[Year 12 SofDev] SD - consultation version

[John Bellavance]

Hi All,

I agree with Adrian on several of his observations.

Here are my views overall, not just SD.

The key is to make the curriculum engaging and relevant for students
All outcomes must be more focused on a product and skills, rather than paperwork, which in most part, the draft does well.

However, in Unit 3 Out 2 and Unit 4 Outcome 1 for Software Development, the programming task represent around 12% of the overall grade. Kids that do coding, want to do coding and want to be rewarded for this. Once again there is too much emphasis on paperwork and less on coding in Software Development. If we want our numbers to go up, we must make this course more engaging. We are telling them that we value paperwork. Evaluating the solution is important, but do we really need to evaluate the chosen development model and project plan? (more paper work to give marks to and less for coding).

Approaches to problem-solving must be more current
The agile model is used in the industry – good one!

Excellent Points of the Rational
Providing opportunities for enterprising individuals to create new technologies and innovative uses for existing technologies.

ICT skills - This study equips students with knowledge and skills required to adapt to a dynamic technological landscape, including the ability to identify emerging technologies, envisage new uses for digital technologies and consider the benefits that these technologies can bring to society at a local and global level.

Soft Skills - Be creative, critical thinkers, and develop communication, collaboration, personal and social skills.

John

John Bellavance
Head of IT Faculty and eLearning - Berwick
1300 002 225
Extension: 1177

Berwick Campus
92 Kangan Drive
Berwick  Vic  3806
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From: sofdev <sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au> On Behalf Of Adrian Janson
Sent: Wednesday, 22 August 2018 10:40 PM
To: Edulists - Year 12 Software Development <sofdev at edulists.com.au>
Subject: [Year 12 SofDev] SD - consultation version

Hi everyone,

I have attached v2 of my spreadsheet - tonight I went through the Glossary! So I thought I would write out some of my thoughts and would be very interested to hear what others think! These are in no particular order - and also - it is highly possible that I may say something has been removed or added and it is in fact somewhere else (please let me know!). I feel like a lot has come out - and not much has been added. I felt that the 2016-2019 SD study design did this as well (removed material but did really add much). It doesn't feel like there is enough.

Glossary
The terms relevant for SD has been expanded from 13 to 21! I feel that there is a massive amount of redundancy in these terms and definitions - PLUS - I feel it is a rabbit warren that can easily trap teachers. I found myself thinking "why can't the whole course be laid out in the AOS, KK and KS?". Having been on Study Design panels before, I know that Glossary terms can be helpful to define the scope of what can be very broad concepts - but - by the same token, if you are a teacher trying to construct a course based on this study (as currently shown), you will be constantly flicking back and forth between KK points and the Glossary and could miss things out.

Here are a few specific things I noticed:
'Data structures' mentions stacks, queues and linked lists yet these are not mentioned anywhere in the Study Design!
The definition of Design Thinking expands on the ways that design ideas can be generated.
Spam Act and Health Records Act are not in SD but are mentioned in the Legal Requirements def. (confusing, but previous study did this too).
Terms are listed here that feel redundant - like 'project management', 'managing files', 'naming conventions', 'testing techniques' and 'validation'. They seem to just repeat what is in existing KK points.
A 'Psuedocode' term has been added that lists some conventions - which means that teachers will need to use these!

AOS3.1
+ plain text and CSV files
+ classes
The wording has been changed from 'techniques for linear and binary searching' to 'algorithms for...' - which makes me wonder if this implies that students will need to memorise algorithms for these as opposed to (merely) understanding the process?

AOS3.2
+ agile, waterfall and spiral - new development technique
+ critical path added to PM - which is an easy (and logical) addition
- styles of modern application architecture

AOS4.1
Selection and quick sort are still there, but removed is the part which mentions selecting them based on purpose and comparing them in terms of complexity and sort time. Strange to me - as you would need to be mentioning these in teaching these sorts anyway!

AOS4.2
(this is where you need to queue up that Jurassic Park clip of Samuel L Jackson as he turns off the main power....)
Information systems are mostly gone. There are small mentions of goals and objectives, but it isn't clear.
Characteristics of data (accuracy, timeliness, reasonableness, authenticity, correctness) - gone
- Spam Act
- conflict, data integrity, data mining, adv / disadv for stakeholders
+ security strategies, risk management
- networks, VPNs, technical underpinnings - all gone
- types and causes of threats
+ virtual testing environments, exploits, ways to protect from these threats (and others)

Cheers,
Adrian



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