GCSE ICT
1 03 2007Margaret Wright (QCA) has just posed the question if you were creating a GCSE in ICT what would you add to functional skills to form this qualification. To me the answer is engaging and motivating uses of ICTs, I am sure there are very few if any students who want to study databases, spreadsheets and wordprocessing. We should look at a qualification that encompasses the ICTs they use outside the school environment. If students were able to submit their myspace site or their latest video from YouTube, I am sure they would engage more in our classrooms. It would probably be worth looking outside the conventional uses of ICT, look at using mobile phones, mp3 players, games consoles etc.
I think it would be great to sit down and develop a GCSE for our ‘digital natives’, it is probably something we should do in conjunction with our students, what do they think ICT is actually about. My biggest issue with ICT qualifications to date is that they are very quickly out of date, how do we design a qualification that is future proofed? Should we have a selection of modules that students can pick from, smaller modules that can be developed and replaced easily. I could see modules on internet safety, computer gaming, blogging, podcasting, internet research etc etc
So what do you think?
I couldn’t agree more with what you are saying. I do think, however, that the exam boards to have an issue to deal with.
It would seem that people involved with setting courses may not be participating in the web 2.0 revolution of podcasting, social networking, blogging, Skyping, collaboration, instant messaging and mobile communication. And if they’re not, these things will look a mile away from what they think the employesr actually want in the workplace.
Young people are not the passive consumers of media that we think they are, they are industrious, active, socially aware, multi -tasking, committed producers of online content for social networking purposes and to ignore this is a big mistake, in my opinion.
Listening to West Fryer recently has validated my thoughts on the whole ICT in schools issue, which is that very often ICT is currently set, managed, blocked and processed by those who simply do not understand what will be needed in 2020 and even less, what they’ll need to survive and thrive in 2065.
We should really be capturing the energy, passion, creativity and diversity of use of ICT within our digital natives, rather than constricting demotivating and trivialising the role of ICT in the current educational system.
The clerical curriculum, otherwise known as Microsoft Office, is a desperately dull and disengaging experience to many of our students and if one looks at the curriculum over the last five years it has barely even begun to adapt to capture the other new technologies, including video and audio.
The digital immigrants are still residing in the 20th century, but the students, and many others of us have catapulted into the 21st century and and are waiting for the ICT curriculum to catch up - I think it could be a long wait.
I do agree that it really needs a big shakeup, and perhaps it just takes one board to be innovative and offer a mainstream GCSE which everybody is desperate to do and who knows - that may yet happen.
I’m sure many others out there will feel the same
Mike
Great to see you at NAACE. Not convinced that ICT should be studied as a subject at all at this level.
Laurie, I would agree if it was taught effectively across the curriculum and in my experience it is not. I also believe that there is a need for qualifications using ICT as a theme, for example Computer Game design, video editing etc. There could be a variety of creative modules that use ICT but assess a wider range of skills. I wonder where the old style ‘computer studies’ qualifications have gone, do we not need this anymore?
Steve
Steve, I suppose the thing that is bugging me is would employers be looking for someone without database, spreadsheet and wordprocessing skills? I guess these are basics that are required to survive in the world of work. Personally, I don’t think that throwing out these “traditional” skills is the answer - for me the challenge is to graft both social software and the boring stuff together. Surely a good teacher should be able to make anything engaging and challenging - it is possible to be innovative and creative with spreadsheets and databases. I have been away from the real world for nearly six years now but I guess in the majority of job interviews (currently anyway) knowing how to use =sum would swing it over knowing how to post to a blog. Hey, I might be completely wrong and you know I revel in the new web technologies - I just think those skills are still needed for the time being. So unless you are getting these skills from elsewhere then I think certification still needs to include some of these traditional, boring, 20th century elements.
Tim, those ‘traditional’ skills would be the basis of the functional skills.