Further steps in the right direction
Further steps in the right direction
Posted by PeterT on 12 Jul 2012
At the ITTE Annual Conference last week I had interesting discussions with a range of folk, including Simon Peyton Jones from CAS, about the Naace/CAS/ITTE joint paper. I think we made significant progress in addressing some of the concerns that I have expressed about our joint statement (I say ‘our’ because I am a member of all three organisations!).
Things I think we agree on:
There needs to be a broad and balanced curriculum spanning KS1 to KS3, which will be called ICT (the statutory subject) and will include Digeracy (a placeholder label) and elements of Computer Science.
Digeracy includes all those elements of ICT which are not part of Computer Science, such as understanding the impacts of new technologies on society, being able to use new technologies safely, being able to find, evaluate, interpret and re-present information in a range of formats (multiple media). We probably need a better label than Digeracy, but it needs to be something that doesn’t carry any baggage with it.
The Royal Society report on Computing in Schools defines IT as “the assembly, deployment, and configuration of digital systems to meet user needs for particular purposes” (p.17). You might think of this as systems analysis. Simon and I agreed that this should NOT be taught in schools and should NOT be part of ICT (the statutory subject).
The DfE state that ICT (the statutory subject) will span KS4 as well as KS1 to KS3. This would provide an entitlement for all pupils, even if they were not taking a GCSE in ICT, Computer Science or some other related subject. It would require a change in how schools plan their timetables at KS4 as all pupils would need to take ICT, with some taking it as a GCSE and others as a non-examined statutory subject. This is likely to be challenging for schools and there is a real danger that it would lead to further criticism of KS4 ICT by Ofsted (of the kind that ended up with ICT across all Key Stages being unfairly rubbished).
One of the sticking points within the discussions between Naace, CAS and ITTE seemed to have been about how to define Digital Literacy, which is why it was totally ignored within the joint statement itself. On probing it seems that CAS don’t mind how it is defined – but are keen that ICT (the statutory subject) is presented as consisting of two elements: Computer Science and what I have (temporarily) called Digeracy. Digital Literacy would be an important (some might say the most important) component of Digeracy.
I suspect that folk in Naace and ITTE could reach agreement around a definition of Digeracy that looked something like:
Digeracy covers the following areas:
- Understanding the impact of new technologies on society
- Understanding the nature of digital identities and being able to manage your digital identities appropriately
- Being able to interact safely in a digital world (encompassing e-safety, cyber-bullying, data security, etc)
- Being able to locate, organize, understand, evaluate, analyse and (re)present information using multiple media
Figure 1 provides a summary of where I think we have got to in our shared understanding of what the future curriculum relating to ICT (the statutory subject) and related specialisms at KS4 and KS5 ought to look like.
Figure 1 Organisation of the Curriculum
Things which remain to be resolved:
That leaves us with a few things to resolve, including:
- Whether we need a label such as Digeracy to refer to those elements of ICT (the statutory subject) which are not part of Computer Science, and if so what that label should be.
- The balance between Digeracy and Computer Science within ICT (the statutory subject).
- The specifics of what the Programme of Study for ICT (the statutory subject) should include, bearing in mind that the PoS for ICT will be very high level (one side of A4 in total).
- What additional (non-statutory) information should be provided to support teachers in implementing the PoS for ICT?
I’m beginning to feel like we are making real progress here ... maybe I was wrong, maybe Naace, CAS and ITTE between them can come up with a solution which is optimal for the pupils …
Comments
Naace has always used a rigorous definition of Digital Literacy - there is a good, clear articulation of the definition in the Futurelab handbook http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/digital-literacy-across-curriculum...
Thanks for that Allison. If all at Naace buy into the description of Digital Literacy that is in the Futurelab document then I think that there really isn't much of a problem - though I would advocate having a more concise definition rather than the rather length description in the Futurelab document. Would the definition below work for you?
Digital literacy: the ability to operate effectively as a citizen in the 21st century. It covers the following areas:
• Understanding the impact of new technologies on society, including the ways in which new technologies change disciplines (e.g. history, chemistry, English, etc)
• Understanding the nature of digital identities and being able to manage your digital identities appropriately
• Being able to interact safely in a digital world (encompassing e-safety, cyber-bullying, data security, etc)
• Being able to locate, organize, understand, evaluate, analyze and (re)present information using digital technology (including using dynamic and procedural representations)
I have to say I agree with most of what Roger has said.
He is totally right about my definition of digeracy being too narrow - see my first bash at an ICT PoS which is closer to what I think we need for ICT as a whole (though I know that some folk think that there needs to be more computer science than I included).
What other aspects of ICT do you think we need to include in the PoS?
I don't think that there is any intention - at least not on my part - of Computer Science being presented as discrete from ICT (the statutory subject) before KS4. The diagram is intended to show that ICT (the statutory subject) includes elements of Computer Science (as well as Digeracy).
I also take the point about embedded technology - this is an adaptation of the joint Naace/CAS/ITTE diagram and my suspicion is that their intention was to signal that there is this other stuff (which some would call TEL) which is not what their paper is trying to deal with. I think that the whole debate about ICT in the curriculum has been skewed - whilst Computer Science is important and teaching it well at KS4/5 is a major challenge, a much larger issues is ensuring that every teacher understands how new technologies have changed their disciplines and provided them with a wider repertoire of pedagogical approaches and that they thus need to embed technology in their teaching no matter what their subject - I have ranted about this elsewhere (see this blog post for example).
Those who are highly committed to computer science, who quite understandably over-stress it and wish to see it as a separate subject rather than as part of ICT, tend to also have a very poor vision of the extent of ICT capability. Peter's definition of digeracy above is a prime example; it makes no mention of solving problems using ICT tools, which is the core of ICT capability at all levels. Computer science is of course also about solving problems, but one would only resort to the techniques of computer science and programming if appropriate ICT tools do not already exist, that one's ICT capability enables one to use. ICT capability goes way beyond anything that could be described as digital literacy or digeracy, and this is not being acknowledged by Peter in this posting.
The other issue in Peter's diagram above is the extension of a computer science 'subject' right down into KS1 and 2. I know of no school that would dream of separating computer science out as a subject separate from ICT at this level. Certainly teachers need to be aware of it as a component of ICT, just as they need to be aware of embedded technology and the ICT capability that will crystalise into separate subjects such as web development, games development, business systems, IT & network systems and so on. Should we also see these as subjects alongside computer science all the way up from KS1? Of course not. ICT is the subject through primary into secondary, that develops more specialisms as it develops through secondary just as science does.
Probably most fascinating in the diagram is the way Peter has put embedded technology as a subject theme completely outside of the main diagram, yet it is the most pervasive of all aspects of ICT, with numerous computers now in your car for example controlling many functions. This is the really invisible part of ICT - by comparison the need to make pupils aware of computer science as they get older is obvious!