There’s a reasonably interesting rant over on The Register about how poor the BBC’s on-line BytesSize revision aid is. Disregarding the English grammar flaw examples, the subject doesn’t seem to be well taught. Having also seen a number of the BytesSize television programmes for sciences I know a reasonable amount about I see the same types flaws in the knowledge being given to the students.
In some cases it’s a case of over simplification to the point where the facts being given are totally wrong and would give the student totally the wrong concept about the subject. In others, important and valuable information which would actually make the subject understandable is just left out.
Now, I have to wonder if this is all the BBC’s fault. Seeing as these revision guides are to help students pass their GCSE exams, surely they’re tailored to what those exams are requiring. i.e. The GCSE course syllabii are hopelessly broken, dangerously inaccurate and are teaching our students erroneous information which they will have to re-learn later if they go on to higher education (or even on to ‘A’ levels).
Even back when I was at school, it was well known that anyone seriously wanting to continue on to do anything computing related at university should avoid taking the “computer science” A level at all costs for exactly those reasons of having to unlearn the damage later.
(The name ICT seems mainly to be used in schools for lessons about knowing how to write documents using Word.)