Farewell to ICT?Evolving ICT into Computing

Session Objectives

• Consider what ICT means today.

• Review the recent Computer Science “noise.”

• Look at the new National Curriculum for Computing.

• Identify the things that stay the same.

• Discuss approaches to the things that are new.

What does ICT mean today?

Digital Literacy is more than one hour per week.

The rate of change is fast!

The rate of change is fast!

Can we keep up? Should we keep up?

The Computer Science “noise”

Your IT curriculum focuses on teaching how to use software, but gives no insight into how it's made.

That is just throwing away your great computing heritage.

The New Curriculum

• What is in a name?

• A step in the right direction?

• Where did ICT go?

• Too much, too soon?

What’s in a name?

ComputingICT

A Step in the Right Direction?

• The way computers work hasn’t changed (and won’t, for a while)!

• Gives a deeper understanding of the tools we use every day.

• Computational (logical) Thinking helps Problem Solving.

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Where did ICT go?

Where did ICT go?

At Key Stage 3, pupils should be taught to:

“create, reuse, revise and repurpose digital

information and content with

attention to design, intellectual property

and audience”

“undertake creative projects that

involve selecting, using, and

combining multiple applications,

preferably across a range of devices,

to achieve challenging goals,

including collecting and analysing

data and meeting the needs of

known users”

What’s New?

A range of devices…

undertake creative projects… preferably across a range of devices, to achieve challenging goals

Computer Programming at KS3

use two or more programming languages, one of which is textual

understand at

least two key

algorithms for

each of sorting

and searching

design, use and evaluate computational abstractions

understand the hardware and

software components that

make up networked

computer systems

Prescriptive Computing Content

use data

structures

such as tables

or arrays

understand simple Boolean logic such as AND, OR and NOT

Too Much, Too Soon?

Are we ready for this?!

Discussion

1. What are we already doing in school that meets this new curriculum?

2. What objections do we have to the content of the new curriculum?

3. If we accept the new curriculum, how do we deliver it?• Do we need training?• Do we need resources?