Thanks for all your questions and comments today. Tomorrow we will be discussing women in computing as well as attempting to answer the question: how much digital literacy do young people need? With us from 1pm-2pm will be:
• Hannah Dee, a lecturer in computer science at Aberystwyth University. In 2008 she started the BCSWomen Lovelace Colloquium, a national conference for women computer science students, and she is deputy chair of BCSWomen, which she says is the UK's largest group for women working and studying in technology.
• Peter Bradshaw, head of qualification for the master's in education at the Open University. He is also working member of the Computing in School association, and blogs here.
• Emma Mulqueeny, who runs hack day organisers Rewired State and Young Rewired State, a network of young developers.
Join us tomorrow and thanks again for all your input.
Pete Bradshaw of the Open University, who has been commenting below the line here this week, asks of Gove's speech:
What guidance will the new Teaching Agency give to teacher educators? I hope it will be equally liberating.
What will Ofsted do? How will they cope without a ticklist?
My fear is that, as in the late 90s, schools will be inspected under a regime that has certain presumptions about what and how to teach ICT (or computer science). What if the school has a radically different view? I know the obvious answers are to do with looking for quality outcomes in broad terms but I fear a plethora of 'guidance' which becomes a de facto curriculum which then leads to exactly the same problems we perceive now.
He also takes issue with the idea that the existing IT curriculum is boring.
Here Charles Arthur, the Guardian's technology editor, looks at the case of Josh Pickett, whose teacher was unable to mark his computer homework when he was 13 and who now, still only 16, works for a tech company in San Francisco.
And here Jessica Shepherd, the Guardian's education correspondent, reveals that pupils from private and grammar schools disproportionately sit what is perceived to be the hardest computing A-level.
Karen Price, the CEO of e-skills UK, the skills council for the IT industry, has also commented on Gove's speech. (Skills councils are state-sponsored bodies set up to improve the skills and productivity of specific sectors of the economy.)
The door is now wide open to create a new and relevant curriculum that will inspire students and ensure that the UK can retain its position at the forefront of technology.
IT drives productivity in every sector and is the engine for growth across the whole economy. That is why we are working with leading employers through our Behind the Screen project to create a new GCSE in IT.
Here is some more reaction to Michael Gove's speech, this time from Phil Smith, the UK and Ireland CEO of Cisco, the technology company. Smith welcomes Gove's moves to overhaul ICT teaching.
Young people today have a relationship with technology and an affinity for computers and IT which is unique and vastly different to any other generation. It is essential to the future of the British economy that we address the shortcomings in ICT education and help school children and students to maximise their potential – failure to do this will result in a detrimental skills shortage for IT in the very near future ...
We need to build a creative, highly-skilled workforce which can drive these initiatives forward in the long term and enable continued future growth for IT. Without this, such initiatives will only deliver short term benefits and never reach their full potential. For Britain to compete on a global scale in the tech sector, bold moves need to happen now.
Thanks very much to all our guests who took part in today's Q&A – and thanks for all your comments and questions too.
Kevin McLaughlin of Old Mill primary school wrote:
It's just been mentioned on Twitter than some think Gove is washing his hands of ICT and leaving it up to schools to decide.
Watfordpete – Pete Bradshaw of the Open University – responded:
It could be read that way but I can't imagine such a scenario given Ofsted and accountability. There is a rhetoric of freedom but what would the Daily Mail say? Government wouldn't risk that. So then that leads back to the inspection and assessment regimes. These need to be looked at together with the curriculum or I fear a return to the endless guidance like the QCA and Standards Unit Schemes of Work which were largely to blame, in my view, for boring lessons.
To which Sue Sentance of Anglia Ruskin University wrote:
Ofsted and the curriculum - all academies will be inspected by Ofsted but they can determine their own curriculum and don't need to follow the NC. So how Ofsted inspect without a statutory POS [programme of study] to look at will be a broader question, I guess, not just for ICT.
Sue Sentance of Anglia Ruskin University notes:
Many schools are becoming academies and will be able to decide whether or not to follow the national curriculum, so whether ICT has a programme of study or not will be irrelevant to them?
Kevin McLaughlin, of Old Mill primary school, Leicestershire, says his only concern with Michael Gove's speech today is "how schools with non-ICT specialist staff will implement his 'no blueprint to follow' approach". He adds:
Training teachers is also a concern as once the training is completed will the teachers continue to keep up top of an ever changing world that technology offers?
He also asks: "How do you inspect a subject which is being left up to every school to decide an approach on?"
Andrew Eland of Google has joined the debate in the comments, welcoming Michael Gove's speech.
At Google, we're delighted that the government has recognised how important computer science is to the future of the country. We're excited to see how these changes will be picked up by schools. There are many expert organisations, such as CAS [Computing at School], thinking about this already - and we're keen to support them, rather than get involved in the classroom directly.
Sue Sentance of Anglia Ruskin University notes that it is "not clear from Gove's speech how removing the Programme of Study for ICT will be implemented". She adds:
I am not sure from what Gove says what will be offered at KS4 [year 10 and 11, age 15/16] - September 2012 is a very short timescale.
Our live debate is now beginning in the comments below. To remind you, our guests are:
• Andrew Eland, Google's lead software engineer.
• Kevin McLaughlin, a teacher responsible for ICT at Old Mill primary school in Broughton Astley, Leicestershire, who writes the ICT Steps blog.
• Sue Sentance, a senior lecturer in ICT and computing education at Anglia Ruskin University.
• Genevieve Smith-Nunes, an ICT teacher at Dorothy Stringer high school in Brighton.
Genevieve has kicked things off by noting:
They are many challenges and barriers to learning both for teachers and students. These cover equipment, subject knowledge and ability levels within the classroom. I love my lessons now that we design games, code using Alice, HTML, Scratch and more recently Greenfoot. The use of smartphones as a learning tool for the teachers and students. The list is endless and now with Gove's announcemnt the curriculum looks a lot more exciting.
I have just read the whole of Michael Gove's speech.
Gove announced that if the new computer science GCSE meet "high standards of intellectual depth and practical value", the government will "certainly consider" including computer science as an option in the English baccalaureate - which currently includes English, maths, two sciences, a foreign language and history or geography.
He says that despite technology changing just about every aspect of life, education is still much the same as it was in Plato's time.
A Victorian schoolteacher could enter a 21st century classroom and feel completely at home. Whiteboards may have eliminated chalk dust, chairs may have migrated from rows to groups, but a teacher still stands in front of the class, talking, testing and questioning.
But he predicts that the model of teaching will be extinct by 10 or 20 years.
He attacks previous governments for spending huge sums on hardware "which is obsolete before the ink is dry on the contract". Instead he wants to focus on improving teacher training.
He says there are three main things that technology can do for learning:
• Disseminate knowledge incredibly widely.
• It can change the way teachers teach, with adaptive software personalising learning.
• It can allow teachers to assess pupils in more complex and sophisticated ways.
He says he is "opening a consultation" on withdrawing the existing national curriculum programme of study for ICT. The subject "is a mess". But opening a consultation seems to mean scrapping it.
Let me stress - ICT will remain compulsory at all key stages, and will still be taught at every stage of the curriculum. The existing Programme of Study will remain on the web for reference. But no English school will be forced to follow it any more.
Gove also talks about taking a "wiki, collaborative approach" to the wider curriculum.
And he suggests integrating and embedding technology through every subject.
He also notes that Nesta, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, is today announcing a £2m programme to fund and research "innovative technology projects" in schools.
Stephen Twigg, Michael Gove's Labour shadow, has responded to the education secretary's speech. He broadly welcomes it:
It is right to identify that the ICT curriculum needs to be reformed to fit with the times. That's why Labour said last year that pupils need to understand the mechanisms and coding behind computer programmes – not just learning how to use a word processor, enter data into a worksheet or design a PowerPoint presentation.
Ofsted found that in two thirds of secondary schools, ICT teaching is only satisfactory or poor. As well as updating programmes of study, we need better teacher training, higher standards and continual assessment of what pupils are being taught.
If the UK is to maintain our competitive edge, this generation of students need to develop their programming skills and an understanding of how maths, computing and science interrelate.
Here is Michael Gove's speech in full.
Gove's speech has finished. Sorry about the very incomplete reporting. I will get you the full speech as soon as possible.
The teaching union the NASUWT has attacked Michael Gove's proposals. Chris Keates, the union's general secretary, said it was right that what was taught was regularly reviewed given "the rapid nature of developments in technology", but she rejected "the notion that ICT in schools is of poor quality and dull". She said:
Such assertions are based on a deliberate misrepresentation of the evidence which in fact demonstrates widespread good practice which needs to be built upon. People listening to the secretary of state may think that he is being constructive and progressive. In reality, he is once again removing any notion of curriculum entitlement for all children and young people.
For many children and young people a direct consequence of the "free for all" the secretary of state is promoting for ICT in schools will be that, in yet another aspect of education, they will be short-changed.
For many specialist teachers their jobs are now at risk. Schools are being handed over to the mercy and monopoly of multi-national companies, as national support frameworks, which provide value for money for schools and taxpayers and much needed impartial advice and expertise are removed.
Computer science is fascinating and intellectually challenging, he says.
Technology in schools will no longer be micromanaged by Whitehall, Gove says. From September this year schools will be free to use the "amazing resources" that already exist and will exist on the web, he says.
By its very nature, new technology is a disruptive force, Gove says. It encourages change. But technology can bring more autonomy to education. He says the government wants to focus on training teachers, rather than buying hardware.
Games and interactive software can help pupils acquire complicated skills, Gove says. He says some people will raise their eyebrows at the prospect of games influencing school curricula, but we should be proud of the British games industry, he says.
Gove attacks the spending of "huge sums" on hardware that becomes obsolete quickly.
Photograph: National Portrait Gallery London
We all need to be alive to the great promise of innovation, Gove says. He pays tribute to computing pioneer, mathematician and second world war codebreaker Alan Turing (left).
But school education has lagged behind, Gove says.
Gove is running through how important the internet is now and how few people even knew what it was 20 years ago.
Gove is recalling starting out in journalism in the 1980s and says newsrooms today are "almost totally unrecognisable" because of new technology.
Michael Gove's speech is being broadcast here by eyebeams – but unfortunately the sound is not great.
Ian Livingstone, the chair of the Next Gen Skills campaign and co-author of the Livingstone-Hope skills review of video games and visual effects, gave the BBC his reaction to Gove's speech:
The current lessons are essentially irrelevant to today's generation of children who can learn PowerPoint in a week. It's a travesty given our heritage as the most creative nation in the world. Children are being forced to learn how to use applications, rather than to make them. They are becoming slaves to the user interface and are totally bored by it.
The Department for Education press office presents Gove's move as scrapping the existing ICT curriculum and replacing it with "new courses of study in computer science" – but it goes on to say that schools would then have the "freedom" to create curricula involving both ICT and computer science.
ICT will remain a compulsory part of the national curriculum – although this may change in the review of the curriculum due to report next year.
Universities, businesses and others will "have the opportunity to devise new courses and exams" in ICT and computer science, and Gove in particular wants a new "high-quality" computer science GCSE to be introduced.
In his speech, which was due to be taking place right about now, he also announced:
• Funding for new "Teaching Schools" to enable them to create "strong networks between schools" to help them develop and improve their use of technology.
• That we should "look at the school curriculum in a new way, and consider how new technological platforms can help to create new curriculum materials in a much creative and collaborative way than in the past".
• A focus on improving initial teacher training and continual professional development for teachers in educational technology.
I was hoping to live blog Michael Gove's speech from the office (my colleague Jeevan Vasagar is watching the speech and will be filing a story after it finishes). However, I don't think it is going to be televised, so I have asked the Department for Education to send me a copy of the speech in full and I'll put as much of it as possible up here so you can judge for yourselves what he is saying.
Yesterday Jeevan Vasagar looked at new technical innovations that could improve learning in the classroom, including computer programmes used to teach maths, and the motion-capture device Kinect in music classes. Let me know what else you think could be used to help improve teaching – or what is being used already.
Hello and welcome to today's live blog as the Guardian's Digital literacy campaign continues.
Michael Gove, the education secretary, is due to make a speech at 10.30am, announcing the overhauling of computer science in schools, at the Bett education technology trade fair in London.
Jeevan Vasagar has a full report here.
Gove will say the existing curriculum in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has left children "bored out of their minds being taught how to use Word and Excel by bored teachers".
He plans, in effect, to create an "open source" curriculum in computer science by giving schools the freedom to use teaching resources designed with input from leading employers and academics, in changes that will come into effect this September.
Gove is expected to tell the trade fair:
Imagine the dramatic change which could be possible in just a few years, once we remove the roadblock of the existing ICT curriculum. Instead of children bored out of their minds being taught how to use Word and Excel by bored teachers, we could have 11-year-olds able to write simple 2D computer animations using an MIT tool called Scratch.
By 16, they could have an understanding of formal logic previously covered only in university courses and be writing their own apps for smartphones.
A consultation on the plans will be launched next week – but please tell me what you think of his plans in the comments below (you can read about them in full here). If the speech is televised I'll live blog it here, and I'll round up reaction from elsewhere too.
Also today on the live blog we will have a Q&A on how teachers can use new technology to improve their teaching in various subjects – as well as the issues Gove's speech raises and any others you want to cover.
With us from 1pm-2pm will be:
• Andrew Eland, Google's lead software engineer.
• Kevin McLaughlin, a teacher responsible for ICT at Old Mill primary school in Broughton Astley, Leicestershire, who writes the ICT Steps blog.
• Sue Sentance, a senior lecturer in ICT and computing education at Anglia Ruskin University.
• Genevieve Smith-Nunes, an ICT teacher at Dorothy Stringer high school in Brighton.
Please add your comments and questions for them below.
Comments
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11 January 2012 10:22AM
We have to be careful here. IT always has business needs at forefront - and even though being able to produce animiation is fun and whizzy, It is my understanding of logic and being able to provide excel and various logical solutions that has made me quite valuable to my company
I'm not dissing the need the change, but I hope we don't through out the baby with the bathwater.
11 January 2012 10:23AM
A sensible policy from Gove ?
I'm going to have to have a bit of a lie down.
11 January 2012 10:23AM
Ah ICT is boring lets bring in the private sector. Logic demands we take this further re-enactments of battles in the History dep't would be a good start...if there is a budget ..quick set up a battle reenactment company there's an opening...
11 January 2012 10:24AM
Gawd. Apologies. That was impressive use of language
I'm not dissing the need or desire for change, but I hope we don't throw out the baby with the bathwater
11 January 2012 10:26AM
Despite my reservations about Mr Gove, this has to be a timely revision. My concerns would be that private companies will seek to push their products (Microsoft and Apple) and that open source, free software such as Linux will be ignored. Once a computer user has become au fait with one software package they tend not to bother with others, so the danger is that software companies will attempt to heft kids to their particular software and this will become a marketing exercise.
From my days at school I recall the endless dirge of maths and science and desperately needing practical examples of relevancy to demonstrate why they are such important and useful subjects.
11 January 2012 10:28AM
This is good news - when it comes to programming logic it really makes very little difference which language you learn first - the logic is very similar same for each.
And once you understand that, your understanding of how to use program like Excel/Dreamweaver/3dStudioMax will increase exponentially.
As for teaching Excel directly: this should be down the to the teachers of the subjects who use it most. Geography, science, maths all require data analysis.
11 January 2012 10:31AM
That IT = programming seems to be a very outdated view and if this is the angle kids are seeing it from then no wonder most are turned off by it.
Far better would be to rename it 'IT and Business Change' (or just Business Change) in which of course IT plays a crucial role but it is just a part of a wide range of (relatively) interesting careers.
Don't fancy being a programmer? Well what about one of the following:
- Project/Programme Manager
- Business Analyst
- Systems Analyst
- Business Consultant/Strategist
- Project office roles
- MI Analyst
- Marketing Analyst
- Claims Analyst/Strategist
- Finance Analyst
And that's just scratching the surface of business change. There are a whole host of decent, and generally well paid opportunities for both technical and people-management types and it would be a great shame if children are ignoring these options because they mistakenly think IT = programming computers and little else.
11 January 2012 10:31AM
I think this is just a continuation of the fabrication of knowledge perpetuated by previous governments. The concept of the tool replacing pedagogy so instrumentalists can tick boxes rather than generate critical thinking and a genuinely innovative approach to knowledge.
One of the few successes of school is the ability of young people to manage information using IT tools. In effect this outcome is little more than the same process using a different tool.
"By 16, they could have an understanding of formal logic previously covered only in university courses and be writing their own apps for smartphones."
The ability too use a basic semantic language to create app's is not what society needs. What we need are complex social skills and the ability to participate.
What will inexorably happen is that a few leanres will develop the skills to understand formal logic but most will simply develop the ability to fabricate formal logic and perform functions.
The problem for software employers is that they cannot find well educated young people and are unprepared to invest in training to help them to add basic semantic skills to critical thinking, good social schools and good discourse schools.
This is really little more than a continuation of bad education but with new tools and a new discourse. The song though remains very much the same even if you add the word smart at the front of it.
11 January 2012 10:32AM
No prizes for guessing the subtext here
- as austerity increases classroom sizes and leaves buildings unmainatined - where is the money to be found for a new generation of sexy IT teachers who will have everyone wrting apps for smarttphones?
Big business will end up with an opportunity to grab a slice of the education budget. Your IT class will be in association with <insert IT company>.
Slice by slice people - just as with the NHS.
11 January 2012 10:34AM
Interesting points - so what could be done to avoid this and create a truly open source curriculum that could be very beneficial (from the sound of the discussions we had on the blog yesterday)?
11 January 2012 10:34AM
Well said OldBristolian. Hopefully Gove won't have provided yet another outlet for vetsed interest and uninformed comment.
11 January 2012 10:36AM
and on the topic of open source software: you can download this at home, for free... It makes sense to use more expensive, private software in schools so kids get experience of both.
"Computing" is such a vast subject that a certain amount of self guided study is required for success in the field.
11 January 2012 10:38AM
Probably the biggest issue to be faced is attitude. Most ICT teachers are not specialists and schools much prefer 'flexibility', by which they mean teachers who can teach something as well as ICT.
ICT has also been used to massage results often using courses 'worth' 5A*toC but not providing anything worthwhile for students.
I became an ICT teacher inspired by people like Grace Hopper and Seymour Papert but very quickly learned that what schools think they are doing is "preparing students for the world of work," or, to give it it's proper name, basic office skills. These skills are often very basic indeed. Wordprocessing that "looks alright," Using two or three simple formulae in a spreadsheet and the ubiquitous PowerPoint. Your interviews with students show just how boring this approach is.
As someone who ran a company which produced lots of computer games and some educational software and having postgraduate Computer qualifications I believed I would find a job easily. In 15 years I've never had a single interview. I suspect the reason that there are few computer experts training as teachers is that the universities are being fair to applicants who have limited job prospects.
11 January 2012 10:41AM
Every day, a Coalition minister must wake up thinking 'How can we find yet more ways to channel even more taxpayer's money into the bank accounts of private business?' before unveiling some new (in this case IT) initiative, or £32bn (if we're lucky) unneeded fast-rail development.
11 January 2012 10:44AM
I couldn't agree with gazmx more. Learning computer science fundamentals can greatly improve a persons understanding of software product they use.
I am a computer science student and I regularly get asked if I can help with a large variety of computer problems, for example a piece of software. More often than not I have never heard of the software they require help with, but because I understand computer science on a fundamental level I can pick up most pieces of software very quickly.
We should not see this change as teaching computer science instead of Excel/Dreamweaver/3dStudioMax etc, but rather see it as laying a good based for a life in a technological age, in much the same way as teaching a child their A, B, C's before teaching them to read.
Rather than teaching people how to use specific software they need to understand software in a general sense. Remember: the software they will use in industry in 5 years time probably hasnt been made yet, and they need the tools to learn how to use them!
11 January 2012 10:47AM
Gove is right: learning to use a specific piece of software is not the same as learning about computers generally - and is utterly different from computer science.
CS is about providing a computational model of the world around us.
Often (but not always) the model is experessed as a computer program;
called software because it is 'soft' enough to easily change a computer from
one sort of tool eg. word processor) to another (eg photo editor).
The curriculuum in schools is worse than poor, it is harmful.
Young people come to us (I teach CS at a top 10 UK university) with a
complete misconception about CS. Others do not come at all, because they believe CS is something it is not.
The misunderstanding of CS is not confined to schools but invades the wider world, including comments on CiF. Many of my fellow scientists and engineers also do not know what CS is about. So far as I can tell, this is driven by the
ubiquity of computing devices. Pure CS requires no device at all.
The main missing element, from an educational point, of view is mathematics,
especially probability theory. The allow machines to learn, so that they can
perform tasks they were not directly programmed to do. Without it, commonly
used search engines would fail.
Whether Gove continues to be correct remains to be seen.
11 January 2012 10:48AM
I'm sorry, but this is absolute rubbish (as are the comments of some other naysayers), and precisely the kind of ill-informed view that has got us where we are.
At the moment, the vast majority of people only have the skills to learn one application at a time, one function at a time. It's painful to watch. The point of teaching them at school the fundamentals of how programs work, as opposed to what they do, is that if you understand how they work, you can work out how to make them do what they do for yourself.
Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach him to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime.
11 January 2012 10:49AM
Having met quite a few of the professions you mention here, it is quite hard to find out what they actually do other than talk bollocks all day long. Maybe Gove ought to teach the kids how to talk and write meaningless drivel and get paid lots of money for it - he could call it Business Bollocks, he's already an expert.
11 January 2012 10:51AM
God forbid your taxpayer's money be spent on education of children in vocational skills useful in a high-growth industry, which can also be transferred to a large number of other employment fields.
What would you rather it be used for?
11 January 2012 10:52AM
I won't have MY TAX POUNDS spent on educating children and modernising teaching methods! I want more Olympic games, bank bailouts and wars in the middle East!
11 January 2012 10:52AM
I keep thinking about that scene from the IT crowd when Jen is asked what IT actually means, I suspect Gove probably doesn't have a clue either.
I bet he believes this one as well
11 January 2012 10:53AM
In the provision of education as in all things - you get what you pay for.
The problem with state IT education in this country is that it lacks trained staff, equipment and direction. It limps way way behind the times.
It will take more than a press conference stating the obvious to change that.
We would need to attract and train people who were at least proficient across a range of IT areas who were also innovative teachers and motivators.
The range of IT equipment and software available to those people would need to reflect the pace of technological change.
Does that sound likely right now?
Without this investement - this speech can represent two things only:
(a) Fluff and dust activity to disguise a lack of real achievement.
(b) A coded call to private companies that this part of our education system is open for privatisation.
Given all that we know about this coalition - what do we reckon?
11 January 2012 10:54AM
I think you're mistaken. What you are describing is already the case. Schools teach how to use the products of one particularly company and pass this off as technology.
11 January 2012 10:54AM
My girl friend's 11 year old son already writes little apps in Smart and was doing this in primary school. ICT in secondary school for him is a waste of time - having to create a pizza menu for example.
I'm glad the government has at last caught up with him.
11 January 2012 10:56AM
I'd like to know how you avoid PRIVATISED EDUCATION given that IT kind of requires specialist software, specialist equipment and knowledge of how to use proprietary equipment.
By all means teach open source/ "alternative software:, and then have your children duly raised on Paint.NET, Garageband, Linux, Blender and OpenOffice entering a work environment where they're presented with Dreamweaver, Cubase/Reason, InDesign, Photoshop, 3DSMax and AutoCAD.
11 January 2012 10:57AM
IT didn't exist when I was at school in the 1950s and I had to go to the library to find out exactly what a computer was before my first job in computing in 1961 - testing ICT 1301 computers at GEC - brain the size of a planet and nearly as powerful as my cycle computer :) In my professional career I went from repairing radios and TVs in the 1950s to designing programmable logic devices by the time I retired in 1995.
As primarily a hardware electronics engineer I strongly welcome the change in approach. I've always thought that teaching how to use software a poor substitute for learning both how to write and how the hardware handles it.
I would go further. Rather than teach ultra high-level programming then teach assembler and Boolean algebra so that students get a feel for how the hardware works. In my lab we were all self-taught because in the 1970s no-one had any background in computing and we used the early micro-processors as simple replacements for hard logic.
I loathe Gove and most of what he stands for but certainly this is a welcome and potentially revolutionary change. Now we need to see how it's going to be implemented.
11 January 2012 10:58AM
As I understand it the problem here is that:
Teaching has become a way of tricking children into playing a learning game, because hard work at learning requires concentration and application.
Also passing exams has become another game.
I am not blaming the teachers, it's more of a "Decadent Times" scenario.
One just has to consider what is the politician's reward for sorting out ICT education? Nothing.
What is his reward for enacting the appearance of success? Everything.
What is the reward for selling new software and equipment to schools? Growth (for someone).
Everyone [particularly business] needs to grow up and deal with our own situation with integrity.
11 January 2012 10:59AM
Another headline from Gove. Can't we just scrap him? He's like a jack-in-a-box. Somebody shut the lid. Where's the money coming from in these austere times? There's no money, is there, or so we're told.
I would've thought the recent riots with media-savvy young people running rings round the police would have rung alarm bells for the powers that be. You really want to make the kids even more advanced, Govey? Be careful what you wish for!
11 January 2012 11:00AM
That said, while opposing this on purely political lines and claiming it's just privatisation is arrant nonsense born from childish dogmatism and a lack of perspective, there are questions that need to be raised.
Has anyone considered what happens when the app bubble bursts, and the Silicon Roundabout's Thought Spaces and Creative Meetingplaces lie abandoned, the public having gradually gravitated to the biggest corporations providing the most centralised services (Google, Rovio, Zynga, Facebook, Twitter)?
11 January 2012 11:00AM
I get the distinct sense that nobody involved in this whole "computer science in schools" hoohah today has even the slightest inkling of what they're talking about
11 January 2012 11:00AM
But the skills generally taught are frequently of no use at all. They are mostly trivial and worthless and it is that which has brought about the demand for change.
11 January 2012 11:01AM
I find it hard to believe anyone can be this stupid, but surely encouraging entrepreneurism and vocational skills is a valid use of money which may well increase the prospects of young people?
Perhaps if children are learning useful things at school, and have a reason to go, they might not be so interested in smashing the state?
11 January 2012 11:02AM
And the person I was lambasting was saying that the plans to change the system from "Trivial and worthless skills" to something worthwhile is a waste of his taxpayer's money along the lines of HS2.
11 January 2012 11:04AM
The idea is teach computing skills not how to how to use a particular piece of software, open or otherwise. If companies want particular skills in particular software then they can train their own staff.
11 January 2012 11:05AM
The point that some kids are way ahead of the game already (i.e. they have aptitude) is extremely pertinent across education. Schools need to be able to identify those kids with real aptitude and weed them out from those who will just use software because they need to. The ones with aptitude could then spend part of their time getting specialist education - perhaps at regional centres where real experts might be more economically deployed.
This might be a more effective model for all those showing aptitude in specific disciplines.
11 January 2012 11:06AM
Agree 100%!
Even the lessons where students use Office applications are little more than the use of wizards and ready-made templates, rather than teaching the students how to set out their own templates, text styles and so on.
Students do desktop publishing tasks without knowing anything about desktop publishing. To get a page break in Word, they press the Enter key repeatedly until the text appears on the next page. When things go wrong in a spreadsheet, they don't know why.
I used to teach ICT classes at A-level only. The students I had to teach, who had passed GCSE ICT with A-grades, didn't know how to set up their own text styles in Word. They couldn't create their own Master Slide in PowerPoint and thought that a website was made in PowerPoint and saved as HTML.
11 January 2012 11:07AM
@Gove:
Well they could do that in 1988, not using a foreign tool but by writing genuine programmes in BBC Basic. Work out what went wrong in the early 1990s, which led from a situation where the UK led the world in computer education to what we have today. And this time it isn't mostly the Tories fault!
11 January 2012 11:07AM
Astonishingly, I think he might be onto something.
To an extent.
Spreadsheets are a fact of modern life. I use them extensively and am constantly astonished by the generally low levels of skill displayed by my colleagues.
Excel is an immensely powerful tool that is too often dismissed as a glorified calculator. Writing a good Excel spreadsheet requires every bit as much skill as writing an app. But because lots of people sit in front of Excel doing little more than data entry, they think all it can do is data entry.
I once wrote a very simple spready that allowed teachers to enter test results and instantly collate them into charts that allowed them to see how entire classes of children were doing. It took me about an hour to write and the time saving for the admin staff who had previously been calculating these stats by hand was about two days a month.
I have written spreadsheets, in Excel, that have done an enormous variety of things from calculating the volume of goods to be dispatched from a warehouse, through applying the Erlang formula to working out call centre staffing levels, to a simple neural network that predicted football results (sadly not well enough to beat the bookies)
By all means expand the IT curriculum and make it more interesting, but be aware that spreadsheets are probably the single most used type of software in the work environment after email and web browsers. Yes, apps for smartphones are very exciting and spreadsheets are not but the boring truth is that young people will get far more relevant and useful knowledge out of understanding a spreadsheet. Not including them in the curriculum would be like teaching woodwork but neglecting to mention drills.
Where Gove is correct, is in giving (at least some) kids a good understanding of some programming techniques. I can write VBA with my eyes closed, but the core of it is what I learned years ago as a kid playing on my Acorn Electron.
11 January 2012 11:10AM
I think the biggest issue is actually something else in this quote, whelkstall.
Assessment.
ICT in itself is not boring. But it becomes boring when what is taught is narrow and unengaging. This comes when the assessment requires it to be so.
And on the subject of specialists - we need specialism in some aspects of ICT such as teasing out ethics, in developing programming, in higher level considerations of fitness for purpose. But some things maybe best done by people with nominally other specialists. Witness the use of media-related ICT by English teachers (for example in the BBC News School Report project). Or maybe design teachers are best placed to think about, well, design considerations for websites etc. It is not a straightforward mapping.
I'd much rather have a situation where use of ICT was decoupled from rigid high-stakes assessment , processes, allowed to flourish in other subjects and computing was there for those who wish to specialise.
The problem is, of course, that it won't flourish in other subjects if their assessment is narrow too. There's not a lot of point a geographer investing a lot of time in using GIS, map interrogation systems, advanced data manipulation and representation etc if the students have to be assessed by a two hour examination that doesn't allow their use.
11 January 2012 11:14AM
TV news this morning had a piece on some technology Expo in the States.
Some 'high up' in the industry, said with a big grin on his face,
" Where would we be without our navigation devices and remote controls?"
'nuff said?
Style of thing
11 January 2012 11:14AM
Thank goodness for the change. I spent 6 years teaching ICT , no I mean office applications. For gcse virtually everything had to be evidenced in the form of countless screenshots , incrediably boring to actually do and endless tedious pointless marking , which I wasn't good at due to its thoroughly edifying nature. Only in my final year did we move to scratch but then for only a 6 week . Fortunately I now have returned to teaching physics. This is a good move by Gove, unusual for him and coalition education policy I admit but a move we should support. Many years ago I taught A level computer science, maybe schools will be able to return to that in future. However computer science is much more difficult than ICT as it requires a good level of mathematics so cs may not be suitable for all.
11 January 2012 11:16AM
Seems to be little mention of the role libraries can play in digital literacy. Library staff and, in particular, librarians are trained to a high level and already play an important role in supporting digital literacy in local communities. How about supporting and extending this role?
11 January 2012 11:17AM
The point being with open source software is that users can always have access to the most up-to-date software and, depending on their interest level, become involved in improving and refining said software through a wider community of users, some of whom are exceptionally talented and happy to share their skills with the up and coming without reward. Surely a better model for society as a whole?
The cost of mainstream software is also an important factor, how much does Dreamweaver or Photoshop cost these days?
11 January 2012 11:17AM
Given this is coming from Gove and his far right cotillion, it seems this is a policy shift designed to privilege schools serving relatively affluent parents; schools that are already well placed to extend ICT resources.
11 January 2012 11:21AM
My employer is shifting software (bought from India, and written in Java), to a Linux platform from an IBM Unix based platform.
Indeed the pattern seems to be to use software written in a language widely taught in Indian colleges and universities, (which is generally free, and avoids Microsoft), and get it running on a free platform.
Much as I would love to see a resurgance of British IT, employing British workers, if the skills are not in these products and platforms, and if wages are still higher than India, then without some form of regulation and other government incentives, the IT jobs will not return to the UK.
They definately will not return if the skills taught are not the way industry users of software (not the vendors) are heading.
11 January 2012 11:22AM
won't have MY TAX POUNDS spent on educating children and modernising teaching methods! I want more Olympic games, bank bailouts and wars in the middle East!
Don't worry, they come as standard. This is just the tinkering round the edges, it won't last long.
11 January 2012 11:23AM
Also... if ICT is taught by 'bored teachers' then how will this reform of what is taught be implemented through teacher education? What will the role of the new Teaching Agency (successor to TDA) be? How might the IT in Teacher Education (ITTE) association be involved.... I ask as I'm on the committee... Particularly interested in Sue Sentance's view here as we work together on Computing at School CPD things - but what about the initial teacher education 'curriculum' beyond computing?
And here is the rub. ICT in Teacher Education is far from boring. The work being done in many of our universities and training schools is superb.
Pete Bradshaw
11 January 2012 11:24AM
How many teachers think that PowerPoint (or another presentation program) is a means to an end?
How many actually teach presentation skills where the focus of the presentation is the presenter, and not a wall full of writing?
Where the PowerPoint enhances the presentation rather than becomes the presentation.
Where the key skills are the rapore, timing, body language, understanding, enthusiasm, ability to target the audience level, language use etc., all of which is supported by the presenter having a mastery of the technology.
Sadly, not many in my experience.
11 January 2012 11:25AM
I asked this question in the last debate.
Where are they going to get the teachers to up the game.?
11 January 2012 11:26AM
Sorry, but I just feel this is like Tolkien bemoaning the state of English in schools and schools deciding that 'kids are held back by just learning the language and using it', instead we should make our own grammar up.
If ICT training is poor and weak, then extend the ICT training to be a higher level within the framework of office apps. Why would anyone need 'yet another language' when surely you can write many an app within office itself, which would actually be a useful skill.
There is nothing bad about ensuring that this generation of children know how to user powerpoint, what would be apalling would be if they didn't ( or word or excel or equivalents), it's like not knowing how to use a pencil.