quisquose Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 It is a laudable initiative, but I'd expect sizeable problems with "mass tuition" of programming (rather than usage of Office-type packages), due to the (expectedly) disparate level of maths knowledge and ability across kids in any given classroom. In an ideal world, both subjects should be coordinated/go hand in hand. Still, a laudable initiative. I wonder if the (only recently mass-publicised) Raspberry initiative was a primer, or related at all, to this? You have reminded me that after hearing about the death of Bob Holness the other day, I ended up watching a few episodes of Blockbusters that were posted online. I was amazed at the depth of knowledge of these teenagers from 20 years ago compared to those that I know now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L00b Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 I was amazed at the depth of knowledge of these teenagers from 20 years ago compared to those that I know now.Well, possibly a big factor back in the 80s and before, and even up to not so long ago (mid 90s?), was that there was no Internet (to the current extent), no Wikipedia, less mass media (TV channels, Youtube, etc.) and the like, and kids still had to read books and 'teach themselves' by experiment, by and large. With a corresponding (entirely logical) amount of learning (...which I would distinguish from 'glanced/heard about/watched/etc.'). IMHO, the "thinking" or "knowledge" has eventually gone on to be too "pre-chewed" and levelling by the lowest common denominator too prevalent/permeating classroom ethics too early...But don't get me started about modern education methods and mass media in general A good teacher/education system teaches kids to think for themselves first and foremost, and fosters curiosity - regardless of the subject(s). In the context of the thread, whilst I readily acknowlege that a cursus is required (for progress monitoring and assessment purposes), perhaps kids would be better served by a very generalist approach initially (basics of hardware, networks, software (OS/apps), programming, etc.), and allowed to refine knowlege in/further explore chosen fields of choice over time - so long as they 'master' all the basics in the first place. Something to make them firmly grounded across the board, rather than specialised in using FB, Youtube and Office (for which they don't really need a school cursus these days anyway). Funnily enough, this thread just reminded me about a chat with a new colleague yesterday, who drew my attention to a dusty PROLOG textbook on our office shelf. Which I've now started reading in earnest (never heard of that language before, I began with, and stayed, a C/C++ guy) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sccsux Posted January 12, 2012 Author Share Posted January 12, 2012 I did Fortran (is it still used?) 40 years ago at college. Yes, Fortran is still used in a few establishments. Wouldn't half the knowledge be obselete before the kids even left school? Not really. The PCs in use today are still (almost) the same as in 1986/7. I taught myself BASIC, then Z80 assembly language. After a while I learned PASCAL, followed by COBOL, then HTML, Perl and PHP. Most of the disciplines I first learned in BASIC are applicable in all languages (spec, flowchart, pseudo-code, actual coding). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
green Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 As long as Michaels presentation is executed as stated, this looks to be a good reform. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truman Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 My other concern is how quickly the industry moves. Wouldn't half the knowledge be obselete before the kids even left school? I've been in IT for 35 years and some of the techniques/theories/methods etc I learnt at the beginning are still useful today Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alien52 Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 1 print "Teacher is a retard" 2 goto 1 Heh! :hihi: Those were the days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gnvqsos Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 Easier said than done and will remain as an aspiration and not an attainable objective due to lack of personnel and resources. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
horribleblob Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 ...I wonder if the (only recently mass-publicised) Raspberry initiative was a primer, or related at all, to this? I heard an item about the Raspberry Pi on the radio this afternoon - an interesting tool. http://news.enigma-tech.co.uk/2011/05/17/raspberry-pi-pocket-pc-costs-ten-pounds/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sccsux Posted January 13, 2012 Author Share Posted January 13, 2012 I heard an item about the Raspberry Pi on the radio this afternoon - an interesting tool. http://news.enigma-tech.co.uk/2011/05/17/raspberry-pi-pocket-pc-costs-ten-pounds/ Old news: http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=910355 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poppet2 Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 At last, someone is doing something about changing our children's diets in school. http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jun/17/michael-gove-school-meals-fatty-foods Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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