Information about this issue

Issue 5 of Computers in Classrooms was published on 25 September 2020. Perhaps surprisingly, and somewhat depressingly, some of it is still relevant. Here is a quick guide to the articles.

An important announcement

This was about a competition I was running at the time. The deadline has passed now I’m afraid.

Subscribers' matters

This was a section in which I published emails received from subscribers – with their permission I hasten to add. Some of the questions people raised in their emails are very software-specific, and therefore dated now. But one, I think, is probably still an issue for some people:

“Have any of your subscribers found a way of getting head teachers to realise the value of having a professional-looking website, and so making the time available to maintain it?”

My feeling about this now is that probably most headteachers do realise the value of a professional-looking website. But do they make the time available to maintain it? And if so, who? It often falls to the school leader for Computing or similar, but one could argue that it would make more sense to have an English teacher take responsibility, or any teacher with an interest, or even pupils – with teacher oversight.

The ICT in Education website update

This was news about recent updates. These have long been superseded by many more updates since.

News

This might be of interest to historians of education technology. I cited some statistic about the proportion of schools connected to the internet, and the ratio of computers to pupils. For example:

“On average there was one computer for every 12.6 pupils compared to 13.4 pupils in 1999.”

There was also an item about the Learning Schools Programme. This was the offer of one of the providers of training under the “New Opportunities Fund”. In my opinion NOF was well-intended, but muddle-headed. Why? Because the funding could not be used for basic IT training, but teaching teachers how to use edtech in the classroom. But how could they be expected to apply skills that they didn’t have? My impression was that the most successful offers under the auspices of NOF were the ones who broke the rules and offered basic training first.

Website round-up

It’s interesting to see the amount of stuff the English department for education at the time was putting online. It was truly a pioneer in my opinion. In the early days, websites could even be given a badge of approval from the “National Grid for Learning”. (The ICT in Education website was one of them.)

The Virtual Teacher newsletter is still going strong! The website looks a bit dated now, but then who am I to judge!

Tips section: Email Tip, internet Tip, Classroom Tip, Admin Tip

I think you will find these tips amusing, as they seem rather quaint now.

Why do it?

In this section of the newsletter I looked at why teachers use computers in their schemes of work and lessons -- and what puts them off. I think some of this is still apposite. Book reviews

These were, erm, reviews of books. Amazingly, they are still available. However, one appears to have last been updated in 1997, and the other in 2013, so I don’t think I should recommend them now.

 Scenario: High flying without the basics in place (a true story), plus

responses to last month's Scenario

In those days I used to describe a scenario and then invite readers to say how they would deal with it, or have dealt with it themselves. I think I might reinstate the scenario feature.

Feature (1): Cognitive dissonance

This, too, was the results of a question I’d asked readers.

Feature (2): ICT at Key Stage 3 -- by Niel McLean

This outlined the plans of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority to produce materials to accompany the Key Stage 3 scheme of work for ICT. This eventually ended up being the so-called Key Stage 3 Strategy for ICT. Although some of the materials were very good, I’m afraid I regarded the Strategy as (a) too much like teaching by numbers (“After 7 minutes, go on to slide x…”), too teacher-led, and too much like a job creation scheme.

Feature (3): The Key Stage 3 ICT Scheme of Work

I wrote:

“I spent much of the summer vacation period going through the new Scheme of Work, and mapping it to the one I had already written. This raises an important issue in itself. The Scheme of Work is not compulsory in a legal sense, but there is little doubt that if you are inspected you will be  expected to be working to something at least as good.”

This turned out to be remarkably prescient. When I became an inspector myself in 2004, one of the first things I was told by the person in charge was that I should ask the head of ICT/Computing if they were following the KS3 Scheme of Work.

Moot Point

In this section, someone vented their spleen about some schools not teaching pupils how to use computers. They wrote:

“There are people around now who are 17 years old. They started formal schooling when they were 5 years old -- in 1988. And some of them have come out of school not knowing one end of a computer from the other!”

There were a few extra bits and pieces, about the newsletter and its proofreader, but that’s about it for its substantive content. I hope you find something of interest in it from yesteryear!