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

[Frank Van Den Boom]

...is this a VITTA resource? If so, isn't it just a group's educated
guess on what to cover, not much different to the available texts. 
Frank

-----Original Message-----
From: is-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:is-bounces at edulists.com.au] On
Behalf Of Mark Kelly
Sent: Thursday, 16 November 2006 10:41 AM
To: Year 12 Information Technology Systems Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: Re: FW: [Year 12 Its] New IS study design query

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
McKinnon Rd McKinnon 3204, Victoria, Australia Direct line / Voicemail:
8520 9085 School Phone +613 8520 9000  <<< NEW NUMBER School Fax +613
95789253

Webmaster - http://www.mckinnonsc.vic.edu.au IT Lecture notes:
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Moderator: IPM Mailing List

There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary
and those who don't.

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