FW: [Year 12 Its] New IS study design query

[Mark Kelly]

The forthcoming implementation CD will give you exactly what you're 
looking for  :-)

Frank Van Den Boom wrote:
> I was a bit surprised to only get one response to the question below a 
> couple of weeks ago. Does that mean that nobody else finds this 
> difficult to judge?
> Imagine you were an experienced IT practioner and you came in to teach 
> this course with no prior knowledge of it and you were trying to figure 
> out what depth was required in programming. So you look at the following :
> 1. Study design - very hard to know (see comments in original message)
> 2. 2006 IS exam - nothing beyond nested IF's - nothing involving arrays, 
> records, files. One question with a loop was only concerned with 
> identifying variable types, but not control or data structures.
> 3. Previous exams - basic use of 1-dim array, basic looping
> 3. VITTA practice exams - suggest you need to have a solid understanding 
> of arrays, records, file processing and parameter passing.
> 4. Text books - cover algorithms for stacks, queues, linked lists etc
>  
> At the end of the day, past exams to me are the only general indicator 
> of the depth to cover. Is there a reason why the study design 
> can't spell this out more clearly?
>  
> Frank
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* is-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:is-bounces at edulists.com.au] 
> *On Behalf Of *Frank Van Den Boom
> *Sent:* Wednesday, 25 October 2006 12:41 PM
> *To:* is at edulists.com.au
> *Subject:* [Year 12 Its] New IS study design query
> 
> Today I started looking more closely at the revised study design to plan 
> for next year. One of the things that struck me is that it is difficult 
> to know what the minimum content requirements are in a number of areas. 
> For example-data structures. I don't think it specifically mentions any 
> particular data structure. U4O1 key knowledge includes "methods of 
> organising files....serial, sequential, random" which implies the need 
> to cover records. Arrays are not specifically referred to and while, it 
> would be pretty dumb to omit them, are 1-dim arrays enough, or might 
> exams expect ability to work with multi-dim arrays? What about sets, 
> pointers....
>  
> Another KK point --> 'Forms and uses of data structures to organise and 
> manipulate data'. Which data structures?? What types of uses?? - all the 
> oldies like sorting, linked lists, queues, binary searches etc are 
> possible here.
>  
> Now I know we have the flexibility to cover as much of this as we want 
> to for the kids who are really into it, particularly for those who 
> already have a reasonable programming foundation as they enter the 
> course. But what I don't know is what the minimum requirement is. This 
> becomes more important when most of your group have little to no 
> programming experience.
>  
> What do you think about this?
> Frank
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-- 
Mark Kelly
Manager - Information Systems
McKinnon Secondary College
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