[Year 12 SofDev] The next study design & Thanks to Mark

Thu Feb 7 16:47:58 EST 2013

*         Maybe for U1/2 we could look at an approved list of emerging technologies (similar to that of approved languages) for U1O2 where they currently talk of Social networking, robotics & artificial intelligence et al. This list could then be dynamic for every year of the study design - just to keep things nice and fresh

*         It would be awesome for the definition of scope to be clarified

*         Would I become an outcast if I said databases should make a return to being utilized in SD? Is there really a difference between inputting data from a text file which stores data and a formal database...please don't banish me!

I'm sure more ideas will pop into my head soon enough

Also, a big thanks to Mark for his great site, his resources and his exam post mortems that have kept us all relatively sane over the years. The site and resources have definitely helped me keep my head above water over the past couple of years teaching IT.

[cid:image001.png at 01CE0541.B7147F30]

Mr James Vella
Head of Technology - ICT
Information Technology/Mathematics Teacher
MacKillop College
Russell Street
Werribee, VIC 3030

*     email: jvella at mackillop.vic.edu.au<mailto:s at mackillop.vic.edu.au>
* phone: +61-3-87345200
* Fax: +61-3-87345261
* mail: PO Box 522, Werribee VIC 3030
*      web: www.mackillop.vic.edu.au<http://www.mackillop.vic.edu.au/>

-----Original Message-----

Message: 1

Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2013 13:02:19 +1100

From: Mark <mark at vceit.com<mailto:mark at vceit.com>>

Subject: [Year 12 SofDev] The Next Study Design

To: "Year 12 IT Applications Teachers' Mailing List"

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We are now halfway through the 'new' study design and moves will be underway before too long to start designing the next study design. You might want to start sharpening your pencils and knives for that bunfight.

To start the buns flying, I would suggest:

- Study design in general -

- Can we (I?) please get guidance on how defining scope is different to determining solution requirements?  As I see it, defining one's functional and non-functional requirements necessarily also defines scope. If they don't completely define scope, what is missing?

- A personal annoyance of mine in the mandated PSM is that determining evaluation criteria is part of the design phase.  Surely it's part of logical design, not physical design, and could and should happen during analysis?

- The PSM leaves out training from the development phase.

- Implementation has been omitted from the PSM. I think it needs to return, as a separate step or at the end of development.

- Let's make sure the detailed examples actually obey the mandated requirements of outcomes: ITA U4O2, I'm looking at YOU.

- Make sure mandated requirements actually appear in mandated sections of the study design, and not in the "Advice" or "Recommendations" sections - ITA U4O2's "organisations" with a significant S, I'm still looking at YOU - was just unfair.

- All significant changes to a study design should be clearly flagged, and not subtly changed.

- There should be a single (online) point of truth for all mandated VCE IT course and task requirements: sprinkling them across a study design, assessment handbook, FAQs and VCAA bulletins (some up to 3 years old!) leads to accidental non-compliance by teachers.

- Units 1 & 2 -

- I'm pretty happy with the balance overall, but some 'sexying up' would help attract punters - e.g. programming web apps, image/audio editing.

- Perhaps an 'integrated project' to bring together several IT skills into one information product.

- Definitely keep the groupwork.

- Definitely keep the client project.  I loved throwing them out into the real world on unsupervised excursions for most of the term 4 double periods

:-)

- SD -

- Please let's sort out the strange attraction that the study design has for the physical layer of the OSI model.  What is so magnetically attractive about that layer compared to the others, especially the more interesting higher layers?

- And what's with KK U3O1 KK04 - the OSI physical layer' connection to TCP/IP?  AFAIK there is no connection. TCP/IP has its own parallel version of the OSI layers. Kevork may be able to help me better understand this baffling key knowledge.

- I'd like to see linked lists added to data structures.

- Let's remove laptops from the list of allowed "mobile devices". They are certainly not retarded computers any more.  Mine is more powerful than my desktop!

- Let's also remove "gaming consoles". If it's meant to refer to handheld games, say so.  Otherwise it infers that Xboxes are "mobile computing devices", which their cables certainly argue against!

- Completely new fields of IT -

- Most of my suggestions have been mere tinkering with what is already in the study design. What important fields are unrepresented or under-represented in the current study design?  Perhaps...

- 3D printing

- Data centres

- Social/psychological implications of omnipresent computing and communication facilities on children, students, workers, and governments.

e.g. how many of the political revolutions in 2012 were incited and coordinated by social media?

- Privacy in the digital age

- Changing attitudes to information ownership - open source software, "acceptable piracy", Megaupload, Creative Commons, CopyLeft, GNU licences, Facebook privacy settings, Anonymous, Wikileaks, jailbreaking/unlocking (recently outlawed in USA) etc.

- Artificial intelligence, e.g. IBM's Watson, Amazon's suggested buys, Siri, human/computer interfacing (e.g. Google glasses)

- Changes in computing paradigms - mainframes/dumb terminals > smart standalones > cloud/dumb browsers.

Over to you guys. The beach is calling me...

--

Mark Kelly

mark at vceit.com<mailto:mark at vceit.com>

http://vceit.com

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