[Year 12 IT Apps] comment about Informatics

[Margaret Iaquinto]

OK, Mark, here's another opinion. I'm not sure why you think the new 
Informatics subject will require us to teach database for most of the 
year. And you say that students loathe database. My students see the 
value of database and the power of queries with respect to issues such 
as data mining and privacy rights. Energising.

You have written that 3 of the 4 Outcomes will be on database. Well, the 
first Outcome is required to use database. But not the other. The next 
part is a SAT which is much, much different from Outcomes.

It's exciting because students can do research and find a hypothesis and 
then work out, with the data collected,  whether it is wrong or right. 
To present all the findings, a wide range of software tools can be used. 
I would certainly be teaching spreadsheets to crunch numbers. My 
students would be learning how to deal with quantitative data AND 
qualitative data. Some students will be using software I do not know how 
to use but they have learned from their other subjects. This is much 
different from anything we have had in the past.

And I know what you tend to do when folks present an opinion which is 
different from yours: you slam it vigorously in this public forum. There 
are times when I enjoy reading your bombast because it cloaks the truth 
especially when it comes to dissecting final examinations. But to be 
hung out and dried is no fun. Debate, however, is beneficial. Perhaps 
this is why folks are mute.  And so I expect you to comment on this post 
and reduce it to worthlessness with low-level analogies such as  
unwrapping condoms. And you will poke further fun because I have chosen 
the wrong verb or misused a semicolon.

Back to the SAT. Not only will I be teaching spreadsheets but perhaps 
also Photoshop when my students gather primary evidence to support or 
deny their hypotheses. Most likely I will also be teaching HTML5 and 
CSS3 to write forms and to present findings. Some teachers may choose 
many data visualisation tools to examine the data and to present the 
information.

*No long lists of restricted tools and functions. At last!!! Now that is 
exciting. *

Maggie Iaquinto
Teacher, Yeshivah College





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