IT teaching in need of 'reform' (UK) - Polidicks

[quote]The teaching of computer science must become more relevant to modern needs, said the government. The government said the current teaching of IT was "insufficiently rigorous and in need of reform". The call for change came in a response to an industry report which looked at technology teaching in the UK. Without reform future UK workers would lack key skills and the nation would lose its standing as a video games and visual arts hub, said the report. [b]Game over[/b] The Next Gen report was published in October and criticised current ICT (information and communication technology) classes which tended to focus on how to use software rather than on how to write it. Written by gaming guru Ian Livingstone and visual effects veteran Alex Hope, Next Gen called for programming skills to replace learning about business software in ICT lessons. In its response, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) said the report had set out some "compelling" ideas about how to make the UK a hub for video games and visual effects. Creative industries minister Ed Vaizey said computer games and the visual effects sectors had a clear economic and cultural value. "We need to invest in talent that will ensure the UK remains at the forefront of games creativity," he said. The high quality jobs that could be created in the gaming and effects sectors might help the UK's recovery from recession, added Mr Vaizey. The DCMS response considered the 20 points for action given in Next Gen and said that, as well as looking into ICT reform, it would take action on other fronts including investigating ways to tempt good teachers of computer science into schools and stepping up plans to get game makers and effects artists to talk to pupils about their work. [b]Optional[/b] The government shied away from agreeing to include ICT in the national curriculum which was one of the main goals of the Next Gen report. Despite this, Mr Livingstone said he was "absolutely delighted" with the response because of a separate commitment to ensure that school children would be more digitally literate. "It's an open door for us to have a dialogue and talk to the Department for Education in particular which we couldn't do until quite recently," he told the BBC. The Next Gen report led to the creation of a nationwide campaign which has urged a more hands-on approach to tech in classrooms. Google, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Sega, Electronic Arts, Activision, Talk Talk and the Guardian Media Group have all backed the call for change to ICT teaching. Mr Livingston said the skills campaign would now work hard to influence the re-writing of the curriculum to ensure core digital skills were included.[/quote] Source: [url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15923113[/url]

I don't agree that games programming should be emphasized, but Computer Science programs need to be reformed. Games programming is generally a useless skill; there aren't that many jobs and the working conditions are usually pretty terrible. I think CS programs should stop spoon feeding students plain old Java and C++ crap. Not that those languages don't have their merits, they're not hard enough for students to learn. And the way it's taught it's like the professor does most of the work for you and you fill in a couple blanks; in my experience at least. I haven't had a class yet that assumed you've already mastered the language and let you do something other than learn how to declare variables for the 4th semester in a row.

Man, our school didn't even offer proper computing subjects, only "info systems", which is essentially just dumbed down relational databases and excel.

"insufficiently rigorous and in need of reform" I doubt it, more like the teachers who teach is don't have any experience in the field nor do they stay current with modern times; This is a huge problem which turns a lot of people off to IT and CS. The other problems are 1. People don't want to be labeled "nerds" so they stick out of IT 2. They don't understand it isn't just click click done, there is a lot of work involved and you have to have a certain logistical mentality level going in, which a good number of people don't have. I see a great number of people going in to be game programmers, web designers, or just general IT/Code monkeys only to find out that it involves a lot of critical thinking, mathematical/logical problem solving, math, coding etc etc; and give up. 3. As previously mentioned "teachers who teach is don't have any experience in the field nor do they stay current with modern times; This is a huge problem which turns a lot of people off to IT and CS. " Are a huge pain in the ass to getting people interested in IT, I had a few "IT Teachers" who had nothing more than a knowledge of MS office, a degree of some sort, and played flash games. Kids can see incompetence in things really quick and then draw in correct view points of what being an IT<whatever> means.

I don't even go to most of my CS lectures because they're simply so simple. For example: Set theory, HTML tables, Basic Java, Alice (Exploring Wonderland: Java Programming Using Alice and Media Computation)

correct, the GCSE IT course is absolutely pathetic. It only teaches you basic bullshit that people learned at the age of 6...

[QUOTE=Man Without Hat;33478697]I don't even go to most of my CS lectures because they're simply so simple. For example: Set theory, HTML tables, Basic Java, Alice (Exploring Wonderland: Java Programming Using Alice and Media Computation)[/QUOTE] Alice is an abomination to anything considered "coding"

[QUOTE=PvtCupcakes;33478551]I don't agree that games programming should be emphasized, but Computer Science programs need to be reformed. Games programming is generally a useless skill; there aren't that many jobs and the working conditions are usually pretty terrible. I think CS programs should stop spoon feeding students plain old Java and C++ crap. Not that those languages don't have their merits, they're not hard enough for students to learn. And the way it's taught it's like the professor does most of the work for you and you fill in a couple blanks; in my experience at least. I haven't had a class yet that assumed you've already mastered the language and let you do something other than learn how to declare variables for the 4th semester in a row.[/QUOTE] Did you really just say that C++ is not hard enough? Or do you mean entry level? Because advanced c++ is quite complicated and is worth a lot in the digital world. And java is probably the most popular cross platform language in business world. Java engineers are always needed too.

-Learn Visual Basic -Learn Microsoft Word -Learn Microsoft Excel -Learn Microsoft Access -Code Web 1.0 site using a book and notepad [b]You are now an IT person.[/b] Even my compuer eacher bitched about making us do VB. He had to do his assignments in COBOL and C and had to wait in line to compile and test it on the school's timeshare before he could hand his work in.

The GCSE exam is incredibly easy, and it's only about an hour long. You get a screenshot of an Excel spreadsheet and it says, "what figure is in cell A1". It wasn't even compulsory in my school.

[QUOTE=JohnFisher89;33478749]Alice is an abomination to anything considered "coding"[/QUOTE] [img]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9104987/Screenshot-2011-11-12_01.55.25.png[/img] Such a waste of time doing that. Hopefully will get a half decent grade for it though.

im being told im failing my course because "i'm not supposed to know about SQL"

[QUOTE=AceOfDivine;33478794]Did you really just say that C++ is not hard enough? Or do you mean entry level? Because advanced c++ is quite complicated and is worth a lot in the digital world. And java is probably the most popular cross platform language in business world. Java engineers are always needed too.[/QUOTE] Java is a run of the mill language, it is great that you may know it, but so does everyone else with a CS degree. Java is very un-optimized, (for how big it is I guess I can understand sort of but then again oracle owns it) just knowing java which is what a lot of CS majors coming out only know, you won't look competitive or anything. Python, C/#/++/Objective, Perl, .net, and maybe some understanding of DBA programming or concepts would be a nice touch for a school too run over, that way you know multiplat languages and some OS specific languages [editline]28th November 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=Man Without Hat;33478919][img_thumb]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9104987/Screenshot-2011-11-12_01.55.25.png[/img_thumb] Such a waste of time doing that. Hopefully will get a half decent grade for it though.[/QUOTE] Don't worry it will break when you try to move it somewhere or the computers java will update and break it all

[QUOTE=MIPS;33478863]-Learn Visual Basic -Learn Microsoft Word -Learn Microsoft Excel -Learn Microsoft Access -Code Web 1.0 site using a book and notepad [b]You are now an IT person.[/b] Even my compuer [b]t[/b]eacher bitched about making us do VB. He had to do his assignments in COBOL and C and had to wait in line to compile and test it on the school's timeshare before he could hand his work in.[/QUOTE] Usually it's Word, then Excel, then Access, then VB.NET.

We really need some mod clarification on whether we can post stuff in Sensationalist Headlines that's already been in the News Node

[QUOTE=MIPS;33478863]-Learn Visual Basic -Learn Microsoft Word -Learn Microsoft Excel -Learn Microsoft Access -Code Web 1.0 site using a book and notepad [b]You are now an IT person.[/b] Even my compuer eacher bitched about making us do VB. He had to do his assignments in COBOL and C and had to wait in line to compile and test it on the school's timeshare before he could hand his work in.[/QUOTE] Please tell me that is sarcasm, IT != CS, IT is a very broad term and can be used in many ways but it isn't Code monkey [url]http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3447793[/url] See my thread for a this is what it is and isn't

[QUOTE=AceOfDivine;33478794]Did you really just say that C++ is not hard enough? Or do you mean entry level? Because advanced c++ is quite complicated and is worth a lot in the digital world. And java is probably the most popular cross platform language in business world. Java engineers are always needed too.[/QUOTE] Yeah, we just do entry level bullshit at my college. I just mean to say that if schools are going to teach a language they should teach something like Haskell or Lisp. They aren't necessarily hard, but they're not a rehash of the C syntax that everybody already knows. Sure, you'll probably never use Haskell (a functional programming language) in the "real world", but learning it would get you to think about problems in a different way than the usual procedural C.

[QUOTE=PvtCupcakes;33479200]Yeah, we just do entry level bullshit at my college. I just mean to say that if schools are going to teach a language they should teach something like Haskell or Lisp. They aren't necessarily hard, but they're not a rehash of the C syntax that everybody already knows. Sure, you'll probably never use Haskell (a functional programming language) in the "real world", but learning it would get you to think about problems in a different way than the usual procedural C.[/QUOTE] I think if you will never use it, why bother learning it? I am also not sure what you meant by procedural since procedural is usually the better way to do things.

[QUOTE=smurfy;33479099]We really need some mod clarification on whether we can post stuff in Sensationalist Headlines that's already been in the News Node[/QUOTE] I don't read the news node sorry, I'll search in there before posting a BBC article next time.

I don't think the phrase "programming language" has ever been uttered in my school's IT department. It's fucking dire.

My College only offered "IT". 2 Years of Spreadsheets and Databases, such bullshit.

Its not ICT, its business with computers near it teach me how to build a PC you fuckers

My ICT teacher recently broke new ground by talking about alternative operating systems to Windows Unfortunately he said Google+ was a pretty interesting OS and then the school bought its first Mac

The problem with IT teaching in the UK is that people are only being taught the very very basics (how to use office etc) over and over again for years. Basically teaching people how to be office assistants. I am not saying that people should be taught full blown CS, but they should really go beyond the very basics. For a country with such a rich computing history future generations are kinda being let down. [editline]28th November 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=Thoughtless;33479891]I don't read the news node sorry, I'll search in there before posting a BBC article next time.[/QUOTE] The BBC bot posts all tech news from the BBC, nothing else.

I wish our school even had a basic introduction to things like this, instead we have "Flower Arranging." What the fuck.

More like education reform

Fuck yes. Sadly it'll be too late for my generation by the time they actually get it into their thick skulls up in Cardiff that Information Technology =/= Microsoft Office. IT lessons are pathetically boring and I spent the whole of last year proving that I can use skills I learned in 4th Year ICT in Junior School. For a third of a GCSE.

Good grief. [i]Ministers[/i] have admitted our IT is crap, they want to focus on the engineering side of it, not the business, and they admit that game design is important? Are we sure this isn't a really, really late April fools? This is a stunning turn around, let's hope it goes through. I noticed some saying that IT is often avoided due to social stigma. Looking at their proposal, I'm hoping they teach game design and coding from the off, that would attract a number of fence-sitters.

Most definitely true. Teaching us how to use fucking power point will not help us in later life.

[QUOTE=smurfy;33479099]We really need some mod clarification on whether we can post stuff in Sensationalist Headlines that's already been in the News Node[/QUOTE] You should be allowed to, there normally isn't as much discussion in the news node. On topic, I had to make a website and animation for part of my college project. I was told off and forced to start again because I used Dreamweaver and Flash. My teacher made me do it all again in Powerpoint. Also I ended up having to teach the teacher how macros worked in Excel and then explain it to a few of the students.