ICT GCSE wtf?
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TeamD

Original Poster:

5,060 posts

261 months

Sunday 11th January 2009
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Having volunteered help my nephew with this subject I was presented with a revision guide to show what the course consists of, and to be quite frank, I am utterly gobsmacked. It appears that they don't teach anything of value at all.

It's no bloody wonder that nothing works anymore if this is what is being taught in schools, it's worse than useless. Add this to the admission (from a friend who used to be a maths teacher) that they don't do matrices until A-level now (how can you manipulate computer graphics without understanding it?) I'm fast coming to the conclusion that going to school these days seems like an advanced course in wasting time.

When asked my opinion on the course content, I could only ask, "Well that's alright for the first week, but what are we going to do for the rest of the 2 years?"

Any teachers care to explain what on earth goes on all day in a modern school? confused

blank

3,760 posts

217 months

Sunday 11th January 2009
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A level is worse.

You've got to remember it's not supposed to be like Computer Science though, it's more like learning to use programs you might have to use in a job properly. Access databases etc.



I don't think matrices are on A Level Maths either.....................

Nobody You Know

8,422 posts

222 months

Sunday 11th January 2009
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We didn't do Matrices at AS-Level maths, I think it's covered in A2-Level statistics.

With regards to the IT GCSE, it was fecking easy to do but it does give a good knowledge of how to use systems like Excel and Access properly. Systems that I have since used in my daily life.

It's not really meant to be a programming course.

I remeber that after about 3 weeks me and my mates had learnt all we needed and just started using the time to write a spoof weekly school newspaper...

Gun

13,432 posts

247 months

Sunday 11th January 2009
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When I was at school ICT was just an excuse to surf the web, only a few people took it seriously.

okgo

42,091 posts

227 months

Sunday 11th January 2009
quotequote all
Gun said:
When I was at school ICT was just an excuse to surf the web, only a few people took it seriously.
I was one of the former, and still smashed it. Far too easy and worthless as said.

Sheets Tabuer

21,392 posts

244 months

Sunday 11th January 2009
quotequote all
God I feel old, when I was at school we had to control traffic lights with BBC micros and make circuit boards that were then controlled by the computer.

Has it changed that much?

cs02rm0

13,822 posts

220 months

Sunday 11th January 2009
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Nobody You Know said:
With regards to the IT GCSE, it was fecking easy to do but it does give a good knowledge of how to use systems like Excel and Access properly.
It's wonderful how the education system does a cracking job at giving kids a broad perspective on the different products available from a range of vendors.

Mr E

23,035 posts

288 months

Sunday 11th January 2009
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Nobody You Know said:
It's not really meant to be a programming course.
I failed GCSE computing, as I submitted a program for the project. "Programming was not part of the course" and they awarded me no marks.
The kiddy sitting next to me submitted a database of his dads golf scores that we knocked up in about 6 minutes, and was awarded full marks.


littlegreenfairy

10,134 posts

250 months

Sunday 11th January 2009
quotequote all
Nobody You Know said:
We didn't do Matrices at AS-Level maths, I think it's covered in A2-Level statistics.

With regards to the IT GCSE, it was fecking easy to do but it does give a good knowledge of how to use systems like Excel and Access properly. Systems that I have since used in my daily life.

It's not really meant to be a programming course.

I remeber that after about 3 weeks me and my mates had learnt all we needed and just started using the time to write a spoof weekly school newspaper...
IN STATISTICS?

Jeez, and they say the education system isn't being dumbed down.

okgo

42,091 posts

227 months

Sunday 11th January 2009
quotequote all
cs02rm0 said:
Nobody You Know said:
With regards to the IT GCSE, it was fecking easy to do but it does give a good knowledge of how to use systems like Excel and Access properly.
It's wonderful how the education system does a cracking job at giving kids a broad perspective on the different products available from a range of vendors.
Linux right? hehe

Gun

13,432 posts

247 months

Sunday 11th January 2009
quotequote all
okgo said:
Gun said:
When I was at school ICT was just an excuse to surf the web, only a few people took it seriously.
I was one of the former, and still smashed it. Far too easy and worthless as said.
Yeah in our school you had to do ICT and RE at GCSE, I didn't do any work for the whole two years and still got B's in both!

okgo

42,091 posts

227 months

Sunday 11th January 2009
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RE, Jesus (no pun intended) I sacked that ASAP what a lot of old bks.

AndrewTait

1,849 posts

223 months

Sunday 11th January 2009
quotequote all
Perhaps if people were taught how computers work in ICT, not necessarily the troubleshooting and fixing of them, then that would make my job somuch easier.

The number of times I have to sort peoples problems out because they don't realise that pulling a memory stick out of a computer whilst it is saving a document will corrupt the document.

ICT should be this is a computer, this is how it works, this is how you use it. Not a Microsoft users course.

At the place I work, they would be stuffed, as we don't use Access, and only very few people actually use office. How many of these "ICT" trained people know how to process PDF files into diferent colour separations, but would still put down that they are ICT trained?

TeamD

Original Poster:

5,060 posts

261 months

Sunday 11th January 2009
quotequote all
Mr E said:
Nobody You Know said:
It's not really meant to be a programming course.
I failed GCSE computing, as I submitted a program for the project. "Programming was not part of the course" and they awarded me no marks.
The kiddy sitting next to me submitted a database of his dads golf scores that we knocked up in about 6 minutes, and was awarded full marks.
So Macros aren't effectively programs then? Or web pages with scripting? Jeez, we're well and truly fuched, no wonder we need to off-shore to a bunch of colonials that can't spell (unlike the homegrown folk who were never taught to spell because they did GCSE English and spelling wasn't part of the course!) rofl

Edited by TeamD on Sunday 11th January 12:33

Alfa_75_Steve

7,489 posts

229 months

Sunday 11th January 2009
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The ECDL qualification is just as bad.

Mrs 75 did one, as it was cheap, and employers seem to like it.

They teach memory / hard drive capacities in decimal.

ie. 1GB = 1000MB, not 1024MB, as it should be.

TeamD

Original Poster:

5,060 posts

261 months

Sunday 11th January 2009
quotequote all
Alfa_75_Steve said:
The ECDL qualification is just as bad.

Mrs 75 did one, as it was cheap, and employers seem to like it.

They teach memory / hard drive capacities in decimal.

ie. 1GB = 1000MB, not 1024MB, as it should be.
Technically, hard drive capacities are in decimal, the yanks perverted that one years ago. biggrin

Sorry to bear bad news but that "terrabyte" you bought? It isn't a terrabyte.

Edited by TeamD on Sunday 11th January 12:36

Accelebrate

5,661 posts

244 months

Sunday 11th January 2009
quotequote all
If things are still the same, and I imagine they are then schools really struggle to recruit 'IT Teachers' with any sort of experience. The salaries are low compared to industry and you have to work with kids.

cs02rm0

13,822 posts

220 months

Sunday 11th January 2009
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okgo said:
Linux right? hehe
thumbup

Well, in this case I was thinking more along the lines of OpenOffice/StarOffice, MySQL, Oracle, etc as additions to Excel and Access.

(But a bit of Linux, BSD, Solaris, OSX, etc wouldn't go amiss, no).

Alfa_75_Steve

7,489 posts

229 months

Sunday 11th January 2009
quotequote all
swerni said:
Alfa_75_Steve said:
ie. 1GB = 1000MB, not 1024MB, as it should be.
because that's going to make a huge difference to anyone's life rolleyes
It's quite clearly incorrect and goes against the entire way in which computers work.

Could also cause problems if you are calculating a file size in 'proper' megabytes, then are given storage media in 'decimal' megabytes, as your file won't fit....

speedchick

5,287 posts

251 months

Sunday 11th January 2009
quotequote all
swerni said:
Alfa_75_Steve said:
ie. 1GB = 1000MB, not 1024MB, as it should be.
because that's going to make a huge difference to anyone's life rolleyes
Well I don't know, that errant 24MB would cover my entire system usage on this laptop!