Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, has announced a radical overhaul of the ICT curriculum, and not before time. The current, government written curriculum is out-of-date and very boring as he rightly says (I'm going to have to sit down, having just agreed with the man!). Gove wants children in schools to learn coding and being able to design apps.
This is great, but not all children will find these new activities interesting either, and even less will find them of any use outside the classroom. Whereas the stuff Gove wants to eradicate actually will be of use to most: using MS Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Also, staff may actually struggle to teach the new topics due to lack of knowledge and confidence with the software/language of coding. I regard myself as being fairly ICT savvy but have struggled with Google's App Inventor, which presumably would be one of the things on the new curriculum, or something similar at least. The same with game design and coding - even "simple" html is quite tough.
There is also the cost of purchasing the new software, which will run into thousands, plus the money required to train staff to enable them to teach the stuff. Where's the money going to come from, as we keep being told that there is none? Those who have the expertise to the level required will, or perhaps should be earning more money in the private sector.
How many jobs nowadays invent apps and games? Ok, more than there used to be, but not that many.
How many jobs nowadays use MS Word, Excel and Powerpint? Loads! Especially Excel for accounts and Word for writing a CV in order to get a job in the first place. Powerpoint is perhaps not as useful as it once was, but most managerial positions would require some knowledge of it.
I think that there needs to be a shake-up, no doubt about it, but there needs to be a mix of the apps/games and MS Office (schools can't afford Mac, I'm afraid). Those who are bored with the current system will be those who have an interest in ICT in the first place and will be on the computer for hours at home and therefore know all about MS Office. There are plenty of kids who aren't as good as that and need to be taught how to use the software. Some can't even send an email with an attachment in my view, although they are brilliant on Facebook. Most jobs I know don't require a thorough knowledge of Facebook but probably require you to send an email.
This announcement has substance, but still smacks of "give me your votes" to me.
Teaching's Pod: thoughts on education from an educator
Showing posts with label ICT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ICT. Show all posts
Wednesday, 11 January 2012
Thursday, 15 December 2011
ICT Teachers Are Rubbish!
Ofsted have reported this week that "the teaching of information and communications technology is inadequate in a fifth of school", with Schools minister Nick Gibb claiming that ICT teaching was "far too patchy".
Here's the article: Click Here!
The article says that last year, out of 74 schools inspected, 14 showed inadequate teaching of ICT. Now you are welcome to accuse me of splitting hairs at this point, but I kind of presumed that the country had more than 74 schools, and actually 14 out of 74 is just under 19%, rather than the 20% quoted. The trouble is that I just sound like a politician, spewing numbers out for no apparent reason, but it does seem a little sweeping to me.
What the article doesn't mention is that there is a chronic shortage of ICT teachers in the marketplace, or should I say, there is a chronic shortage of "decent" ICT teachers in the marketplace. The school I teach at held interviews for a new head of ICT and didn't appoint any of the four candidates for lack of quality, and all these people were experienced practitioners. The post had to be readvertised, and we did get someone second time around.
There's also the fact that the ICT curriculum, written by the government isn't very good. Having taught ICT I know this from first hand experience. The tasks are woefully thought out and totally uninspiring, which means that young people aren't enthused enough to carry the subject on further.
ICT isn't the only subject, with mathematics being another problem area to staff. I have known of collegaues of mine say to senior management who were on their case "Feel free to get rid of me, but good luck replacing me with anything as good or better". It may sound arrogant, but they almost certainly had a point.
Teaching, along with police, are seen as relatively safe jobs - there will always be children and criminals after all. People blindly stumble into teaching via a PCGE course expecting to turn up and be able to "knock 'em dead" from day one. This isn't the case, no matter how proficient you are in your subject, the skills involved in relaying that information to a bunch of teenagers who can't be bothered have nothing to do with your aptitude for the subject.
And herein lies the problem with ICT - those who are good at it and have knowledge that could be passed on to youngsters aren't always the most out-going of people. Let's face it, people who are great at programming and databases tend to be geeks (not all of them!), and the same applies to maths. Teaching involves a personality that many of those apparent experts don't possess.
There's also the fact that if they are genuinely good at ICT (or maths) there's probably more money to be made outside of teaching, in an environment that doesn't involve actually talking to people very much. Trying to encourage these people to leave university with a first class degree and walk into teaching with a golden handshake and a shortened teacher training period is not the way forward, even though it sounds good to those who don't know, namely the general population who cast their vote, and the press.
Of course there are people who are good at ICT (and maths) and can deliver it, but they are few and far between, and often lured to academies who don't have the strict financial controls that a mainstream school has with regards teachers' wages.
And as we all know, almost all academies have become academies because the clientele aren't necessarily the most diligent, so you have the best teachers teaching those students who are highly unlikely to actually want to progress in the field.
It's the teachers' fault for being rubbish though, clearly.
Here's the article: Click Here!
The article says that last year, out of 74 schools inspected, 14 showed inadequate teaching of ICT. Now you are welcome to accuse me of splitting hairs at this point, but I kind of presumed that the country had more than 74 schools, and actually 14 out of 74 is just under 19%, rather than the 20% quoted. The trouble is that I just sound like a politician, spewing numbers out for no apparent reason, but it does seem a little sweeping to me.
What the article doesn't mention is that there is a chronic shortage of ICT teachers in the marketplace, or should I say, there is a chronic shortage of "decent" ICT teachers in the marketplace. The school I teach at held interviews for a new head of ICT and didn't appoint any of the four candidates for lack of quality, and all these people were experienced practitioners. The post had to be readvertised, and we did get someone second time around.
There's also the fact that the ICT curriculum, written by the government isn't very good. Having taught ICT I know this from first hand experience. The tasks are woefully thought out and totally uninspiring, which means that young people aren't enthused enough to carry the subject on further.
ICT isn't the only subject, with mathematics being another problem area to staff. I have known of collegaues of mine say to senior management who were on their case "Feel free to get rid of me, but good luck replacing me with anything as good or better". It may sound arrogant, but they almost certainly had a point.
Teaching, along with police, are seen as relatively safe jobs - there will always be children and criminals after all. People blindly stumble into teaching via a PCGE course expecting to turn up and be able to "knock 'em dead" from day one. This isn't the case, no matter how proficient you are in your subject, the skills involved in relaying that information to a bunch of teenagers who can't be bothered have nothing to do with your aptitude for the subject.
And herein lies the problem with ICT - those who are good at it and have knowledge that could be passed on to youngsters aren't always the most out-going of people. Let's face it, people who are great at programming and databases tend to be geeks (not all of them!), and the same applies to maths. Teaching involves a personality that many of those apparent experts don't possess.
There's also the fact that if they are genuinely good at ICT (or maths) there's probably more money to be made outside of teaching, in an environment that doesn't involve actually talking to people very much. Trying to encourage these people to leave university with a first class degree and walk into teaching with a golden handshake and a shortened teacher training period is not the way forward, even though it sounds good to those who don't know, namely the general population who cast their vote, and the press.
Of course there are people who are good at ICT (and maths) and can deliver it, but they are few and far between, and often lured to academies who don't have the strict financial controls that a mainstream school has with regards teachers' wages.
And as we all know, almost all academies have become academies because the clientele aren't necessarily the most diligent, so you have the best teachers teaching those students who are highly unlikely to actually want to progress in the field.
It's the teachers' fault for being rubbish though, clearly.
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