On Thu, Nov 20, 2003 at 09:25:09AM +0000, David Bowles wrote:
Very well put Chris;
...the current curriculum is not about IT per se, but more about use of applications.
...or in too many instances one could more accurately describe this as 'the misuse' of applications and the teaching of bad habits and extremely poor ICT working practices. At least that was my experience observing how ICT is taught in several secondary schools.
It might help if teachers had ever been taught to use wordprocessors and spreadsheets. Which was a missed opportunity with the NoF training.
Why is it that so many teachers of ICT seem to possess a rabied aversion to obtaining (let alone reading) any manuals, books on how to get the most out of software packages, FAQs, consumer or professional computer magazines, or even the built-in the help systems that come supplied as an integral part of all modern software?
All too often "lack of" could be prefixed to the "help". Either that or you need a manual/help system to understand the help system and/or associated jargon.
In both of the schools in which I did my teaching practice there wasn't a single copy of any 'MS Office' manual, nor or a book, nor any
Do Microsoft actually provide manuals any more? (Even where they do, a thin A5 booklet costing about 20 quid is hardly much use for anything other than a simple application.)
other publication relevant to these two schools' principal software applications suites that were used by every student in these establishments! A good name or description of this phenomenon might be...
"What ever you do in schools, never under any circumstances 'RTFM'!"
Maybe I was simply unlucky as to the two very different schools I got allocated to for my teaching practice. But somehow I doubt this ...especially given the dire quality of the leading ICT GNVQ on-line courseware that's now been purchased at considerable expense (costing several thousand pounds per-school per-year) by upwards of 3,000 secondary schools across the UK.
Possibly the only reason it is being bought is because of money being specifically ringfenced as "E-Learning Credits". -- Mark Evans St. Peter's CofE High School Phone: +44 1392 204764 X109 Fax: +44 1392 204763