[Year 12 IT Apps] Year 12 Info Tech

[ken price]

Some years back I was involved in a review of Comp Sci/IS courses,
with a lot of input from the tertiary sector. One professor in the Inf
Sys area (in universities in Aust and China) had very strong views on
the relationship between IS and business, and suggested that their
critical problem was students attempting IS without an understanding
of business processes and principles. Basically, his view was that
students without an understanding of business principles were
completely wasting their time doing an information systems degree (and
were unemployable).
By this he meant the understanding of business funding, business case
development, core business functions, the need for information systems
to address core business requirements, business project management,
the role of venture capital, startups and entrepreneurial thinking,
ROI, etc etc etc. It was not about students using business
productivity apps - that was irrelevant to his argument.

Perhaps there is a difference between that sort of business
understanding and what are sometimes called "business" courses in
schools? There is a big difference between business understanding and
office work.

I'd agree with others that computational thinking is core to what we
do, and very important (and won't be covered anywhere else). However I
can see that there is another important element that needs to sit
somewhere in the curriculum, related to why software is developed and
the associated decisions behind it. Whether that is part of the
"computing" area or something else I'm not sure.

Ken


Assistant Principal, Tasmanian eSchool
President, TASITE
www.tasite.tas.edu.au


On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 9:27 PM, Andrew Shortell <shortell at get2me.net> wrote:
> In many ways this encapsulates my worries.
>
> I learnt programming at Uni in 1977. We used assembler and MONECS fortran
> and used punch cards.
>
> BUT (BIG BUT) I still use the concepts now as I teach the LOGIC of
> programming, the logic of problem solving.
>
> Design, logic, planning etc is in Computer Science  the use of non-humans to
> do the tedious bulk work so that we can do the thinking.
> In Computer Science we use machines at the moment.
> To paraphrase M.Smart : nano-computers and molecular computers are “that
> close”.
>
> What are we doing to enthuse students about possibilities with thinking and
> with using other things to do bulk repetitive tedious crunching to get out
> the things that we find interesting?
> In the old days very few humans could do enough number crunching etc to be
> able to come up with “unusual or left field ideas”
> Now thanks to computers many more people are able to process the sort of
> data that can lead to great ideas.
>
> Are we ENTHUSING them to do so? Are we giving them the thinking tools?
>
> In mY opinion in VCE IT apps we are NOT. So why do we do it?
>
> Teaching kids history is not meant to prepare them to work in an office
> doing word processing. It is meant to make them think.
>
> Teaching microsloth old fashioned pathetic software prepares them to work in
> an office. It does NOT make them think
>
> If we want to prepare them for industry, to work in a business office then
> let us make this a VET subject and call it office skills/ business skills.
>
> And then lets get back to computer science and call it a science
>
> So , off my soap box.
> This might be a rant but I feel that I want to teach computing : thinking
> advancing, not office skills.
>
> Andrew
>
> --
> Andrew Shortell
>
> mailto:shortell at get2me.net
> Leaving the
> Heidelberg Teaching Unit at the end of 2011
> Ph 9470 3403
> Fax  9470 3215
>
>
>
>
> On 7/12/11 1:17 PM, "Roland Gesthuizen" <rgesthuizen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Here is a good link to a UK Observer article via @lindymac that resonated
> with me and my thoughts about boosting the profile of computational thinking
> in our schools.
>
> Programming and Computational Thinking should take pride of place in our
> schools
> http://www.diigo.com/annotated/18e448bc88f295a362bf5967726506b9 (to my Diigo
> annotated version)
>
> Curious what others think of this comment about the government:
>
> ".. they're making the same mistake as those who saw ICT as a way of
> preparing kids for the world of work by training them to use Microsoft
> Office – ie designing a curriculum by looking into a rear-view mirror. What
> we ought to be doing is giving the kids the ability to operate in – and
> perhaps help to create – industries that nobody has even dreamed of yet."
>
>
> Regards Roland
>
-- 
Dr Ken Price MACS ACCE Professional Associate.
President, TASITE