[Year 12 Its] Improving the status of VCE IT subjects

[Frank Merlino]

Jack,
Thanks for your ideas.
In the "old" days there was a Year 12 subject called Computer Science and much of what you describe was covered in the course.
I would certainly like to see such a course reinstated.
I know there will be many who will quite correctly say their students are not interested in this level of IT or are not able to do it in terms of technical level of understanding required. No problem!! Simply offer one course that is technical, as you describe, and another along the lines of the new course IT Applications. Surely this would cater for a very broad spectrum.
 
Jack, this is something that needs to be brought up again when the next round of "consultation" begins.
 
Regards,
 
 
Frank Merlino
Technology (IT and Systems) Co-ordinator
Web Site Manager
St. Joseph's College
135 Aphrasia St, Newtown
Geelong, Victoria, Australia, 3219
Phone: 03 52 268100 

________________________________

From: is-bounces at edulists.com.au on behalf of Jack Matthews
Sent: Fri 7/7/2006 6:55 PM
To: is at edulists.com.au
Subject: [Year 12 Its] Improving the status of VCE IT subjects



Hi everyone

I am a relatively new teacher and am rather disappointed in the current VCE
IT subjects, in particular the content taught in Information System.

In my opinion there need to be a new subject titled something like
'Computing fundamentals".

I have found that there are many students that want to learn the technical
aspects of computers,  including Programming, Binary computation, circuits,
SQL, Network communication (packets), Hexadecimal, octal, encryption/sorting
algorithms, general problem solving etc.

Not only would these be good offering for students and future university
courses; It would also be relatively easy to examine.

In my opinion, IT studies in general are dumbed down which is the reason
students don't even need IT at year 12 to enter a IT course at university.

It is generally considered by teachers and students alike to be an easy
bludge subject.  And yes, it is!!  Having worked as a programmer in
industry, this really annoys me, as I know I have worked tiresly on a
programming problem for days.

A simple example exam question might be: Displaying the hex output of a
packet sniffer and an ASCII chart, then get the students to interpret the
protocol used, information sent etc.  A more mathematical approach needs to
be taken.  "Correct / Incorrect", none of this interpretive stuff that seems
to be continuously presenting itself in IT Systems exams.

I know personally that I have many students that are capable of completing
such a course.  I would love to see an IT course that is comparable in
difficulty to Physics, in other words 'challenging'!

What do others think?

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