;
English teachers with IT teachers delivering lessons on Computer Aided
Writing;
..... do I need to go on?
Deg.
black-dog
contained the following:
>Of course we can debate the usefulness of other subjects. I don't think
>that every child needs to study the subject of IT. I do think that every
>child needs to be taught IT skills in such a way that they can see how to
>make use of them in other contexts.
Do we?
I wasn't taught any IT skills at school, were you? There was a time
with computers when you had to learn skills, just as typists had to
learn to type but not now. Good software should be intuitive. Office
software is, for the average adult because it's the average adult who
has to use it.
--
black-dog
"We will remember not the words of our enemies,
but the silence of our friends."
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Liz
>
>I wasn't taught any IT skills at school, were you? There was a time
>with computers when you had to learn skills, just as typists had to
>learn to type but not now. Good software should be intuitive. Office
>software is, for the average adult because it's the average adult who
>has to use it.
I wonder whether, partly, it is intuitive because it corresponds with
metaphors that we have grown up with, and which may not be familiar to
children in school. The idea of documents in folders, for example?
--
Liz Hanson
John Cartmell
Perhaps you could explain what would be wrong with team teaching with
different teachers inputting expertise to a lesson? Teaching IT use of
ProArtisan 24 and teaching Art; teaching IT use of Ovation Pro and teaching
English; &c
Whenever I've been able to arrange such activities they have been very
positive.
John Cartmell
black-dog<$b...@ckdog.co.uk> wrote:
> Good software should be intuitive. Office software is, for the average
> adult because it's the average adult who has to use it.
I don't know any Office software that is intuitive. Perhaps you could
introduce us to this wonderful software? ;-)
black-dog
contained the following:
>> Good software should be intuitive. Office software is, for the average
>> adult because it's the average adult who has to use it.
>
>I don't know any Office software that is intuitive. Perhaps you could
>introduce us to this wonderful software? ;-)
Comparatively. I remembering someone lending me a copy of DBase years
ago - without a manual. I spent ages loading floppy discs into the
machine, started the program and all it did was sit there flashing its
cursor at me. Locoscript on the old PCW 95i2 required the user to
'mark up' their text in order to embolden words. Common basic
functions and interfaces have transformed this making software much
more accessible, but the target market is still adults, not children.
Adults with a good standard of literacy can use help files. They are
NOT written in language which is easily understandable by the average
KS3/4 student.
Smiley noted, BTW.
Ian
> OK perhaps I put that badly. The point I am trying to make is that there is
> a problem in just teaching 'technical skills'. For one thing you end up
> with people teaching daft things just because they are supported by some
> package or other.
Liken it to English. Yes, you could be daft and teach the use of
punctuation such that is basically sterile but that is never used as an
excuse to ignore technical language skills. How many English teacher say
"as long as its understandable, the spelling punctuation and grammar don't
matter?" I have heard this argument on numerous occasions with IT.
> An example of this might be the teaching of 'Web Queries'
> which are included in the strategy. For another thing you end up with
> people who are are very good at using IT but completely useless at making
> use of IT.
So if we emphasis and accredit skills in English grammar, the technical
skills of English, we will produce people who are unable to read and write
to good effect? I don't think so. Why is it that we have to polarise
things in this way in IT? The issue is that you need both good technical
skills and an ability to apply them. Take science, experimental and
applied sc has much more emphasis now but that doesn't mean we stop
teaching any knowledge or concepts, or mathematical skills.
> As a consequence you have to teach the IT skills in a context which the
> strategy does very well.
Yes you have to teach IT skills in a context but you also need to
recognise that they have fundamental importance and probably to a greater
degree than the technical skills in other subjects simply because many
people teaching IT do neot have sound technical skills themselves,
certainly not to the dgree that you find in core subjects like En, Sc, Ma.
Perhaps the strategy will do this, but on track record I am not
over-confident and from what I have seen of it the strategy makes many
assumptions about the way things will be done. From my observations many
of the people teaching IT do not intuitively emphasise good practice in
skills areas and quite often reinforce bad practise.
> The problem comes in that the contexts are drawn
> from across the curriculum and so in the discrete IT lessons you have have
> to teach the context before you can teach the IT.
Not if you emphasis teaching transferrable skills. While you need a
context it doen't have to be any *particular* context. Maths is taught
like this, if you learn how to plot a graph in maths choosing scales etc you
can then plot a graph in geography, science or business. What matters is
that the pupils know about how to choose scales, use coordinates an so on
and teaching these transferrable principles is far more efficient than
expecting geography, sc and business studies teachers to do it.
> Some teachers are
> confused enough to think that teaching about the context is the objective of
> the lesson rather than the IT.
I think that is a symptom of the lack of emphaisis on IT skills.
> If you are going to teach 'technical skills' then I think it has to be
> skills that people can make use of straight away.
Not sure about that. It certainly isn't the case with subjects like
mathematics. While I would make the highest priority to teach the skills
needed and most often used, I can see circumstances where teaching skills
that prepare for more advanced use later is justified. eg teaching someone
how to convert a document file to a different format. They might not need
it immediately, but even if they forget the exact procedure, if they know
its possible and have experienced it they are likely to be able to solve
that problem in the future. This to me is a fundamental difference
between education and training.
> If they don't use the
> skill for a year then it will die.
Not necessarily. I was taught music theory when I was about 13 and didn't
use it again until about 30 when I had a need for it in some software I
was developing. I remembered enough to do what I needed to do. I think its
a bit of a myth that everythng has to be immediately utilitarian. It shows
up the different culture in education in general and IT in schools. If we
made the same assumptions inother subjects that we make with IT 75% of the
curriculum would be scrapped - arguably a good thing ;-)
> There would be no point in teaching
> people 'skills' for 50% of the curriculum time 'cos they wouldn't have time
> to use most of those skills so you would just be teaching them for the sake
> of it.
No, you would teach people why the more advanced skills you were teaching
were useful and you would enable them to work to a much more sophisticated
leve, more efficiently, with greater in-sight. But I would be happy enough
for greater emphasis on skills through say accreditation rahter than
setting unrealistic time quotas such as 50 or even 10% of curriculum time
because that will not happen.
> If you stop to think about the range of skills that people are
> actually likely to use at KS3 outside of an IT lesson then I don't think you
> need to teach all that much.
That sounds like low expectations to me. Again take maths and say the same
thing. How much maths do they need to know outside a maths lesson in KS3?
> If on the other hand you want to teach children about IT rather than just
> give them useful skills then that is another matter and we can debate
> whether this is something everyone should study or whether this should be
> optional.
Teaching about IT is philosophy, and should be an option perhaps much as
teaching English Literature or a course on the nature of mathematics would
be.Although I would expect good IT teaching to have elements of philosophy
and issues to make it more interesting. This could well provide the
contexts for developing the skills.
John Cartmell
black-dog<$b...@ckdog.co.uk> wrote:
> Message-ID: <4bd6e90...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> from John Cartmell
> contained the following:
> >> Good software should be intuitive. Office software is, for the
> >> average adult because it's the average adult who has to use it.
> >
> >I don't know any Office software that is intuitive. Perhaps you could
> >introduce us to this wonderful software? ;-)
> Comparatively. I remembering someone lending me a copy of DBase years
> ago - without a manual.
[Snip]
I too used DBase on a PCW. There was worse! I once got so annoyed with one
PCW database that I forced the 'how to' out of the software and found that
the manual was wrong or misleading in almost every respect. DBase was easy
by comparison!
Despite the smiley I'm serious about the intuitive bit. I look at how
ordinary people actually use software. If self-taught users don't make
basic errors (spacing or tabbing in place of centring - failing to
appreciate that spreadsheets calculate as well as set out items in boxes)
then I'll start to take this 'intuitive' bit seriously. If by intuitive you
mean GUIs that reflect the ideas of an ordinary desk in an office then you
have to look at the Apple or RISC OS 'desktops' and it's the GUI - not the
Office software - that allows it to be intuitive.
John Cartmell
<ian.l...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Not if you emphasis teaching transferrable skills. While you need a
> context it doen't have to be any *particular* context. Maths is taught
> like this, if you learn how to plot a graph in maths choosing scales etc
> you can then plot a graph in geography, science or business. What
> matters is that the pupils know about how to choose scales, use
> coordinates an so on and teaching these transferrable principles is far
> more efficient than expecting geography, sc and business studies
> teachers to do it.
Not only that but professional teachers of IT (like professional teachers
of Maths?) will appreciate the problem kids have with transferring skills
and will teach in the light of that knowledge. I've seen kids struggle when
trying to prepare pastry for a sausage roll despite knowing the
relationship between diameter and circumference, *when sat in a Maths
classroom*. There is plenty of research evidence.
Good IT teachers will use examples from a range of subjects (not that they
are *teaching* those subjects) in order to help the kids appreciate that IT
is about skills that can and should be transferred (amongst other things).
That's why teaching IT skills, teaching about IT, teaching that skills are
transferrable and teaching IT within other subjects (eg team teaching) is
all necessary and those that advocate any one of those approaches alone is
promoting an impoverished form of IT.
Tony Degerdon
> In article <b5fvd2$71s$1...@hercules.btinternet.com>, Tony Degerdon
> <tony.d...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> > One of the problems with the subject of IT is that people keep assuming
> > that everything that is done using a computer is IT as a result we now
> > have established qualifications where learning about business documents
> > is described as learning about IT. The next thing you know we will
> > replace:
>
> > Art teachers with IT teachers and Photoshop; Technology teachers with IT
> > teachers and CAD/CAM; English teachers with IT teachers delivering
> > lessons on Computer Aided Writing;
>
> > ..... do I need to go on?
>
> Perhaps you could explain what would be wrong with team teaching with
> different teachers inputting expertise to a lesson? Teaching IT use of
> ProArtisan 24 and teaching Art; teaching IT use of Ovation Pro and
teaching
> English; &c
>
> Whenever I've been able to arrange such activities they have been very
> positive.
As you say - whenever you have been able to arrange it!
As an alternative if we assume for the moment that the purpose of a tool
like ProArtisan is for the development of Art/Graphics then what would be
wrong with the idea of an Art/Graphics teacher teaching people how to use
the tool? I am not at all clear what 'IT use of ProArtisan' actually means.
Deg.
Tony Degerdon
> On Thu, 20 Mar 2003 23:27:03 +0000, Tony Degerdon wrote:
>
> > OK perhaps I put that badly. The point I am trying to make is that
there is
> > a problem in just teaching 'technical skills'. For one thing you end up
> > with people teaching daft things just because they are supported by some
> > package or other.
>
>
> Liken it to English. Yes, you could be daft and teach the use of
> punctuation such that is basically sterile but that is never used as an
> excuse to ignore technical language skills. How many English teacher say
> "as long as its understandable, the spelling punctuation and grammar don't
> matter?" I have heard this argument on numerous occasions with IT.
>
> > An example of this might be the teaching of 'Web Queries'
> > which are included in the strategy. For another thing you end up with
> > people who are are very good at using IT but completely useless at
making
> > use of IT.
>
> So if we emphasis and accredit skills in English grammar, the technical
> skills of English, we will produce people who are unable to read and write
> to good effect? I don't think so. Why is it that we have to polarise
> things in this way in IT? The issue is that you need both good technical
> skills and an ability to apply them. Take science, experimental and
> applied sc has much more emphasis now but that doesn't mean we stop
> teaching any knowledge or concepts, or mathematical skills.
There are many differences here. Literacy skills form part of a whole
whereas IT skills related to word processing have very little to do with IT
skills related to data logging. Literacy skills are used and taught in
many subjects/contexts, that is why it is important to teach them. If you
are not using your IT skills in many subjects then there is no point in
teaching them. Literacy skills have clear progression whereas many of the
so called IT skills are just different options on menus that grow ever
longer as commerical companies try to make their products look more
impressive.
...snip....
> > The problem comes in that the contexts are drawn
> > from across the curriculum and so in the discrete IT lessons you have
have
> > to teach the context before you can teach the IT.
>
> Not if you emphasis teaching transferrable skills. While you need a
> context it doen't have to be any *particular* context. Maths is taught
> like this, if you learn how to plot a graph in maths choosing scales etc
you
> can then plot a graph in geography, science or business. What matters is
> that the pupils know about how to choose scales, use coordinates an so on
> and teaching these transferrable principles is far more efficient than
> expecting geography, sc and business studies teachers to do it.
Does this actually work? For as long as I can remember people have
complained that the Maths department doesn't actually deliver the skills
they need. I agree with you totally about the underpinning skills of
plotting cordinates and understanding scales, but by the time you get to the
choice, use and interpretation of graphs and charts then I think it will
continue to be the case that this will be done in other subjects as and when
they need it.
...snip.........
> > If you are going to teach 'technical skills' then I think it has to be
> > skills that people can make use of straight away.
>
> Not sure about that. It certainly isn't the case with subjects like
> mathematics. While I would make the highest priority to teach the skills
> needed and most often used, I can see circumstances where teaching skills
> that prepare for more advanced use later is justified. eg teaching someone
> how to convert a document file to a different format. They might not need
> it immediately, but even if they forget the exact procedure, if they know
> its possible and have experienced it they are likely to be able to solve
> that problem in the future. This to me is a fundamental difference
> between education and training.
>
I know loads of people who have 'O' level maths and yet can no longer cope
with percentages. I agree with you about the education/training angle and
that is one reason that I prefer to see IT use embedded in other curriculum
subjects.
> > If they don't use the
> > skill for a year then it will die.
>
> Not necessarily. I was taught music theory when I was about 13 and didn't
> use it again until about 30 when I had a need for it in some software I
> was developing. I remembered enough to do what I needed to do. I think its
> a bit of a myth that everythng has to be immediately utilitarian. It shows
> up the different culture in education in general and IT in schools. If we
> made the same assumptions inother subjects that we make with IT 75% of the
> curriculum would be scrapped - arguably a good thing ;-)
I am just trying to advocate an efficient approach to the teaching of IT in
schools. We can't afford to teach them stuff just because they might want
to use it 20 years later and we can't afford to teach them stuff just
because it appears on the menu. Decide what they will need to use IT for
over the next 3 years of their school career, decide what are the
significant underpinning skills that could be best taught with a central IT
course rather than being taught in the context that it will be used in an
you will have a nice neat little IT skills course and you will also reap the
alleged benfit of using IT in the teaching of other subjects.
If you have still got some spare time to kill because you have scrapped 75%
of the curriculum then teach programming. Not because it is utilitatarian
but because it is very educational!
Deg.
John Cartmell
<tony.d...@btinternet.com> wrote:
[about team teaching]
[Snip]
> As you say - whenever you have been able to arrange it!
One contract I had was for one year to allow the school an extra member of
staff to do exactly that. Excellent idea.
Most of the rest of time I arranged it in my 'free' periods. ;-(
> As an alternative if we assume for the moment that the purpose of a tool
> like ProArtisan is for the development of Art/Graphics then what would
> be wrong with the idea of an Art/Graphics teacher teaching people how to
> use the tool? I am not at all clear what 'IT use of ProArtisan'
> actually means.
Dealing with the computer / program questions whilst allowing the art
teacher to concentrate on the specific 'art' questions. To work well such
team teaching would involve staff designing a set of lessons that would
allow software to be used within the subject curriculum (group planning).
As part of the planning each member of staff would obviously learn some of
the skills of the other but, in class, they can relax because they have the
support of one another eg where kids take the use of the software beyond
the expertise of the art teacher and the ideas of the art beyond the
expertise of the IT teacher. Over time the art teacher would become
happy(ier) at teaching alone and the IT teacher would learn some art (and
some of the specific skills of art teaching). Group/team teaching can be
very productive and well worth its expense.
> Deg.
John Cartmell
<tony.d...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> I know loads of people who have 'O' level maths and yet can no longer
> cope with percentages. I agree with you about the education/training
> angle and that is one reason that I prefer to see IT use embedded in
> other curriculum subjects.
This is a cry for better and better taught Maths syllabuses (and ditto IT).
Put either in the hands of people who are partially or totally unaware of
what they're doing and, even if you get examination passes, you won't have
understanding for life; which is what I've always assumed education was all
about.
Tony Degerdon
Yes I can understand that this might work as an interim solution and I do
know what you mean. What disappoints me is the easy acceptance that we have
that an IT Teacher will know more about using an Art package than an Art
teacher. Why on earth would this be the case. The IT teacher has
presumably picked the package up out of curiosity, or maybe because they
have some time to fill in on a discrete IT course. For the Art teacher on
the other hand it will be a genuinely useful package and provide an
alternative medium for them to work in. OK so maybe they didn't have
computers when they were at Art school but this doesn't stop them learning
later does it? The bottom line is that if Art packages are actually useful
in Art then Art teachers should know how to use them. If Art packages are
not useful in Art then we shouldn't be teaching kids how to use them.
Deg.
Ian
I prefer to see mathematics embedded in other subjects but that doesn't
mean I wouldabolish specialist maths lessons or pretend that the technical
skills in arithmetic, learning tables and number bonds are of little
value.
>> > If they don't use the
>> > skill for a year then it will die.
>>
>> Not necessarily. I was taught music theory when I was about 13 and
>> didn't use it again until about 30 when I had a need for it in some
>> software I was developing. I remembered enough to do what I needed to
>> do. I think its a bit of a myth that everythng has to be immediately
>> utilitarian. It shows up the different culture in education in general
>> and IT in schools. If we made the same assumptions inother subjects
>> that we make with IT 75% of the curriculum would be scrapped - arguably
>> a good thing ;-)
>
> I am just trying to advocate an efficient approach to the teaching of IT
> in schools. We can't afford to teach them stuff just because they might
> want to use it 20 years later
Snag is you don't know what stuff will be needed in 2 years never mind 20
so seems a good idea to teach a) technical principles definitely needed
now and b) understanding of technical principles that are likely to last.
eg Need to manage files, need to know about moving files between different
applications and systems, need to understand cost-benefit of different
solutions etc etc. Bland statement such as presenting information to a
critical and unfamiliar audience are very unhelpful in achieving
consistently high standards in a technical subject.
> and we can't afford to teach them stuff just because it appears on the
> menu. Decide what they will need to use IT for over the next 3 years of
> their school career, decide what are the significant underpinning skills
> that could be best taught with a central IT course rather than being
> taught in the context that it will be used in an you will have a nice
> neat little IT skills course and you will also reap the alleged benfit
> of using IT in the teaching of other subjects.
More or less what I was suggesting, but if you don't recognise the
importance of the skills in the assessment model, they will not be taught
well and if the teachers in the subjects reinforce bad techniques it will
undo the good done in the specialist lessons. NOF training should heave
focussed on getting skills in generic software to a reasonable standard -
after all, most people with these skills then have the where with all to
us IT in their subjects.
> If you have still got some spare time to kill because you have scrapped
> 75% of the curriculum then teach programming. Not because it is
> utilitatarian but because it is very educational!
Programming should be an option at least in every specialist maths and
computing school. The fact that this isn't mandatory for a specialist
Ma/computing school to do anything other than bland ICT coureses tells us
something about the attitude to technology of those making the decisions.
Ian
> In article <k5bo7vsccj52pl3d2...@4ax.com>,
> black-dog<$b...@ckdog.co.uk> wrote:
>> Message-ID: <4bd6e90...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> from John Cartmell
>> contained the following:
>
>> >> Good software should be intuitive. Office software is, for the
>> >> average adult because it's the average adult who has to use it.
>> >
>> >I don't know any Office software that is intuitive. Perhaps you could
>> >introduce us to this wonderful software? ;-)
>
>> Comparatively. I remembering someone lending me a copy of DBase years
>> ago - without a manual.
>
> [Snip]
>
> I too used DBase on a PCW. There was worse! I once got so annoyed with
> one PCW database that I forced the 'how to' out of the software and
> found that the manual was wrong or misleading in almost every respect.
> DBase was easy by comparison!
>
> Despite the smiley I'm serious about the intuitive bit. I look at how
> ordinary people actually use software. If self-taught users don't make
> basic errors (spacing or tabbing in place of centring - failing to
> appreciate that spreadsheets calculate as well as set out items in
> boxes) then I'll start to take this 'intuitive' bit seriously. If by
> intuitive you mean GUIs that reflect the ideas of an ordinary desk in an
> office then you have to look at the Apple or RISC OS 'desktops' and it's
> the GUI - not the Office software - that allows it to be intuitive.
Intuitive depends on the starting point. If you have used a graphical user
interface, almost any other is going to be resonably intuitive, and the
second and third more so than the first. If you get my 80 year old dad who
has never touched a computer before, no GUI will be intuitive. He will
learn it but very slowly and with a lot of frustration. Most
intelligent people who are reasonably motivated can teach themselves
anything. That isn't a reason to scrap a formal education system or assume
teaching to improve the efficiency of learning isn't a valid thing to do.
Once you accept teaching can make a difference you then decide on the what
and the how to make that teaching have maximum impact. That applies to IT
as much as it does to maths and English but general expectations in IT are
much lower than in the other two subjects.
Ian
> "John Cartmell" <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:4bd74ce...@cartmell.demon.co.uk...
>> In article <b5i3bn$7vi$1...@sparta.btinternet.com>, Tony Degerdon
>> <tony.d...@btinternet.com> wrote: [about team teaching]
> Yes I can understand that this might work as an interim solution and I
> do know what you mean. What disappoints me is the easy acceptance that
> we have that an IT Teacher will know more about using an Art package
> than an Art teacher. Why on earth would this be the case. The IT
> teacher has presumably picked the package up out of curiosity, or maybe
> because they have some time to fill in on a discrete IT course. For the
> Art teacher on the other hand it will be a genuinely useful package and
> provide an alternative medium for them to work in. OK so maybe they
> didn't have computers when they were at Art school but this doesn't stop
> them learning later does it? The bottom line is that if Art packages
> are actually useful in Art then Art teachers should know how to use
> them. If Art packages are not useful in Art then we shouldn't be
> teaching kids how to use them.
Nice theory. Now for the reality. Some art teachers, despite the evidence
all round them might just say its nothing to do with me, I have had no
training and I'm only interested in traditional methods. In such cases it
might well be that the IT specialist would know more about using the art
package than the art teacher. This comes back to the importance of basic
technical skills. If you haven't got them you can't do a sizeable chunk of
the job. I did some graphic animations for Central TV a few years back and
I have zero qualifications in art - why get me to do it? Because I new how
to do it within their budget to the standard they required. One thing that
is increasingly obvious is that the label "art teacher" or other role
title is becoming a lot less important in a competitive world where what
really matters is ability to complete tasks. A shift from role culture to
task focus. Its interesting that those who shout loudest about life-long
learning are often those who appear to understand it least - well its ok
for other people but don't expect me to change.
John Cartmell
<andy.r...@zetnet.co.uk> wrote:
> "Tony Degerdon" <tony.d...@btinternet.com>
> <b5juhp$73m$1...@hercules.btinternet.com> :
>
> >Yes I can understand that this might work as an interim solution and I
> >do know what you mean. What disappoints me is the easy acceptance that
> >we have that an IT Teacher will know more about using an Art package
> >than an Art teacher. Why on earth would this be the case. The IT
> >teacher has presumably picked the package up out of curiosity, or maybe
> >because they have some time to fill in on a discrete IT course. For
> >the Art teacher on the other hand it will be a genuinely useful package
> >and provide an alternative medium for them to work in. OK so maybe
> >they didn't have computers when they were at Art school but this
> >doesn't stop them learning later does it? The bottom line is that if
> >Art packages are actually useful in Art then Art teachers should know
> >how to use them. If Art packages are not useful in Art then we
> >shouldn't be teaching kids how to use them.
> There is another possibility, which institutionalised schools sometimes
> don't think of. The person most likely to be able to make best use of an
> Art package is neither the Art teacher nor the IT teacher but an Artist.
All. One of the worst things the Thatcher government did iro education was
starve LEAs of funds that were running centres with artists in residence.
The one in Wigan as an example was superb.
> There are usually plenty of local Artists who need to subsidise their
> income by doing work with schools. I'm not sure about specialised art
> packages though. They'd probably be just as interested in using photo
> manipulation, video editing, animation and web authoring packages.
The one quoted was as an example only. I chose it because, whilst art
teachers do seem to be picking up photo-manipulation there seems to be less
interest in digital art itself. I'm just putting together an article by one
of our writer/artists, David Cowell, on this subject (if you're Kingsbridge
between the 1st and 13th April go and take a look at some of his work at
the Harbour House Gallery).
Ian
> In article <as3r7vs3o3a73l029...@4ax.com>, andy roberts
> <andy.r...@zetnet.co.uk> wrote:
>> "Tony Degerdon" <tony.d...@btinternet.com>
>> <b5juhp$73m$1...@hercules.btinternet.com> :
>>
> One of the worst things the Thatcher government did iro education was
> starve LEAs of funds that were running centres with artists in
> residence. The one in Wigan as an example was superb.
Specialist arts schools use recurrent grant from central government to
fund artists in residence. Seems to me better to let the schools make the
decisions.
John Cartmell
> > In article <as3r7vs3o3a73l029...@4ax.com>, andy roberts
> > <andy.r...@zetnet.co.uk> wrote:
> >> "Tony Degerdon" <tony.d...@btinternet.com>
> >> <b5juhp$73m$1...@hercules.btinternet.com> :
> >>
> > One of the worst things the Thatcher government did iro education was
> > starve LEAs of funds that were running centres with artists in
> > residence. The one in Wigan as an example was superb.
> Specialist arts schools use recurrent grant from central government to
> fund artists in residence. Seems to me better to let the schools make the
> decisions.
Seems to me better to pool resources so that all kids from all schools (as
in Wigan) get access to the best resources.
Tony Degerdon
> On Sun, 23 Mar 2003 09:25:14 +0000, Tony Degerdon wrote:
>
> > "John Cartmell" <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> > news:4bd74ce...@cartmell.demon.co.uk...
> >> In article <b5i3bn$7vi$1...@sparta.btinternet.com>, Tony Degerdon
> >> <tony.d...@btinternet.com> wrote: [about team teaching]
> > Yes I can understand that this might work as an interim solution and I
> > do know what you mean. What disappoints me is the easy acceptance that
> > we have that an IT Teacher will know more about using an Art package
> > than an Art teacher. Why on earth would this be the case. The IT
> > teacher has presumably picked the package up out of curiosity, or maybe
> > because they have some time to fill in on a discrete IT course. For the
> > Art teacher on the other hand it will be a genuinely useful package and
> > provide an alternative medium for them to work in. OK so maybe they
> > didn't have computers when they were at Art school but this doesn't stop
> > them learning later does it? The bottom line is that if Art packages
> > are actually useful in Art then Art teachers should know how to use
> > them. If Art packages are not useful in Art then we shouldn't be
> > teaching kids how to use them.
>
> Nice theory. Now for the reality. Some art teachers, despite the evidence
> all round them might just say its nothing to do with me, I have had no
> training and I'm only interested in traditional methods. In such cases it
> might well be that the IT specialist would know more about using the art
> package than the art teacher.
Nice dream but now for the reality. IT is the worst taught subject and the
chances are that your IT specialist is not an IT specialist at all but a
Geography teacher filling in time on their timetable.
OK so the reality probably falls somewhere between the two positions we have
described but if you had to build for the future which way would you go?
Which makes more sense - providing suitable professional development for Art
teachers to make use of IT or providing suitable professional development
for Geography teachers so that they can use IT to teach Art?
Deg.
John Cartmell
<tony.d...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> "John Cartmell" <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:4bd74ce...@cartmell.demon.co.uk...
[Snip]
> > Dealing with the computer / program questions whilst allowing the art
> > teacher to concentrate on the specific 'art' questions. To work well
> > such team teaching would involve staff designing a set of lessons that
> > would allow software to be used within the subject curriculum (group
> > planning). As part of the planning each member of staff would
> > obviously learn some of the skills of the other but, in class, they
> > can relax because they have the support of one another eg where kids
> > take the use of the software beyond the expertise of the art teacher
> > and the ideas of the art beyond the expertise of the IT teacher. Over
> > time the art teacher would become happy(ier) at teaching alone and the
> > IT teacher would learn some art (and some of the specific skills of
> > art teaching). Group/team teaching can be very productive and well
> > worth its expense.
> Yes I can understand that this might work as an interim solution and I
> do know what you mean. What disappoints me is the easy acceptance that
> we have that an IT Teacher will know more about using an Art package
> than an Art teacher. Why on earth would this be the case.
Whatever the argument that you're going to produce it's my experience that
this often *is* the case.
> The IT teacher has presumably picked the package up out of curiosity, or
> maybe because they have some time to fill in on a discrete IT course.
In my case presume the curiosity was tickled because the IT teacher had
worked with one author of the software and his daughter had studied art
under the other author. We're all different and making such presumptions
is unwarranted.
> For the Art teacher on the other hand it will be a genuinely useful
> package and provide an alternative medium for them to work in. OK so
> maybe they didn't have computers when they were at Art school but this
> doesn't stop them learning later does it?
It doesn't but it often takes help and support to persuade them to take
the plunge. Add to that a clear reaction against digital art in some art
circles# and you may find that my proposed solution *may* be the best in
*some* (many?) circumstances.
> The bottom line is that if Art packages are actually useful in Art then
> Art teachers should know how to use them.
But they may have to be persuaded to be pushed into using the new media.
And (BTW) this being an example - ditto music, language, science, &c
teachers.
# I'm privileged to be working with some top class digital artists at the
present, some in teaching and some of them working commercial artists. I'd
be pleased to find that their interest and skill was shared by the average
art teacher. In the past this hasn't been the case.
Ian
> In article <pan.2003.03.23....@ntlworld.com>,
> Ian <ian.l...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>> On Sun, 23 Mar 2003 13:59:48 +0000, John Cartmell wrote:
>
>> > In article <as3r7vs3o3a73l029...@4ax.com>, andy roberts
>> > <andy.r...@zetnet.co.uk> wrote:
>> >> "Tony Degerdon" <tony.d...@btinternet.com>
>> >> <b5juhp$73m$1...@hercules.btinternet.com> :
>> >>
>
>> > One of the worst things the Thatcher government did iro education was
>> > starve LEAs of funds that were running centres with artists in
>> > residence. The one in Wigan as an example was superb.
>
>> Specialist arts schools use recurrent grant from central government to
>> fund artists in residence. Seems to me better to let the schools make the
>> decisions.
>
> Seems to me better to pool resources so that all kids from all schools (as
> in Wigan) get access to the best resources.
Yes but you caould say that about many, many issues which to some schools
are not a high priority and then you get large amounts of money tied up in
bureaucracy that could be used by teachers rather than advisors. If
you look at the amount of money spent on books and equipment, you will see
that these LEA schemes have an opportunity cost that is not insignificant.
If its that important get a group of schools who want it to fund it. If
they don't, its not that important.
Ian
Oh I agree with that, but its debateable whether poor IT teachers are
greater in number that Art teachers who know how to teach Art well with
computers.
> OK so the reality probably falls somewhere between the two positions we
> have described but if you had to build for the future which way would
> you go?
I'd train all teachers in basic IT skills to start with and give them the
platform to build in the specific skills they need to teach their subject.
I would also make it compulsory that teachers developed these skills or
they should look for another job. Rather as in English we teach everyone
to read and write and then let them develop the specific language and
vocabulary they need for their subjects. And we don't tolerate illiterate
teachers (well we shouldn't if in some case we do!)
> Which makes more sense - providing suitable professional development for
> Art teachers to make use of IT or providing suitable professional
> development for Geography teachers so that they can use IT to teach Art?
Until this happens, what makes most sense is to enable those with the
ability to get the results.
Richard Davison
ICT Technician. I am flabbergasted about how little the IT pupils know
about IT. They cant code programs, they cant analyze, and they cant design
systems. They don't know about the constituent parts of the hardware (or
software) and they have no concept of IT applications outside the Microsoft
cocoon. They DO know about obscure features in Word, (obscure features in
Word, because nobody would ever really do it that way) etc. The IT
curriculum that I have seen so far since September when I stated seems to
have covered what the average office (small O) employee would have done in a
weeks training course from an IT training company. I expected the other
subjects to be 'users' of IT, but the actual IT subject is so weak.
Gill.
John Cartmell
Welcome to modern 'ICT'. ;-(
[Some schools are better!]
Darren Smith
"Richard Davison" <Richard....@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:b5o20a$q2j$1...@titan.btinternet.com...
> I have no background in education, but after 20+ years in IT, I am now an
> ICT Technician. I am flabbergasted about how little the IT pupils know
> about IT. They cant code programs, they cant analyze, and they cant
design
> systems. They don't know about the constituent parts of the hardware (or
> software) and they have no concept of IT applications outside the
Microsoft
> cocoon.
I think you are mixing up ICT and Computing but if I had my own way then
pretty much the whole of ICT would be farmed out to the curriculum subjects
where it belongs and I would be a CS teacher (but that may just be personal
preference .. especially for GCSE). It will take a long time to up-skill
other teachers to the level of expertise required to deliver a lesson in a
computer room to the standard I think it should be done but they are getting
there. A lot of teachers I have come across from other subjects who have
been in this for 4 years or less are very good with IT for example we have a
music teacher and a drama teacher as sys admins.
--
Darren
Darren Smith
>
> Welcome to modern 'ICT'. ;-(
>
> [Some schools are better!]
>
I don't think it is automatically the failing of the school. I have been to
a few schools with excellent teachers but some kids still refuse to learn.
How about ..
[Some kids are better!]
??
--
Darren
Ian
>
> "Richard Davison" <Richard....@btinternet.com> wrote in message
> news:b5o20a$q2j$1...@titan.btinternet.com...
>> I have no background in education, but after 20+ years in IT, I am now an
>> ICT Technician. I am flabbergasted about how little the IT pupils know
>> about IT. They cant code programs, they cant analyze, and they cant
> design
>> systems. They don't know about the constituent parts of the hardware (or
>> software) and they have no concept of IT applications outside the
> Microsoft
>> cocoon.
> {SNIP}
>
> I think you are mixing up ICT and Computing
Is there really such a sharp divide? How come we don't make this kind of
distinction in maths. Maths to use in subjects and then that specialist
stuff you do in maths lessons?
> but if I had my own way then
> pretty much the whole of ICT would be farmed out to the curriculum subjects
> where it belongs and I would be a CS teacher (but that may just be personal
> preference .. especially for GCSE). It will take a long time to up-skill
> other teachers to the level of expertise required to deliver a lesson in a
> computer room to the standard I think it should be done but they are getting
> there. A lot of teachers I have come across from other subjects who have
> been in this for 4 years or less are very good with IT for example we have a
> music teacher and a drama teacher as sys admins.
Are they computer scientists now ;-)
Darren Smith
> > I think you are mixing up ICT and Computing
>
> Is there really such a sharp divide? How come we don't make this kind of
> distinction in maths. Maths to use in subjects and then that specialist
> stuff you do in maths lessons?
God yes! I teach both. ICT at ks3 + 4 and CS and ICT at ks5. It is possible
to put a lot ICT into the catagory 'stuff you could use in other subjects'
but hardly any of CS would go here (I am trying to think of one exception
but can't - somebody will I'm sure). I do try hard for my ICT lessons to be
challanging but ICT simply does not lend itself to this the same way CS
does. BTW, at our school we do make a distinction in maths offering 2
different courses - and English for that matter. Ooo. and ICT and Computing.
{SNIP}A lot of teachers I have come across from other subjects who have
> > been in this for 4 years or less are very good with IT for example we
have a
> > music teacher and a drama teacher as sys admins.
>
> Are they computer scientists now ;-)
No :-)
What has happened is that I am now able to remove sibalious (spelling?) from
the ICT SOW and music can deliver it far better than us lot and the kids
relate better to using music composition software in music lessons taught by
a musician which I am not (I'm a drummer). Drama are launching a new sixth
form course which will involve video editing and sound production (They do a
bit of this already with some rather flash kit). Art are investing in
Photoshop and a colour A3 printer. This all makes sense to me ... or should
we be delivering this? I also think English should do more WP and DTP and
maths more spreadsheet stuff.
That would leave us people who know about computers to teach other people
about them instead of this broad diluted curriculum I am presented with.
--
Darren
Tony Degerdon
news:b5t8im$ub4$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk...
100% agreement from me as you might expect. The only problem is that
someone will then want you to assess what is going on in IT across the
school, generate some meaningless levels in order to keep the statisticians
at the DFES employed and just for the fun of it write some reports on the
progress of kids you have never met.
Deg.