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On 2003-11-30 17:51:46 +0000 Colin McQueen
Absolutely not! Many teachers fall back on this because to nteach and assess capability is harder and needs someone who themselves is capable. But the drive is NOT to tick off skills. As a Key Stage 3 Consultant for Hampshire LEA I can guarauntee
How can you guarantee that? The "Quality System" that gives most education authority information seems an exercise in creative form-filling for staff. The summary achievement statistics in the league table have become the bottom line. The pressure is to be seen to be fulfilling the skills requirements for the assessment and to be able to defend a position if the target is missed. If there's some miracle cure for tick-list-ism, please describe it. The training you describe sounds helpful, yet detached from teaching and assessment pressures.
the recent web technologies training that teaches the advantages and disadvantages of using a text editor, word processor and HTML editor for making web pages.
HTML is gone. xhtml and CSS are what should be taught now. Why just different editing? Where's format conversion, xml transformations, string templating systems, retemplaters and the other concepts that are really used in the wild today?
and the latter purports to create mini software engineers: 15 year olds doing system analysis - get real. They have to start somewhere in learning the vocabularly and process even if they don't have the K+U or maturity to really attempt this.
Excuse my naive opinion of this, but doesn't software engineering basically combine a little computing knowledge with a lot of communication work (should be taught in native language subject lessons) and a design process (should be taught in Art and Design)?
Tests like CLAIT and ECDL don't provide any guarantees that those who pass them can use IT effectively. I agree but no qualifications or lessons in ICT guarantees even less.
No qualifications guarantee anything about ability. All they do is take a snapshot of student knowledge and we hope that it's correlated. I don't understand why that is even debated. I think the OP was suggesting that they're distractions from learning.
So how do you teach IT? : We should not forget its ICT the communication aspect is vital IMHO.
Communication technology, eh? Do you teach them how to work telephones and faxes properly too? ICT is such a fuzzy cross-subject topic. Who killed computing and gave its time to all these other subjects?
But you're missing out the vital bit. We are pushing that you cannot just assess the quality of the work done but MUST assess the process pupils have gone through.
How do you assess process? Teachers can't be everywhere at once. Are extra assessors used in Hampshire?
Knowing which button to press to produce bullets is irrelevant; or should be. So you could theoretically assess ICT via a theory exam only? Q1. Describe the process you would go through to ....
You can theoretically assess computing via a theory exam only.
You can do the Times crossword? Can this be taught or is it a function of IQ?
No, you can teach a lot of the skills. Different methods of pattern matching with good English vocab and grammar will go a long way. There's still another aspect to them, though.
When do girls get encouraged to be software engineers?
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