BarryRiley Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 What kind of GCSE can be taught in 1 hr/week? Most GCSE syllabus are designed to be taught over the course of about 2 years at 1 hour a week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarryRiley Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 They should be taught how to write letters in English lessons, that's an entirely different subject. They aren't going to be taught word processing in English as this is not English's remit How would the kids know to take it as an option if they've never done any computing before? If we wait until they get options, at 14, it's already too late, it'll just be like when I was at school & the kids were fixing the old broken computers & showing the (woodwork) teacher how to use them. They already should get a taste of the basic principles of programming at Key Stage 3 as it's in the Programme of Study: "Students should be able to...create efficient sequences of instructions including the use of subroutines" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anywebsite Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 You're confusing the development environment with the language. No I'm not at all. Visual studio is a collection of different proprietary languages along with a development environment. From wiki... "Built-in languages include C/C++ (via Visual C++), VB.NET (via Visual Basic .NET), C# (via Visual C#), and F# (as of Visual Studio 2010[4])." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Visual_Studio VBScript is free, an IDE to develop it might not be (although there is a free one). VBScript is part of windows, you need to buy Windows. You forgot about VBA too, you need to buy Office for that. I'm not talking about free as in "buy one get one free". Are those API's not actually free? Surely they want people to create programs for the iPhone? They want you to buy a Mac & then pay $99 for the SDK before they'll allow you to produce apps for the IPhone. Then they want 30% of your revenue if you decide to sell the app. Intel don't make c++, making a compiler isn't the same as owning the language. So, you don't need a compiler or a development environment now? They might not own C++, but there are enough differences between different compilers, they own their own version of it & if you want to use it you must pay. Yeah, they didn't make languages though, they made IDE's. You've clearly no idea what you're talking about. With any PC you have everything you need to start programming. When you install Linux. Do you just mean they're all free when you pirate them? A bit like all toilets are free when you jump the barriers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anywebsite Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 They aren't going to be taught word processing in English as this is not English's remit Do they really need an hour every week to teach them how to click on the 'Word' icon & start typing a letter? The main challenge in writing a letter is English, not IT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anywebsite Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 Most GCSE syllabus are designed to be taught over the course of about 2 years at 1 hour a week. That's changed a lot since I went to school, we got over 2 hours a week for each GCSE. What do they do for the rest of the time? or do they take 20 GCSEs now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarryRiley Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 That's changed a lot since I went to school, we got over 2 hours a week for each GCSE. What do they do for the rest of the time? or do they take 20 GCSEs now? They choose options which will give them 8 GCSE 'equivalents' such as BTECs and OCR Nationals. This is what Gove is trying to clamp down on - students already having 6 meaningless GCSEs by the end of Year 9 and coming out with 15 GCSE 'equivalents' at the end of their school lives despite beginning the bottom set for everything. I'm from a similar time to you when you worked your ass off in a classroom for 2 years, over 2 hours a week for a single GCSE which you cherished with pride. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarryRiley Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 Do they really need an hour every week to teach them how to click on the 'Word' icon & start typing a letter? The main challenge in writing a letter is English, not IT. No but obviously this is only a small part of the current curriculum which will also include data handling, spreadsheets, business applications etc. Granted the literacy part of the letter writing is an English skill but the spacing, font choices, layout and presentation are something which would not be taught at all if they weren't taught in ICT. No matter how mundane it sounds it needs to be taught somewhere unless you want to start receiving your gas bills in Comic Sans size 24 ICT as a subject is a mess. The absolute essentials needs to be taught as a compulsory subject with every other part of it being split off in to options, computing being one of them (although some basic computing principles should still be taught at Key Stage 3) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anywebsite Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 I think a lot of those basic IT skills should be taught as part of different lessons now. As I said, writing letters should be part of the English course, I was taught how to (hand) write & present a letter in English, now they should be taught on a PC. Spreadsheets could be taught in Maths. Computing should be an important subject in it's own right. Cyclone, I did just find some free (no price, not truly free) Visual Studio editions... https://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010-editions/express still need to buy Windows to run them & there's no freedom to inspect or alter the code for the compilers. Not all the languages included in the paid for version are there either, it looks like you need to pay for the more obscure ones like F#. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarryRiley Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 I think a lot of those basic IT skills should be taught as part of different lessons now. As I said, writing letters should be part of the English course, I was taught how to (hand) write & present a letter in English, now they should be taught on a PC. Spreadsheets could be taught in Maths. Computing should be an important subject in it's own right. This is great in theory and a lot of schools do cross-curricular learning like this. However, in practice it just means that you get a non-specialist teaching how to use a computer. There probably aren't that many maths teachers out there who properly know how to use Excel to the level where they could teach it to a class. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anywebsite Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 They choose options which will give them 8 GCSE 'equivalents' such as BTECs and OCR Nationals. This is what Gove is trying to clamp down on - students already having 6 meaningless GCSEs by the end of Year 9 and coming out with 15 GCSE 'equivalents' at the end of their school lives despite beginning the bottom set for everything. I'm from a similar time to you when you worked your ass off in a classroom for 2 years, over 2 hours a week for a single GCSE which you cherished with pride. Well, I'm 30, did my GCSEs in 1997. I found my GCSEs easy, can't really honestly say I worked my ass off or cherished them with pride, I was just held back by the poor teaching & equipment at school. I did 10 GCSEs, 2x 1hr 5min lessons a week for each of them for 2 years. ICT was shockingly bad when I went to school, I was too late to be taught any programming at school, I went to secondary school after they stopped doing that (learnt a bit in primary school), they were just trying to teach the basics as you are trying to say they should. It was totally pointless. They didn't have the equipment, the teachers or the right course. We were lucky if we got 1 working computer (as in, would turn on) between 3 pupils, they were Acorn Archimedes, expensive & only ever used in schools, incompatible with my PC. They were old & broken. All work had to be printed out, it took an hour to print a single sheet, if you could get any time on the only working printer in the class & if it didn't crash. Our teacher was a woodwork teacher, not an IT teacher. We had one floppy disk without a case, we were only allowed one all year, the first time you put it in one of these computers it swallowed the metal clip. 50% of the grade was coursework, which was impossible to complete any of. Nobody in the school got above a 'C' grade. I went to the largest school in Sheffield & they didn't have a qualified IT teacher. I had to teach myself at home in my own time. It was only possible because my parents could afford to buy me a computer. Raspberry Pi brings the cost of a basic computer down to a similar price as a text book. That's really important, bringing down the cost of teaching IT. If you think they should be taught Excel, that means they need a PC with Windows & Microsoft Office, you're looking at up to £1,000 per pupil, every couple of years to stay up to date. Either that, or they could be taught LibreOffice on a Raspberry Pi for £30. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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