Computers

mirrorwall14

jogdish wrote: »

Ahhh, No have not read it, this humble pie tastes good If they need it, cool.

I will now divert my anger/rage towards whoever came up with this junior cycle.

Oh if you want proper rage go read the sample Junior cycle English papers lol. I shared the love with some parent non teacher friends of mine over a few glasses of wine. Weeks later they were still completely outraged rofl

Although there is a new coding course!

spurious

pillphil wrote: »

Edit: How about getting a throwaway PC and taking it apart with the class? Identify the components etc?

Some of them love this, but the only way I could do it was to offer it as an after school activity, so that I only got the interested few. I couldn't have done it with a crowd of 24, certainly not without a couple of colleagues in the room. Still, those kids that did stay back got a lot out of it and we cannibalised three PCs to make one relatively decent one.

We loaded and wiped Windows, put Linux on it and had all sorts of fun with sound cards, adding RAM etc.. Some of the LCA kids stayed back to help. I couldn't have done it with a full class and I wouldn't do it today because of the stupid Croke Park hours.

pillphil

That's fair, I guess I've forgotten how difficult it is to get a class of students focused on something.

5uspect

mirrorwall14 wrote: »

I honestly can't get over this thread and have to imagine that the people advocating for the higher stuff have not worked with your average to weak 12/13 year old student. I am not talking about the student who likes messing with Linux, attends coder dojo and is fixing his relations PCs. My experience is you may be lucky enough to have one of those out of the thirty in front of you. Whether you like it or not the rest of the students need to be able to work in office/google docs or something similar. It would take 10 times as long to try and teach them latex instead and in reality they will never use it. Students not going into the tech industry will use office or a similar online equivalent for important tasks such as creation of CVs, letters, collaborative documents etc. The idea that even a majority of these students will never use these skills or will use latex instead is in my opinion incredibly naive. You can move to latex afterwards but you have to teach them the simple skills too.

Many posters also seem to be overlooking the fact that most of the teachers on this thread are saying to do these basics first. Plenty of time to go into file systems and coding afterwards

PS my husband is in the tech industry and no one uses latex. He says when he was working in academia they used it but now in industry they all use google docs or office

I'm advocating simple things like learning a file system. Other posters are complaining that their students can't seem to manage files and leave the machines in a mess. So teach them to use a file browser. Show them what the various menus and buttons do. Show them how the file system has places for documents etc.
You can't get more basic than that.

Then move them into notepad and show them how copy/paste also works there. Show them that there are similar buttons as in the file browser. Show them that when they save a file it goes right back to the file browser again.

Then you can jump into Word, if you must, and get them playing with formatting.

I recommend TeX because it offers a far greater learning experience than MS Office will ever do and helps teach some basic syntax - it is certainly for the more advanced, eager student. I know you're constrained by the syllabus but let's not pretend that spending any significant amount of time teaching Office is in anyway constructive to understanding computing and only enforces a single company's monopoly.

wuzziwig

File management is a hugely important skill to learn. I work in IT support and the amount of calls I get from people wailing about losing files is unreal. They simply do not know where they have saved them or how to find saved files. I try to explain the architecture of the file system to them, but you might as well be speaking a foreign language. I've gone so far as to print out a simple little guide for them with big red arrows showing them where their files should be saved. Guaranteed a few days later they will ring me wailing about losing their files again. So grasping the basics of file management should be one of the first things taught IMO.

My eldest just finished first year. Computer class was spent googling and playing games. He hasn't a clue how to type or format a document. He doesn't understand why he should know this and isn't interested in hearing from me the reasons. So I agree that word processing etc should be taught too. They will grasp the basics pretty fast.

rainbowtrout

jogdish wrote: »

...Please don't say reality as if academics don't do stuff that effects the real world.
Also any half decent user manual/guide for a product with not be written in a Word'esq type program, they will all be typeset.

Please don't waste education on teaching Word/Google docs...Anyone can learn that stuff by themselves, learning what a computer is how things work they way they do - that is where the helping hand of a teacher will come in.

And the reality is - they don't. I teach computing skills to PLCs. 18 year olds who have completed their Leaving Cert. The majority of whom have computers of some description but never had a computer lesson due to cutbacks in schools in the last 10 years.

They know how to type stuff up in word. They have no idea how to layout a document or format it. They know how to send an email. Many of them have never sent attachments, or know why there is a Cc: box at the top of the email. They have no idea how to structure an email, and plenty don't think it's in anyway necessary to use capital letters at the start of sentences or anywhere else in the email until they are shown. This might all seem a bit obvious, but these are things that have to be taught.

I really don't get all the hate for MS Office. It's a useful tool, it's user friendly, and students will use word, powerpoint etc to complete various projects during their time in school. Those are useful skills to have. Teaching them about LaTex and UI would be a complete waste of time as they would have no use for it. The vast majority of schools in Ireland have windows PCs and teachers will have to use what is provided anyway. If they don't have Windows, they have Apple products.

rainbowtrout

5uspect wrote: »

I recommend TeX because it offers a far greater learning experience than MS Office will ever do and helps teach some basic syntax - it is certainly for the more advanced, eager student. I know you're constrained by the syllabus but let's not pretend that spending any significant amount of time teaching Office is in anyway constructive to understanding computing and only enforces a single company's monopoly.

The vast majority of teachers, if they get 'Computing' on their timetable have it once a week. They are unlikely to see the same class two years in a row and it was added to their timetable to fill up their hours. Being able to switch on a computer and type up a document in word usually is enough for a teacher to have computing put on their timetable.

In my school, we have no access to download and install software. Only the admin can do that. Also if it's not free, we're not getting it. Even if it is free, I don't have the time to wait around and download software for 24 computers at a time that suits the admin who will have to put in the password on all 24 computers to enable the download. I'm also not going to teach them LaTex when every computer they touch until they leave college will most likely be a windows PC/laptop/tablet and MS Office will be what they use to put together all of their projects for the next 10 years or so.

I can however teach document creation and formation in word through a series of exercises. Call it office skills instead of computing if it sits easier with you. I can show them where to save the documents onto their profile. I can teach them how to create a powerpoint presentation. It will be useful when they are doing LC projects for me.

05eaftqbrs9jlh

I agree with the poster above who said broad strokes. Common terminology they might not have encountered. Operating Systems and how they vary. Text editors, their functions and varieties. Email clients and rudimentary tricks when using them.

And shortcuts shortcuts shortcuts. I can't quantify the amount of time I've saved with the Ctrl key or run.exe

wolfyboy555

Op here. Got my actually timetable today and no computers even though it was on a provisional one I got in June. A bit annoying. CSPE on it instead.

two wheels good

I think it would be useful to include some basic info on privacy and security
Privacy: e.g. Facebook settings, private and public, what's not appropriate for public posting.
Security: strong passwords, not clicking on attachments, the risk downloading from unknown sites, online contact with strangers. etc.
Maybe something about bullying online too.

Practical excercises: Maybe playing about with photos or videos in a graphics package might appeal to them. Just guessing; not familiar with that age group.

stanley1980

Would appreciate any suggestions folks might have here. I've a 6th Yr LCA group for computers 3 times a week. I also had them last year and to be fair got a fair bit done with them e.g. CV, reports, presentations etc. This year I've found my creative juices have run out though! I know there's a LCA 'curriculum' but let's face it, much of this is obsolete and you could complete all the assignments in a week! I like giving them little projects to do but as mentioned am really running out of things to do. I made a list of assignments for them in september thinking they'd take all year but they're nearly finished already!

pillphil

Are you looking to stick with office or something outside of that?

Within office, access might be a useful introduction to SQL. Or you could do a tutorial in VB.net and teach them some of that. It's not a great language, but you could teach them some of the important concepts of programming.

Outside of that, maybe something like learning GIMP and teaching them that, it's not photoshop but it's free.

Edit: actually, you didn't mention excel, there's plenty you could teach in that that's not just =SUM() or =AVG()

stanley1980

To be honest I don't know what any of those things you've mentioned are! I'll do a bit of excel with them....really basic stuff as that's all I know myself. It's terrible isn't it. I've given them a little project on Scratch (make a screensaver and a basic game) but again I know next to nothing about coding. I've recently got them to make surveys on google forms...that type of thing. It would be useful if I could get them to do something the ECDL but the school has no budget for it. Thanks for your suggestions- can you recommend any simpler for 'dummies' like me?

mtoutlemonde

pillphil wrote: »

Are you looking to stick with office or something outside of that?

Within office, access might be a useful introduction to SQL. Or you could do a tutorial in VB.net and teach them some of that. It's not a great language, but you could teach them some of the important concepts of programming.

Outside of that, maybe something like learning GIMP and teaching them that, it's not photoshop but it's free.

Edit: actually, you didn't mention excel, there's plenty you could teach in that that's not just =SUM() or =AVG()

You have to appreciate the abilities of LCA students - some high achieving students would have problems with the above.

Moviemaker is a nice program to use - students make little videos - if they're final year LCA - maybe a timeline of their school life etc.

Storybird is also nice - students make stories.

Kahoot - student make quizzes and can test their friends on pc/phone - I only learnt of this a few weeks ago - really cool program.

I suppose you had them doing presentations but a presentation to the class could be a good thing depending on confidence levels.

If I think of more, I'll add them here. Best of luck.

pillphil

stanley1980 wrote: »

To be honest I don't know what any of those things you've mentioned are! I'll do a bit of excel with them....really basic stuff as that's all I know myself. It's terrible isn't it. I've given them a little project on Scratch (make a screensaver and a basic game) but again I know next to nothing about coding. I've recently got them to make surveys on google forms...that type of thing. It would be useful if I could get them to do something the ECDL but the school has no budget for it. Thanks for your suggestions- can you recommend any simpler for 'dummies' like me?

Sorry, I just just thinking of things to do with office in case you couldn't download other programs.

GIMP is just an open source photoshop.

Access is office's databases program, to be honest, I hate access.:D

VB.net is a build in coding language in word and excel and other office programs, like I said, it's not a great language but it's one most people would have access to without downloading any extra software. I only found out it existed a few years ago, I wish I'd known about it as a child.
If they enjoy scratch it might be worth learning enough to teach them hello world and see how they get on from there.

mtoutlemonde has some good suggestions. Only other thing I can think of is getting an ECDL course book and making your own syllabus out of it?

pillphil

mtoutlemonde wrote: »

You have to appreciate the abilities of LCA students - some high achieving students would have problems with the above.

Moviemaker is a nice program to use - students make little videos - if they're final year LCA - maybe a timeline of their school life etc.

Storybird is also nice - students make stories.

Kahoot - student make quizzes and can test their friends on pc/phone - I only learnt of this a few weeks ago - really cool program.

I suppose you had them doing presentations but a presentation to the class could be a good thing depending on confidence levels.

If I think of more, I'll add them here. Best of luck.

I missed the LCA bit. And it was probably a bit overboard anyway