When you’re attempting to give your pupils a flavour of the “real world”, it’s important to remember two things:
As I said in 7 ways to make IT real: #0 Make IT unreal, setting the kids a problem like “Imagine you’re going to open a video shop” is not going to cut it these days. You either need to set problems that are outlandish and obviously unreal, or set them ones which are all too real.
I’d suggest that the best way of doing so is to get the pupils themselves to identify problems. That’s the approach taken by
It’s easy to see parents as “just” parents. They bring their kids to school, you let them know how their child is getting on, and that’s maybe as far as it goes. But it’s worth remembering that parents are also people in their own right, with interests and jobs that may be useful in terms of giving your pupils a real-world focus for computing and ICT.
It’s easy to take your local area for granted, but try to see it with new eyes. Try to see it as if you were a tourist visiting the area for the first time. You may be pleasantly surprised to discover just how much is noteworthy from a computing or ICT point of view. Whether you want your pupils to simply notice the use of technology, or wish to get them to figure out how things work or even to create their own digital assets, you won’t be disappointed.
One way to make ICT interesting is to make sure it is relevant to young people’s lives, and has a genuine connection to the “real world”. Indeed, these are required of Ofsted in order to achieve an “Outstanding” grade in ICT. I have referred to this as “authentic learning”. So, in the next few articles I will be suggesting ways of approaching this.
Here are three short observations on data, which may provide a basis for discussion with pupils.
A few weeks ago I went to the Ice Age art exhibition at the British Museum.
Whatever you think of the current debate over news that the US Government may have been monitoring the online activity of not only its own citizens but those of other countries too, you have to admit one thing. It provides a great opportunity for ICT teachers everywhere to bring some real-world issues into their lessons, in a very newsy (ie current) way.
When I last visited Cambridge, England, I thought the street signs were pretty good. Rather than display how far away things are, they tell you how long it will take to walk to them: far more useful.
But a new idea, called Points, goes way beyond that.
It’s amazing what you can achieve with a paintbrush and a fork. Yesterday morning I watched in helpless horror as the lid of something fell down the plug hole in the bathroom sink. I could see it, just about, using the flashlight app on my smartphone (I knew there was more to smartphones than just being connected), but couldn’t reach it.
Here are a couple of interesting cartoon strips about the (possible) effects of new technology. Yesterday’s one is more about unintended consequences, while today’s is really about how apparently intelligent software and monitoring systems might be fooled.
Stephen King, in his book ‘On Writing’, makes a very interesting point. Going against just about all the advice proffered in books and magazine articles, he says:
Plot is, I think, the good writer’s last resort and the dullard’s first choice.
You might be inclined to dismiss that as hogwash, but given King’s phenomenal success as a writer I’d suggest that would be unwise.
Kevin Hodgson has written a make-believe article about technology taking over from humans. The theme is a well-known one in science fiction circles, of course, but what I especially like about Kevin’s article is that he has written in the form of a newspaper article. To do so he has used a fake headline generator, for which he provides a link in the story.
It’s very tempting to try to make life as easy as possible for end users by being proactive, ie anticipating what is likely to be useful to them, and then implementing that as a default option (or possibly not even an option, but compulsory).
Perhaps some of your students will be tempted, when designing a computer program for use by non-technical people, to make it as ‘proactively helpful’ as possible. If so, they should beware. A good idea would be to undertake some market research, if only of a rudimentary nature, to avoid the pitfall of merely annoying people.
Here is an infographic that depicts what happens in an internet day. It goes through what happens in one second, one minute, one hour and then calculates the statistics for a day.
It’s interesting, though not – in my opinion – for the statistics in themselves. If big numbers impress you, then you will be impressed. Indeed, those whose mission it is to promote so-called 21st century skills and to prove that the current education system cannot cope with the new reality tend to use statistics like this to prove their point.
Here’s an interesting infographic which looks at how educational technology has changed over the centuries. I think it’s always interesting to provide students with some history of the subject it didn’t all start with iPads!
Here’s an interesting infographic which looks at how the technology used in the classroom has changed over the years (or remained pretty much the same!). The only one of the “outdated instruments” I never used was a slide rule! How many of these do you remember? And please don’t send me messages along the lines of “Before my time, Terry.” I feel ancient enough when I look at things like this already! The infographic includes the history of Computer Science.
When did ICT teachers stop becoming teachers and become ‘facilitators’ instead? I’ve largely managed to ignore this sort of nonsense but now it’s getting out of hand. The other day someone said on Twitter or Facebook that he is an ‘active facilitator’, while someone else shared a sign which read “I am not a teacher; I am an activator.”
Christina Preston was one of two people given the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2013 Conference of Naace, the subject association for ICT. I interviewed her to find out about her and her work.
(c) Terry Freedman All Rights Reserved
