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Microsoft Wants Computer Science Taught In UK Primary Schools
Qedward writes "As the UK prepares to shake up the way computer science is taught in schools, Redmond is warning that the UK risks falling behind other countries in the race to develop and nurture computing talent, if 'we don't ensure that all children learn about computer science in primary schools.' With 100,000 unfilled IT jobs but only 30,500 computer science graduates in the UK last year, MS believes: 'By formally introducing children to computer science basics at primary school, we stand a far greater chance of increasing the numbers taking the subject through to degree level and ultimately the world of work.'"
More at 11.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
not all IT work is CS and not all of it needs to be at the degree level.
Logic and information theory. If, and, or, xor, union, intersection, and other set theory are some topics at the very heart of computer science that could easily be boiled down to M&M demonstrations for kindergarteners. I see no reason why a basis for logic and argument should not be planted at a young age.
Don't want a repeat of confusing Win8 interface. :-)
No comment.
Everyone knows the goal is to get users hooked as young as possible. Schools have small budgets, Adding more Raspberry Pi seats is way cheaper than adding more seats with Microsoft Windows. Microsoft may have a hard time.
True, but like it's a waste of time to teach science before the kids have learned mathematics, it's also the optimal order in IT to teach the theory first.
Microsoft has lost mindshare with teenagers who are all turning to Apple products, so they're going to try to indoctrinate students at an earlier age.
That's all this is about. MS thinks that programming childrens minds at a young age to 'Windows' that they'll be able to keep the sinking ship afloat. What they're missing is a workable operating system. It doesn't matter how early you program someone with something terrible, it's still terrible.
It works for Apple because the products provide more utility than they take from you. Apple products are liberating, Microsoft products are painstaking. Address that first, worry about selling the products when there's something worth selling.
When he was trying to get schools in the U.S. to train more children to be able to work in a world with IT. But all Bill was really trying to do was get schools scared about falling behind in their technology knowledge and then have Microsoft save the day by selling school districts a whole bunch of Windows software. At an educational discount of course. Bill Gates is not your friend and doesn't care about anyone's kids IT knowledge.
Sounds find to me, as long they teach real CS, and don't just teach Word and Excel and Powerpoint. It constantly frustrated me that my little sister's computer classes where never anything more than "Make a presentation in Powerpoint". Microsoft should work to put an end to that being the end-all of computer education. That should only be a small part.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Maybe CS is a better way to teach mathematics. I never had any use for math till someone asked me how I could solve certain problems using a computer. Suddenly math became interesting.
I think one of the big problems with Math is that kids (and most people) don't know where they are going with all these abstract constructs, whereas programming gives you an immediate use for abstractions.
Also, kids struggle learning basic algorithms like long division but knowing about algorithms and being able to express them with some "language" then maybe they'll have an easier time learning them. Note for example that long division or square roots (or nth roots) are basically modified simple search algorithms.
Most of what students "memorize" in math is odd algorithms but they fail to understand their purpose or source.. CS can do a lot to make things clearer.
Either you have no real world experience or you've been very lucky in your career. I've met hundreds of people who can more or less about get by just doing things monkey style.
If you haven't seen them, just change something incredibly trivial - they'll be the ones griping that "we can't do anything, nothing works any more" or running around screaming that the sky is falling in.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Ireland != Northern Ireland. The latter is part of the UK, the former is not. That's kind of why there's been ~50 years of violent and, more recently, significantly less violent conflict in that part of the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles
I had the same experience, but my point was that CS is mathematics, thus should come before more specific IT fields.
Apple is as liberating as handcuffs
Hahahahaha. This isn't software libre that geeks cling onto, it's something real. For the average person, a device that too hard to use, runs out of battery life or breaks all of the time is disempowering, not empowering.
.. but when Joe Sixpack can load and use 500,000 different applications(!), he's empowered by Apple. It's Apple's walled garden, but Joe doesn't care .. Joe just wants his stuff to be useful, and I don't blame him.
.. but, it's not all bad :)
Having a functional, usable smartphone in your pocket gives you more freedom and empowerment than having a dumb telephone. That's liberation. Yes, it's loaded with Apple's software and it's manufactured by Apple
Create me an unwalled garden that accomplishes the same thing and I'll embrace it. Otherwise, quit criticising Apple for the wall, and start being appreciative of the garden. I know you won't believe me when I say it
CS at the level of Knuth is Computer Science. If everybody started with Volume 1 and were slowly introduced to coding via MIX, then it would be Computer Science.
Ain''t gonna happen. Microsoft wants more Keyboarding classes, and sharp young minds who can run through a list of bullet points and agree amiably.
Mike Frett wins the prize. While some people have told us here, in the past, that some places on earth actually have a Microsoft-centric "computer science" curriculum - I've never seen it in grammar school, or high school. All that I have ever seen, are indoctrination courses, with zero "science".
Start early, and teach children that all they need to know about computers is, how to work a mouse, and how to navigate Microsoft approved menus. Format a hard drive? Hush now, that's arcane magic stuff that you need not worry about. It's all taken care of with the Installation Disk. Or, the Computer Guy at the store, who will charge you 75 Euros to install Windows for you, while saving the pictures of your kitty, your pony, and Grandma.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
The Brittish education minister Michael Gove called the current ICT curriculum "demotivating and dull" a year ago, BBC reports. "Imagine the dramatic change which could be possible in just a few years, once we remove the roadblock of the existing ICT curriculum. Instead of children bored out of their minds being taught how to use Word or Excel by bored teachers, we could have 11-year-olds able to write simple 2D computer animations, Gove said at the BETT conference for ICT in schools.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-16493929
An extensive report on the failure of teaching boring office administration in schools, was made by Royal Society in 2011, inspiring the UK educational minister to change the whole curriculum. Basically blaming key Microsoft products for the whole mess. Then Microsoft nows tries to salvage the situation.
http://royalsociety.org/education/policy/computing-in-schools/report/
MS is in a large part responsible for the laughable way in which "computing" is taught in schools...
Not only have they pushed very hard for schools to simply teach how to use MS products rather than about computing in general, but they are also directly responsible for scaring millions of people off from learning about how their machines work...
When you bought early home computers like a C64 you were actually encouraged to learn about it, and if you crashed it the absolute worst case was hitting reset because the core system was held in ROM and couldn't be damaged by the user.
MS on the other hand have always pushed an extremely fragile system which is very easy to damage, and then covered it with all manner of scary warnings "this directory contains system files, don't look here!" etc.
The first perceptions at a young age have a significant affect on later life... If your first exposure to computing is a system you are free to experiment with, knowing nothing bad will happen to you then a childs natural curiosity will drive them to learn about it. On the other hand if you are faced by a fragile system covered in scary warnings, and even worse someone (eg parents, teachers) who will become angry if you break it then you become afraid and won't experiment, won't learn or think for yourself and will very rigidly follow instructions for fear of what might happen if you don't.
If you want to teach kids about computing, give them systems they can't break (or at the very least a trivial way to restore them to how they were) and let them explore. Teachers should be there to guide them and point things out, but not to dictate a specific path the kids must take.
Something that would work well is games which include sourcecode (eg the old BASIC games on C64 and similar), let them play for a while and then show them how the change the rules...
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You need to get people interested young, before their ability to learn is damaged...
More specifically, start them off on something they are free to experiment with and cannot break and let their own natural curiosity encourage them to learn. The worst thing you can do is expose youngsters to windows especially on shared machines... It's a fragile environment which is easily damaged, and which actively discourages users from poking into its internals. And even worse in a shared environment, where kids will be punished if they damage anything, which only teaches them not to be curious.
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If by "computer science" MS means problem solving, algorithm development, information theory, how the different bits of hardware work etc, my response has to be: "With all possible respect, you are meddling in a specialised area in which you do not have adequate credentials. You have expressed a layman's opinion which is, unfortunately, of limited pedagogical* value in a primary school."
If by "computer science" MS means getting children to start using MS products at an ever earlier age my response has to be: "With all possible respect, go fuck yourself. Really, go away and fuck yourself. Sell your crap to adults all you like but leave the children alone; because of your past behaviour you have enough enemies now, you really don't need any more." And now I'm really pissed off at being reduced to using a "think of the children" argument.
*I use that word a lot (because IAAT) and it really does mean what I think it means.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.