[Year 12 IT Apps] Year 12 Info Tech

Thu Dec 8 10:26:33 EST 2011

Andrew,
I agree to a point. The current IT subjects have their origins from the Business Studies area. So, the office skills scenario that you mention is still present to a degree, albeit less now than when it first started off.

But there is no doubt that IT is integrally connected to business but just NOT in the way we used to conduct business in past decades. (which is what you are referring to?) The business models that are evolving around us have more to do with global audiences  and our students are constantly exposed to this side of IT. They cannot help but be! It is a much more attractive world than it use to be.
For example, iTunes, Facebook, MySpace, online shopping, Skype come to mind as well as the plethora of Web 2.0 tools out there that are catering to people's needs in a business and social sense. The innovations that are occurring in the Music Industry post Napster –  entertainment channels like Foxtel, Telstra and the like. All these companies use IT with all the components covered in the course yet we don't go there. The emphasis on design and GUI's is now more important than ever before. There is an opportunity for IT, ICT call it what you will to encompass all of this. When you think about what IT could be: it takes in the best of design (Vis Comm), modern networks, (NBN?), Social Networking, (Psychology) constantly evolving programming languages and environments, (LESS and SASS come to mind - Computing) the entertainment industry (Media) just to mention a few. Then there is the explosion that is Infographics… great design meets data…
Taking the student out of the realm of the "office" to a broader more "now" environment is where IT could head. By investigation and analyzing decisions that popular businesses are making, have made and may make will take students into a more creative thinking realm. It may make the subject more attractive to them as well.

Cheers
George

The University High School
77 Story Street, Parkville, Vic, 3052, Australia
Ph: (03) 9347 2022
mobile: 0412934782

From: Andrew Shortell <shortell at get2me.net<mailto:shortell at get2me.net>>
Reply-To: Year 12 IT Applications Teachers' Mailing List <itapps at edulists.com.au<mailto:itapps at edulists.com.au>>
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2011 21:27:40 +1100
To: Year 12 IT Applications Teachers' Mailing List <itapps at edulists.com.au<mailto:itapps at edulists.com.au>>
Subject: Re: [Year 12 IT Apps] Year 12 Info Tech

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

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Andrew Shortell

mailto:shortell at get2me.net
Leaving the
Heidelberg Teaching Unit at the end of 2011
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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

On 7 December 2011 13:12, Donna Benjamin <donna at cc.com.au> wrote:
On Tue, 2011-12-06 at 22:42 +0000, Anderson, Stuart L wrote:
> I think it'd be impossible to separate the two areas because they have
> grown together. There wouldn't be so many people using ICT if not for
> business (and marketing!). They are not mutually exclusive and can't
> be separated from each other.

Computing serves purposes other than business though...

eg. scientific research often has no commercial application - but serve
medicine, population modelling - computing has even lead to outright
disruption of business models...

Then again, I could be thinking of 'business' too narrowly.

:)

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Donna Benjamin - Executive Director
Creative Contingencies - http://cc.com.au
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