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That's a real shame. Maybe it was up to individual schools how much they bought into it. I was amongst the last generation of people to take 'O' levels (ISTR t

by saw-lau 10y ago

That's a real shame. Maybe it was up to individual schools how much they bought into it. I was amongst the last generation of people to take 'O' levels (ISTR that GCSEs came in two years after me?), and our school had computer science as both an 'O' and 'A' level option. Our little sixth-form BBC Micro lab (networked via 'Econet') was where us nerds and geeks hung out (although we didn't know we were nerds or geeks back then). After I left school for many years I just assumed that things had carried on as they were. It was only years later that I learnt about ICT and the damage (IMHO) it had caused. :-(

Symbiote 10y ago
I think everyone is correct here, but are mis-remembering the times. My dad was a teacher. He used computers to teach industrial design, graphic design etc in a well-funded school in the 1980s. (We have a photo of me using AutoCAD, age 4, on a 286...) In the very early 1990s he started teaching IT, but he certainly had no programming skills. Wikipedia says GCSEs were introduced in 1988, which would be the new curriculum the article refers to, with the first exams therefore in 1990. That's probably when the subjects he'd been teaching were removed from the curriculum, and teaching IT was the natural way for him to continue his career. I fiddled with BASIC on our Acorn Archimedes, but couldn't progress -- my dad didn't know anyone he could ask for guidance, yet he knew IT teachers in many other schools. I had one book, that had come with the computer, but was stuck for what to look at next, until a chance conversation some years later. > Maybe it was up to individual schools how much they bought into it. And on that point -- there was some flexibility within the IT/ICT curriculum. My dad could avoid teaching databases, and the other teacher at his school could avoid teaching bitmap or vector graphics. My school (different) could teach some very basic programming, making a model automatic door open and close or a lift go up and down. (The computer graphics work some of my dad's students did was brilliant, a couple even started very successful companies based on their ability. But it belonged in art lessons, not "computer" lessons.)
Pigo 10y ago
I graduated in Ohio in 99, and my junior year we had a typing class, on actual typewriters. That was the extent of my official preparation for the digital age. Luckily I was scripting in mIRC at the same time, and learning home-row isn't nothing. But that's why I'm proud our district has Chromebooks now, as I was so sure they'd have one recent college grad who spends the whole budget on iPad's because he likes his iPhone. They all have their own machine, and my son shows me new features and apps.

by saw-lau 10y ago

Symbiote 10y ago

I think everyone is correct here, but are mis-remembering the times. My dad was a teacher. He used computers to teach industrial design, graphic design etc in a well-funded school in the 1980s. (We have a photo of me using AutoCAD, age 4, on a 286...) In the very early 1990s he started teaching IT, but he certainly had no programming skills. Wikipedia says GCSEs were introduced in 1988, which would be the new curriculum the article refers to, with the first exams therefore in 1990. That's probably when the subjects he'd been teaching were removed from the curriculum, and teaching IT was the natural way for him to continue his career. I fiddled with BASIC on our Acorn Archimedes, but couldn't progress -- my dad didn't know anyone he could ask for guidance, yet he knew IT teachers in many other schools. I had one book, that had come with the computer, but was stuck for what to look at next, until a chance conversation some years later. > Maybe it was up to individual schools how much they bought into it. And on that point -- there was some flexibility within the IT/ICT curriculum. My dad could avoid teaching databases, and the other teacher at his school could avoid teaching bitmap or vector graphics. My school (different) could teach some very basic programming, making a model automatic door open and close or a lift go up and down. (The computer graphics work some of my dad's students did was brilliant, a couple even started very successful companies based on their ability. But it belonged in art lessons, not "computer" lessons.)

Pigo 10y ago

I graduated in Ohio in 99, and my junior year we had a typing class, on actual typewriters. That was the extent of my official preparation for the digital age. Luckily I was scripting in mIRC at the same time, and learning home-row isn't nothing. But that's why I'm proud our district has Chromebooks now, as I was so sure they'd have one recent college grad who spends the whole budget on iPad's because he likes his iPhone. They all have their own machine, and my son shows me new features and apps.