On 06/03/2012 03:29, Rod Speed wrote:
John Rumm wrote
Rod Speed wrote
John Rumm wrote
Rod Speed wrote

And if you want them to be able to do more than just trivial documents at work, they certainly need more than you
propose with Word too.

A bit more than a couple of weeks, perhaps - but certainly not years of it.

We dont do years even with the trade schools.

Your not in the UK I take it?

Nope, Australia.

The so called "ICT" (a name which means nothing to anyone outside of education), literally can get taught for years!

Thats not JUST Word tho if
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informa...United_Kingdom
is correct.

No its not just word, but it is largely using office applications" (and
that in reality if frequently MS Office apps). Publisher, and Powerpoint
get a big look in, and some Excel...

After all, what sense does it make that kids leave school after doing the full time at school, without being able
to use something as common as Word for the sort of thing Word gets used for at work by so many ?

You mean writing one page letters, three page memos, and documents
that might use high tech capabilities like auto numbering! ;-)

Plenty of them do rather more than just that.

Has everyone had a sense of humour bypass tonight? ;-)

Nope, I was just pointing out that that overstates it.

As with most exaggerations there is a core of truth in there.

Yes plenty do more, however a sizeable majority don't.

Thats a separate issue to what needs to be taught to them tho.

I would say they are related. Being comfortable with technology, and
know the basic functions of office software is important. As is decent
mouse and keyboard skills. However repeating that over and over only
gets board kids, not better trained ones. (note there is actually a fair
amount of interesting stuff in the ICT syllabus - alas much of it does
not get taught or gets taught in a veru formulaic way because the
teachers don't have deep enough skills either to really understand what
they are doing, and develop the concepts and explore a little.

Its never practical to just teach what a sizable majority of them actually do with any subject.

As IT hack Guy Kewney used to say something like "people are in the habit of demanding tomorrow's technology today,
when in reality many would be incapable of using yesterday's technology next week!"

Thats a separate issue to what should be taught in schools tho.

Indeed... although look round a school and the same principle often
applies. IT suites full of "ok" computers, and top end kit in the staff
rooms that never gets touched!

Plenty of times I have worked in high tech engineering companies,
where the engineers were slogging over 2000 page cross referenced design and test specs or similar documents or crappy
geriatric PCs,

Those are all quite adequate for running something
like Word or whatever else you prefer to do that with.

If they were adequate I would not have commented on it!

To be fair its less of an issues these days in that even relatively poor
machines will still perform fairly well on basic office apps as long as
you are not shifting large or complex documents about. But load up a
graphics content rich 500MB doc on a machine that can't hack it, and it
will spend most of its time paging and not doing much else.

Bit rash to claim that no one takes years full time to teach say Word, but if anyone is that stupid they should be
shut down.

Depends on what you mean by learn word (or any other word processor.

I meant spending years teaching about nothing else, in Word specific courses.

People can use it for years and never get past the basics, because they lose any enthusiasm for learning once they
know "enough to get by".

And because they either dont do the more fancy stuff very much, or
because they dont even realise the better approaches like style sheets
are worth the trouble to understand and become fluent with etc.

Indeed.

That sort of thing is certainly worth teaching in schools.

Whether its worth teaching that level to everyone is a different matter entirely.


With what the Pi can do its more complicated. You can certainly
make a case for at least some school kids being able to do stuff
like that, if only to provide something that might lite the fire of
some potential engineers etc.

Certainly it makes no sense to try and ram it down the throats of
most kids tho.

Anything you stick on a school curriculum you in effect "ram down
the throats" of the kids...

Nope, particularly when quite a bit of the curriculum is optional
and not compulsory.

If you are in a state school, and ICT is on the national curriculum,
then that is what you get...

I dont believe that thats compulsory for all say hair dressers etc in

ICT is compulsory at the moment if you follow the NC. As I alluded to,
some categories of school have more freedom to interpret manoeuvre
within the constrains of the NC.

the sense that they must all fully grasp what say Word style sheets
are about, let alone some of the more sophiisticated feaures of Excel.

(although schools are finding their ways around that now)

things like the Pi just make it cheaper and at least make it possible for just about any parent to also "buy what
they use at school" should schools choose to adopt them.

Sure, but its less clear that something like the Pi
makes more sense than a netbook or a laptop.

However, I expect it being mainly taken up by the self selecting group that are already into such things.

And it remains to be seen how many kids do, either by
demanding their parents do that or driven by the parents.

But then you can also make a case for teaching quite a bit of DIY in schools too when so many chose to do stuff
like that after they have finished school too.

and in fact, some schools do. There is a local one here that
teaches building, plumbing, wiring skills etc, and even has outdoor
"pens" so that the trainees can get a feel f what it is like to
work in real world conditions for some of these tasks.

Sure, I didnt mean to imply that none do, I really just meant
that it may make more sense for most schools do to that
instead of using the Pi in schools, just because thats more
likely to be more use to more of the kids than the Pi would be.

Depends on the kids obviously. If it fires the enthusiasm for learning some "real" computer science then its
worthwhile

I'm not sure that it is if you are proposing all kids should be forced
to use it in school, even the ones that plan to be hair dressers etc.

I was not proposing that anyone should be "forced" to use any specific
bit of kit. I personally would like to see some of the basics of
software development taught alongside the office apps skills etc. I
suspect however that you would find it easier to generate enthusiasm for
a (say) a small robot being driven round an obstetrical course by a on
board Pi, than one would for something popping up on the screen of a PC.

- there are desperately few getting taught any useful development skills prior to university these days (unless self
taught)

Sure, but you can make a case that anyone who is likely to end up being
much use as a computer engineer is likely to do that seff taught stuff.

I disagree, and would also suggest that evidence would not support that
claim. We (i.e. the UK) seem to be producing far fewer people going to
university to study hard sciences in general, and software/hardware
engineering in particular than many other countries.

A number of people have commented on this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14683133
http://royalsociety.org/Current-ICT-...ce-in-schools/

Its different with something like say jet engine design.

And then you have the other entire can of worms, whats best taught
in primary, secondardy, trade schools and university level education.

We don't really have much in the way of trade schools as such here (I
take it you refer to ones that major on vocational training rather than
academia?) which is a shame. Some of the better comprehensive schools do
now have streams that lean this way however.

I agree with I think it was Bernard who said that the basics of using
Word should be taught to something like 8 year olds just because that
would be useful for most kids even just for projects and assignments
but not neccessarily so true of Excel which might be better left till a
bit later in school.

Its quite often surprising what kids are capable of if guided in the
right direction. I have never had one of ours come home and enthuse
about having learnt how to set a margin in word etc, in fact it never
gets much of a mention. However the day our eldest went for a "sampler"
day at a potential senior school and they had them programming macros to
pop up messages boxes etc in VBA, she actually came home and wanted to
try it out here!

But I think you can make a case for teaching the sort of thing that
is useful for automating the production of quotes and for day to day
billing etc may be better left to trade school where you can teach
what is appropriate to a particular trade when say car mechanics
are likely to find that stuff less useful than say general builders etc.

Its not clear to me what the british system does with say the education
of hairdressers and plumbers about computing, whether they attempt to

Well a hairdresser running a business is as much a businessperson as
many others. The same skills are required.

However, there is a danger of focussing too much on "life skills". While
it is an important part of eduction, and so is the acquisition of
qualifications (if that is your competency), there is a vital and often
forgotten aspect of education which is in effect holding up a "mirror"
to your students to allow them to form a better picture of who they are
and what they are actually capable of when challenged and pushed a bit.
To in effect push a wide variety of "buttons" and see which one gets
them going. Try a broad enough range of things to stimulate interest,
and let them decide where there interests and vocations rest.

force them all to do that sort of thing because a percentage of the students
will end up running their own small business in that field and so would find
that useful, or whether thats either optional units or optional courses in
the trade schools that can be taken by those who do decide to end up
owning their own small business in that field, without that being a
compulsory requirement to get the qualification to even be allowed to
actually be employed by someone else as a plumber or hairdresser.

I know the germans particularly do make all the kids do all sorts of
things formal education wise even in trade school that isnt common in
many other countrys. They've been doing that for hundreds of years now.

They do, as do the Japanese. Although in their rigour and very
constrained system they also tend to suppress some of the inventiveness
and creativity, which (historically at least) our educations system was
better at preserving.

Not sure what they do about that with sxy computers and hairdressers tho.



--
Cheers,

John.

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