As an ex teacher of computer studies/science to GCSE and A-level students, I witnessed the abandoment of computer studies and programming in the mid 1980s and the introduction of ICT courses, which were little more than word processing and spreadsheet courses. I was appalled at the time, but the argument was always that '...you don't need to know what's under the bonnet of a car to drive it...'. Now it would seem that once again things have come full circle. People have forgotten (or are not aware) that programming was taught successfully in schools previously, so they should stop behaving as if this is a new idea by Mr Gove.
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I was taught 'O' level computing in 1972/3 and loved it. We used to march off to the City Hall here in Cardiff to get our code entered via punched cards. In those 'primitive' days, we had the benefit of not only learning Basic but also Cecil - an assembler language. As a result of this 'under the bonnet' learning and practice, I ended up working for IBM for 12 years, a fellow class member became head of IT for the John Lewis Partnership, and another class mate became head of IT for Husky Oik in Canada.
The catalytic power of a hands-on approach was that influential!
Wordprocessing is more than just bashing a keyboard, cutting and pasting etc. As an ex-teacher of typing I'm a strong supporter of people learning to touch-type. But even if that's not feasible there's the need to show the importance of layout, paragraphing, spacing, effective use of fonts and different sizes (it is NOT the more the merrier).
Pupils need to know how to interrogate databases; searching for info is more than asking Google - there's questions of reliability of data, about plagiarism, avoiding dodgy sites etc.
Spreadsheets: formula, entering data, setting up a spreadsheet from scratch. This all needs to be taught.
In the mid 80s, few pupils had home computers. I can still remember (anecdote alert) pupils (and a teacher) flying a mouse through the air to make the cursor move. And another teacher once told me that when he asked someone to "Right Click", she picked up a pen and paper and wrote "Click".
That said, the school did have a computer-controlled buggy to whiz across the floor. And (another anecdote) I remember programming my Sinclair zx spectrum so a ball ping-ponged from side to side (it took ages). My daughter and I built a "computer" out of a cornflake box, punched cards and plastic drinking straws. The instructions are even available on line:
http://amissingham.com/2012/06/12/cereal-box-computer/
I recall one of the Crick and Watson (structure of DNA) team saying, "The only real science is physics. All the rest is stamp collecting". Is this relevant, or just provocative, I ask myself.
And talking of DNA (another anecdote), the Wellcome Institute explains how to make an origami double helix. My granddaughter's was perfect. Mine ended up as a ball.
So she didn't get the recognition she deserved. Because she was a woman? Because she died aged 37 and couldn't fight her own corner? Probably a bit of both I suspect.
It's a pity that Nobel prizes aren't awarded posthumously.
I loved it. I left in 1977 wanting to program computers to play games but was told, in my gap year at IBM, that nobody would ever make a living from computer games.....
IBM were and probably still are, a highly conservative. slow moving company that has made such a gaff before when its MD cited a world-wide market for 6 computers I believe.
Umm - I think you'll find that a LOT of the heavy lifting in today's world is STILL done by IBM and similar mainframes. And IT is going full-circle witj the rise of virtualisation of the desktop (otherwise known as "cloud computing").
Sorry to disappoint all you feminists (of both sexes). Franklin did indeed produce the vital X-Ray image that showed the helical structure, but it was Crick and Watson who built the concept of a particular 4-bit replicating molecule based on it. They fully deserve their Nobel prize and place in the history books.
In fact they said that they "were not aware of the details of the results presented there (i.e., in the Franklin and Gosling paper) when we devised our structure, which rests mainly though not entirely on published experimental data and stereochemical arguments."
I subsequently emerged that they were in fact fully aware of the contents of Franklin's paper.
True. It was all very competitive and ego driven.
Where I do believe the subject has become diluted is as the result of DiDA and other GCSE equivalence courses which do not require programming skills. And what is not needed at KS4 tends not to be taught at KS3.
In wanting to abandon “ICT” and substitute "computing" we are witnessing another knee-jerk reaction. It should not be a binary choice, as both disciplines have essential educational elements.
For example, ICT courses teach students to question sources. How much should you believe what you find on the internet? If you must, parody such courses as "word-processing", but spare a thought for the apparently intelligent adults who don't know what a "gov" domain is and get swindled when submitting their tax or applying for a passport.
A good course would be a balanced blend of ICT concepts with programming. But for anyone to say “ICT bad, computing good” is simplistic and mistaken.
I think most of the damage from broadening the subject came from the 4 x C grade equivalent course that you could buy from the Thomas Telford School and which spawned successors that drove the huge inflation of 5+A*-C in the 1990s.
I learnt to type on a Remington and boy did my little finger take a bashing keeping the shift key down.
Here in the primary sector there are many of us struggling to upskill in time to teach programming skills from September, now that we realise how little we all know. There are too few specialist computing experts to go around and not enough money for every member of staff to attend expensive training courses.
No technician available - I had to copy all software onto the floppies myself (no network). I set up the computer room with just the help of my husband and two screwdrivers on a Saturday morning.
Thanks Janet, I not sure whether your comment reassures or frightens me even more. I do remember those very 'floppy' disks that could be corrupted accidentally with a magnitised paperclip.
A Cooper - floppy discs made excellent frisbees. I also remember mice with balls underneath. Our mice often lost their balls - they could be easily flicked out. So I had to search for mice with balls which could only be removed by a screwdriver (sounds painful). In the end I bought huge tracker balls to use instead of mice.
As I recall, there was a drive, during the 80's, for Britain to essentially become a country of service industries, as opposed to making / creating stuff. It's lower risk after all. As for "…you don’t need to know what’s under the bonnet of a car to drive it…" - You do if you want to be a good driver; having sympathy for the machine and a working knowledge of how it works (whatever that machine is) makes for a better "operator" surely?
I also think BASIC programming using the Acorn BBC was extremely cognitively stimulating. It doesn't matter that BASIC has no commercial applications. A great task was to write a Premier League table updating program. You enter the football results and the program updates the league table. This is quite hard but very absorbing. You can almost feel your brain grow as you tackle it.
Henry and Neils first posts remind me how narrow, reactive and parochial my single sex selective grammar school was in the 1980s.. I wonder how the new free schools touting Latin and classics as 21st century curriculum must haves are proceeding?
" Everyone should learn how to program a computer...because it teaches you how to think"
I have spent decades in IT and love programming. It is a large part of my life. But I have to disagree with this sentiment of Jobs - coding is a very, very fussy, pedantic, technical endeavour that suits autistic men best. It really is not something that should be imposed on all. Maybe some taster lessons and then many will realise it is simply not their thing. Programming is very much horses for courses. My opinion, but I do not feel it is a unique one.
The University of East Anglia have a beta test online learning module via Future Learn called
" Teaching Computing Part 1" designed to address initial problems with teachers implementing the curriculum .
It's 4 weeks of 2-3 hrs per week of teachers learning and collaborating via videos , web links and forums. OVvr 2000 learners fomed the first cohort.
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/teaching-computing-part-1
Neil - Don't you think everybody can benefit from and enjoy programming with LOGO? It is fascinating to see the pattern you have attempted to create going wrong and then working out how to put it right.
Neil I would agree with you about high level programming (not to mention the proposed teaching of Boolean algebra in Key Stage 3 ) ; but watch primary school pupils programming an animated cat via the wonderful interface SCRATCH and trying to work out how to repeat the routine or change the cat's costume . Even better see a codeing lesson without computers where children develop algorithms via drama e.g deciding what happens when child A touches Child B.; simply fantastic
Neil....check out the codeclub and computingatschool websites ...
“Computational Thinking” is a vital skill for children on a par with reading , writing and maths ; it develops their analytical ability i.e to be able to apply rules and logic to solve problem or simplify and prioritise.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/wing/www/publications/Wing06.pdf.
It reminds me of the fun I and some school friends had with an Analogue computer loaned to our school. I suspect few knew that such beasts existed. It was like a cross between a computer and a moog synthesisor.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/jun/15/featuresreviews.guardianrev...
It is a huge shame that for real world software development, most programmers are supplied with a ragbag of information scattered across many web sites.
The Logo software described here draws even very young children in because it is accessibly designed in a very careful manner. What the software industry need is this same mindset applied to more complex software. For the education perspective, the matter of software documentation and tutorial information is often neglected - as it is by language developers - so there is a ripe opportunity for money to be made from such resources. So it is not just coding that is what software is about, but it is about documentation and tuition.
Apologies for a rambling comment.
I wholeheartedly agree with "Mr Lynch", a vendor recently delivered a solution to computing problem in 2015 that we had been waiting for them to solve for 4 years. The outline solution I gave them in 2011 was firmly rooted in the concept of modular programming, I first learned in my A level Computer Science back in the 1980's. ICT management is more conceptual, its the coders and the understanding of how to manipulate and use data that release the real and intrinsic value of computer systems.
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