But enough of the coffee talk, the reason why I am here and not at school today is Auckland University of Technology (AUT) is running an IT Symposium. This is the third year that it is running, kind of wish I would find this things out sooner, only problem is that the mail for this type of thing goes to one person who doesn't like to share. Just a side note: Give the person in charge of relief two weeks notice, not two days :)
I hope that I can keep this blog up-to-date throughout the entire day, I know that they have wireless at AUT, just need a login account.
Well now that I update this blog at 9pm at night you can take the fact that I was unable to get access to the wireless network. Which is a pity as now I have had to take notes on paper and enter them on here at another time.
The first speaker was Kathy Gordon talking about the future directions of AUT.
bringing together design
curriculum, students
new degree - bachelor of creative technologies (launch party tonight)
infrastructure
application
knowledge
looking at high achieving all rounders
"A BA for the modern world"
risk, experiment, evolve, adapt
looking at 40 students to start the degree in 2008
based around a studio environment
Next was a speaker that looked at the perspectives from UK - ICT education in schools.
Looked at the real issues
the drop in the number of students entering IT courses
Gender imbalance
public image - stereotype of geeks/nerds/social interaction problems
- I like this quote "computer science is the queen of the sciences"
- study computing for problem solving, intellectual, complex problems...
Now he kept posing questions that we could not answer as he kept going. SO I have a number of issues that I want to write down so I don't forget.
Some of the real issues?
-too many courses (too varied)
-the dot.com bust
-not seen as cool by the students
-too much change?
-why do a degree when you can learn on the job?
-ICT/Curriculum/Achievement Standards problems
-1996 to get a job you have to have tertiary education
-knowledge based economy
-schools view of computing - dumping ground
-mentioned that computing was seen as the same as law, psychology in 1980's
-applied mathematics before computing came around(new subject) maybe needs to be defined more
-many home have computers, so we need tertiary study yo be able to use it?
- 80% of the people at the IT Symposium do not have Computer Science degrees.
Some more of the session
Computing has only just started
It has evolved , there is still more to come.
deal with the real problems
computer technology is here to stay, but can we use this technology to help out the problems in the world, health, third world water, cancer, global warming
no professional body to get certification in NZ
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