[Year 12 IT Apps] REVIEW OF VCE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, SUMMARY OF PROPOSED CHANGES TO THE STUDY DESIGN

[Laurie Savage]

My Two Bob's worth! Modern IT is Database driven: students who aren't
interested in Database design should be doing Multimedia, Accounting, VET IT
or Business Management. Teaching this course to these kids is, like teaching
VCE Physics to students who don't get algebra, or Geology to kids who don't
like the bush, ultimately pointless. They may choose to study an
inappropriate area of IT at the tertiary level, and will quickly come
unstuck. This is reflected in the teaching of programming in first year
University; A recent british lit. review that found that no  matter which
type of introduction or teaching language was used, the failure rate sits
around 50% - 60% i.e. most students don't get it and are hitting their heads
against a conceptual brick wall, the level of abstraction is too great.
(citation to follow).

Most of the VCE kids at PVGC that we teach like and are pretty good at web
design and graphics manipulation, some like the power of spreadsheets, and
very few get or like databases once we get beyond the simulations and role
playing exercises. The ones who do understand databases probably have a
future in software development, management and administration, the others
will become competent designers or users of office applications.

The above comments are entirely the opinion of this bigoted writer and in no
way reflect the views of PVGC.

Laurie Savage 

-----Original Message-----
From: itapps-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:itapps-bounces at edulists.com.au]
On Behalf Of Mark Kelly
Sent: Tuesday, 18 August 2009 3:18 PM
To: Year 12 IT Applications Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: [Year 12 IT Apps] REVIEW OF VCE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, SUMMARY OF
PROPOSED CHANGES TO THE STUDY DESIGN

http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/vce/vceconsult/itsumofchanges.doc

*TWO* ITA outcomes using databases?  O! no no no...

ITA enrolments have been bad enough recently.

This will surely kill them stone dead.

--
Mark Kelly
Manager - Information Systems
McKinnon Secondary College
kel AT mckinnonsc.vic.edu.au
McKinnon Rd, McKinnon 3204, Victoria, Australia Direct line / Voicemail:
8520 9085 Fax +613 9578 9253

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

Why do people mis-spell 'grammar' and mispronounce 'pronuniciation'?
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