Computers in Schools
In just a few decades, Information Technology has changed almost everything we do. Our analogue world is becoming digital and it's not just the arrival of computers - everything from your cooker to your car now has a computer management system and television will be completely digital by 2012. The consequences are far greater than you might expect. Our very society is changing, as it once did during the agricultural and industrial revolutions, and we are now moving from an industrial economy to a knowledge economy so how should we educate children for life in this new an as yet unknown world? These pages will tell you.
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But what exactly is fluent use of this new information technology and how should schools help children achieve it? The answer lies in the curriculum they follow. In England we have a National Curriculum. In other places there will be a different curriculum but you'll find remarkable similarities and you'll also find the clear descriptions on these pages will help you to understand the issues and implications. The National Curriculum was launched in 1989. (You can read more on the National Curriculum page). It's actually a formalisation of the curriculum that has been in place since Victorian times but with the addition of a new subject which covers information technology and its effects and consequences. Curiously, in the world at large this new technology is called IT (Information Technology) but in UK Education it is referred to as ICT (Information and Communications Technology). Find out why. ICT has a dual personality. It's a subject in its own right but it's also a powerful tool to use in all subjects of the curriculum. A simple analogy would be the use of a pencil. In both cases you have to master certain skills but then you can use them in every subject. ICT is far more powerful than a pencil though - you don't just use it, it actually enhances learning in every subject. And in the case of children with special needs it can give access to the curriculum - something that was previously impossible. When the National Curriculum was created, it set out what children should learn in Information Technology. Despite this being the first ever attempt at creating a curriculum for information technology, they got it exactly right. They didn't list programs you should learn - they identified the key activities such as communicating and data handling that computers are used for. They even accurately broke down the skills into ten levels. The only thing they got wrong was that they didn't know where to put it. It wasn't a separate subject, it was a subset of Design and Technology (which I think it still is in the actual wording of the law). Since then, there have been several revisions of the National Curriculum and ICT now stands alongside Maths, English and Science as the four most important subjects. But the content has remained unaltered. The letter C was added and the topics have been renamed but the content is exactly as created. In these pages you can find out about:
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children are at the start of their school careers. What will the world
be like when they leave school? One thing is certain - it will be very different from the
Twentieth Century world that I grew up in.
hat sort of education is needed to equip
children for 21st century life? One thing is certain - information technology
will be at its heart. Children must become fluent users of technology if they
are to be able to fully participate in adult life and compete for jobs in a
global marketplace.