[Year 12 Its] Degree of Difficulty for Outcome 3

[Robert Timmer-Arends]

Hello Alex

last year was my first year as well and I had to come to grips with the same
question. Several resources are available to help you decide, the first of
which is the preamble to the approved programming languages list from VCAA
http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/correspondence/bulletins/2002/june/02junbul.pdf

If you read you will see that you have to set something that will require
students to construct a GUI (web or desktop). It should also require
students to have code that is more than just a simple sequence (I focussed
on some sort of data entry validation to provide this; ie is a number
between certain values, if not error, if so continue), and some file i/o
(many people using VB or a web-based language seem to be setting a task that
involves the students in creating a front-end to a db - I decided to stick
to (very) simple file i/o in VB).

The second source is the study design. The key skills for outcome 3 suggest
the program should employ 'data structures', but the key knowledge just
talks about data types. I chose to interpret this as single variables of
different data types, the student having to decide what data was required
and what type it had to be. Remember the outcome requires students to
demonstrate an ability to construct a 'module'

The third source was Kevork's resources web site where I obtained examples
of tasks others had kindly donated for the rest of us to use (thank you
all!)

In the end though, while we do need to have a minimum below which a program
cannot be accepted as demonstrating an ability to write a program, I did
keep in mind the level at which my students were. For several it was their
first foray into programming and I couldn't, therefore, set a programming
task that was too large. The task I settled on involved the construction of
a GUI with validation on some numeric entries. The numeric entries had to
undergo a couple of calculations to produce a result. The data and result
had to be able to be written to disk and read back again at some later date.
The really good students got that; the strugglers at least got the
calculation working.

Hope this helps!

Regards
Robert T-A
Brighton SC


----- Original Message -----
From: "Alex and Alison Hopkins" <alexali at surf.net.au>
To: <is at edulists.com.au>
Sent: Monday, May 30, 2005 9:35 PM
Subject: [Year 12 Its] Degree of Difficulty for Outcome 3


> Could I check with others as to the degree of difficulty required for
> the 3rd IS SAC.  Being my first year teaching IS, I'd like to check that
> the programming tasks I have in mind are in line with expectations.
>
> Alex Hopkins
> Bayside Christan College
>
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