Education Schmation

A while ago, about two years ago, I wrote a blog entry about the inanity of the applied Applied IT. I feel like I was too brief, and I can't think of anything else to write about, so I guess I'll expand on this.

Basically I when you decide to do a course in Applied IT, what you're really doing is signing up for a Microsoft Office course. If you're in the workplace and the employer wants you to brush up on your skills, this is okay, but this is what sixth formers, people who are entering higher education are getting into. And when I mean Microsoft Office, I mean Microsoft Office 2003. All those hours teaching you how to do various spreadsheets become redundant (a little fun anecdote: when I was in the class, I think I told my teacher about my concerns about the course, or talking about doing calculations in the sheets. The teacher said "yeah, Office 2007 is gonna make that redundant.", more or less anyway). This is the problem with trying to make your courses apply/pander with industry. You equip a number of students with a couple of skills that will be lost with the next generation of software. Other things we learnt was looking sat websites to show how useful they were to the customer.

It was really disheartening actually, because I really liked the stuff like Ruby, and programming-that wasn't taught in the course- which was tough, but rewarding to learn. This is the problem with schools at the moment. Yeah, it's nice to be abole to have a few applicable skills when you leave, but when every subject gears itself towards applicability, it kind of goes stale, and motivation goes down. A quick look at the prospectus of the Applied IT A level has the following modules:

1. The Information Age
2. The Digital Economy
3. The Knowledge Worker
A2
1. Using Database Software
2. Managing ICT projects
3. Using Spreadsheet Software


Hmm.





"Never increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of words required to explain anything" - Ockham Talk about typecasting yourself.