On Wed, 2006-01-11 at 01:29 +0000, MJ Ray wrote: [snip]
The general concepts and principles are taught by a few visionaries and don't appear in the most common ICT qualifications.
That's sort of what I was going to post last night. Although it is disturbing that pupils only get exposed to one platform (when I was at school we had at least two available ,CP/M and the not so IBM compatible RM Nimbus) I think with properly structured ICT lessons it is irrelevant to a certain degree.
The software on the systems I used at school was completely different to what I was using at home and used in my first job, but the ICT lessons were still valuable because the basic fundamentals of (for example) how a spreadsheet works and what it can be used for are still relevant regardless of software or platform.
Actually I am going to be slightly more radical here and say that there should be less focus on ICT lessons until the final couple of years. At the couple of middle schools I help out from time to time a good portion of English, French, Maths, Geography and some Science lessons are held in front of computers anyway...the kids are encouraged to use the (heavily locked down) internet access both for research during lessons and at lunchtime for recreation, and every child has an email address.
So given all that I don't see what necessary computing skills ICT lessons add, If the kids need to learn how to create Websites, Simple Databases etc then this should be an optional module towards the end of their compulsory education.
I would also like to see minimum standards achieved in things like Handwriting, Spelling, Grammar and Arithmetic before the respective subjects are moved over to the Computer room.
When there are dedicated ICT lessons I would like the teachings to be centred around core ICT subjects rather than being focused on things like "create a website in frontpage"