What next for ICT?
I just sat down to tackle a term plan for ICT (Information Communication Technology) and have found myself writing this instead. Why?
- Google was unleashed to the general public 12 years ago
- The current ICT program of study from the Revised National Curriculum was first published by the QCA (Qualifications and Curriculum Authority) 11 years ago
I started my teaching career in 1997, two years before the ICT program of study arrived in staff rooms throughout England. When the National Curriculum came along it was seen by many as evolutionary albeit prescriptive. The search engine ‘Google’ was unleashed to the public in 1998 and was seen by many as a revolution which went on to change the face of the internet forever. Google has evolved throughout those years and has become a much more useful and effective tool for teaching and learning. The ICT program of study hasn’t. It’s been floundering for many years as the technology around it has advanced and developed.
I'm not that old!
So, back to my term plan which is supposed to involve data analysis and complex searching of CD ROMs and the internet. CD what? Aren’t they those dust covered boxed items many schools have vast collections of stored away in cupboards? One of the requirements for ICT states that students should be taught
how to prepare information for development using ICT, including selecting suitable sources, finding information, classifying it and checking it for accuracy
and CD ROM’s are suggested as a source. I can’t remember the last time I used a CD ROM to search for information so why would I expect my students to use them? I’m going to write a plan from scratch based on the tools that are available to me and my students today. I won’t consign CD ROM’s to the bin just yet as they will be useful from a historical point of view to help demonstrate how searching for information has evolved over the last 13 years.
But what about ICT in general? New government guidelines state that schools continue to use the 1999 National Curriculum for planning purposes and I suspect until revised changes are made many schools will be content to use the 1999/2003 QCA schemes of work. And that saddens me. The schemes were written to help non-technology minded teachers to put the National Curriculum requirements for ICT into place in their schools. It has worked for many years but it needs to evolve. Year in year out, I imagine many schools up and down the country have done nothing more than edit QCA schemes of work with a new date and class name along the top line, perhaps added the year’s new resources to the list and then ‘taught the same’ again. Meanwhile children in those classes respond with nonchalance and then go home to upload videos to Youtube, skype their friends and play games online with others across the world and wonder why ICT lessons at school are boring.
Are we doing them a disservice? I think so.
I better get back to my plan though. I’ll come back to this at another time and if you have anything to say about it please do leave a comment.
