If you go back to the think piece on ICT as a subject you can see that computing is just one strand in a broad subject curriculum. This is a cause of complaint by computing enthusiasts who would like to see the subject as more intellectually challenging, more able to prepare pupils for computing as a degree and eventually move on to fulfil roles in the industry. Furthermore it is felt by many university departments that existing computing qualifications are not a preparation for computing as a university subject.

I would like to offer a personal view here, please disagree!

Firstly the criticism of 14 -1 8 qualifications is a strong one. There is too little sense of progression between key stage 3 and key stage 4, there are too many lower order skills (tests of memory) assessed at advanced level. Whether this could be said about other subjects is worth investigation.

Some people are now arguing that computing can make our curriculum more challenging and they would also argue more fun – ‘hard fun’ if you like. This argument goes back a long way. Papert (1983) argued that the challenge of planning, sequencing, debugging a programme are higher order skills and transferable to a range of contexts. Logo used to be the most widely used programme in schools and was central to the push for using computers in school in the first place. It was supposed to spearhead a revolution in thinking and learning. It also served as a kind of counterweight to concerns that computers were making us too passive; within Logo you necessarily had a sense of control over the computer it would not do anything unless you instructed it. As you learnt repeat and loop commands, including procedures and super procedures, you quickly discovered the power of computers and computing.

However, these arguments are not watertight. It seems likely that, say, designing a multi media presentation can be as intellectually taxing as writing and debugging a programme, so computing is not necessarily the answer. Further, I doubt if many ICT teachers would necessarily welcome the change of emphasis.

If you come from a computing background, and you think about programming, you may think about Java, Visual Basic and these may have their place in specialist courses. If you do not come from such a background you may be put off programming from the outset. But there are a number of really user friendly programmes which can engage pupils, include things like Flowol; Alice; Python; Greenfoot; Flash and Gamemaker. More recently Scratch has become very popular in schools. Many of these programmes are cheap or freely downloadable. They have a low threshold (ie it is easy to get started) and high ceiling (ie you can go as far as you like). Some are very popular with children which seems like one reason for using them! Another is that if we don't do this who else will?

For you to think about

What is the value of programming

Do pupils like programming or feel it is useful?

How should we teach programming (if we do want to teach it)?

Which programs (type of program) should we teach?

For you to do

Download and play around with Logo

http://www.softronix.com/logo.html

and / or Scratch.

http://scratch.mit.edu/

Read Papert, S. (1993) Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas, Basic Books, NY, USA.

Go to Computing at school web site at

http://www.computingatschool.org.uk/