[Year 12 IPM] ITA ("IPM 2007") summary

[Adrian Janson]

Hi all,

(and BTW - thank you Nick for you retraction)

The VCE IT study design must be viewed as a two year course - and as such,
please do not be too hasty to condemn IT Applications.  I am sure that most
of us would agree that the current IT 1/2 study has had some difficulties,
and across the state, numbers doing 1/2 have been in steady decline.  Let's
look at the 1/2 course:

Unit 1: IT in action

Outcome 1: Students use web authoring or multimedia authoring software to
transform an existing printed information product into an on-screen one.
This could involve a simple web page, could involve flash or a vast number
of different packages....
Outcome 2: An introductory database task.
Outcome 3: Examines some contempory issues in IT.  Students (in teams)
create a multimedia presentation to present those issues.  Again, software
is wide open - students could make a simple presentation or could easily use
a video editing package.....

Unit 2: IT pathways

Outcome 1: Students develop a programming folio showing a progression of
skills.  
Outcome 2: Students represent a networked information system using an
appropriate software package, from web authoring to animation packages.
Outcome 3: Team task in which students solve a real information problem.
The task can be completed in a programming language or multimedia or web
authoring....

There is the scope to include a wide variety of different packages in the
1/2 course and tailor it specifically for what your students want.  The 1/2
course has been written so that it links equally well into both IT
Applications and Software Development, and a school where one is favoured
can easily bias their 1/2 course in that direction.  Likewise, the course
gives all students skills across both 'pathways'.  

One of the problems with writing a 3/4 course is academic rigour.  Firstly,
one of our initial concerns was that we wanted to raise the profile of the
IT 3/4 courses, as their overall standing had 'slipped' (hence the scaling
down of both IS and IPM).  There are things that are fundamentals to both
IPM and IS - that must be addressed.  These core skills have been included.
Another factor that must be considered is the ability of schools to
implement the course.  Despite the ire of some of you that the course does
not contain video editing or flash action scripting or "..", if the course
specifically mandated something as specialised as any of these, there would
be 100's of angry messages instead of a few.  Many would be saying ... but
what of spreadsheets and databases???  Like it or not, spreadsheets and
databases are core IT skills and are used in a widespread fashion 'out
there'.  Although the course is not driven by the exam, the exam does play a
part and as such, any 3/4 study needs to be explicitly defined and
examinable.  

The 1/2 course now has the potential to attract students to the study - if
you write an exciting course at your school level that caters to the needs
of your students (which should be easy to do).  Create whatever courses you
like at Junior / Middle school - in fact, we should all be doing our level
best at these levels to attract as many students as we can to the study.
However, at 3/4 level comes a balance between core requirements and creating
a course that looks 'fun' to do.  We can find ways to make the 'boring
stuff' fun, but we should NOT take out the 'boring stuff' because it is seen
as boring....  WE ARE THE ONES THAT KNOW BEST... We've been out there and we
know what skills students need - they DON'T. 

Adrian Janson