Re: History of the IT curriculum

In article
<1hgs72q.1o76dyseazmpoN%real-not-anti-spam-address@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
D.M. Procida <real-not-anti-spam-address@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi - are there any good accounts of the way IT has been taught in
schools in the UK over the past 30 years?

Not yet. I know someone who is working on it.
Much of the story is told by the magazines of the time. We have a full series
of Acorn User / BBC Acorn User magazine from its start 24 years ago and you're
welcome to use those as reference for your research. Interested? ;-)

I'm particularly interested in two things - firstly, how the subject
passed from being the domain of enthusiast and computer scientsts, with
the agenda being led by (for example) the BBC and schools resourced by
home-grown companies like Acorn, to being driven by govenment policy
without much actual understanding of IT itself, and becoming a huge
market for the likes of Microsoft and following a very corporate,
vocationally-oriented agenda.

You won't get the full story.

Secondly, I wonder what the cause and effect relationship with that and
the National Curriculum was. Was the NC a cause? Or was it all going to
go that way anyway? Looking back it seems extraordinary that the BBC was
the main player in computers and education for so long.

Hardly extraordinary. The Acorn BBC 8 bit computers were superseded by the
Acorn BBC 32 bit (Archimedes RISC) series of computer. Both series gave
excellent service and beat the opposition hands down. Both stood up to the
rigours of school life and lasted far longer than any other. Both had
specifications that exceeded the alternatives for most applications. Both had
software that was available at low cost with minimal site licence charges. The
question that you need to ask is why was the latter series dropped by most
schools when curriculum and cost would have kept them.

The Acorn RISC machines are still capable of delivering the curriculum (some
would say better than many of the alternatives that are used) so that isn't
the reason. When most schools changed they were far better than the
alternatives at delivering the curriculum.

--
John Cartmell - Qercus magazine - editor AT qercus.com www.qercus.com
Qercus: a fusion of Acorn Publisher & Acorn User magazines
Finnybank Ltd 30 Finnybank Rd Sale M33 6LR == 0845 006 8822
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: History of the IT curriculum
    ... schools in the UK over the past 30 years? ... came in the early 80s with the BBC micro and RM 380 and then 480Zs. ... had both IBM and Acorn. ... There is no doubt in my mind that Acorn technology was better ...
    (uk.education.teachers)
  • Re: I came, I saw, I was disappointed...
    ... BBC TV educational series. ... Well, no, because when that series was broadcast, schools mostly did not ... specification that was tailor-made for the next generation Sinclair ... What happened was that Acorn had a design, the Proton (one `up' from the ...
    (uk.comp.sys.mac)
  • Re: History of the IT curriculum
    ... what about the vats use of bbc kit in primary schools then? ... schools in the UK over the past 30 years? ... The programme caught the public imagination. ... examination boards' now outdated and distant curricula only by ...
    (uk.education.teachers)
  • Re: Argue about this
    ... Acorn, the manufacturer, was all part of that BBC promotion of computer ... I suppose the lack of knowledge about the Archimedes was its British origin ... anything else in schools so I presume there was some kind of three-way deal ... "spouting nonsense", to be honest...do I also have the right to take ...
    (alt.lang.asm)
  • Re: History of the IT curriculum
    ... schools in the UK over the past 30 years? ... Looking back it seems extraordinary that the BBC was ... industry then I remember the BBC programmes ... stood for Computer Education In Schools Instruction Language. ...
    (uk.education.teachers)