What I did between the holidays My trip through year 11 IT

1
What I did between the holidaysMy trip through
year 11 IT

• By Mark Kelly
• McKinnon Secondary College
• Mckinnon
• Victoria
• Australia
• The world
• The milky way
• The universe

sarahs got girl germs
2
Beginners Dont Panic

• VCAA does not want marks from you only S or N
• Tasks are up to you, but be careful when adopting
  / adapting
• You must accept responsibility for the task you
  use
• Plan outcome timelines to avoid embarrassment at
  end of semester

3
What IT 11 does

• Like a showbag with aspects of both ITA and SD
• Many skills are reused in ITA and / or SD
• E.g. databases, programming
• So plan ahead or liaise with year 12 ITA/SD
  teachers

4

• Year 11 IT is far less prescribed than units 3
  4.
• You have a large amount of freedom about the
  software you use and what tasks you assign
• Can (must!) do groupwork, unlike units 3 4

5
Start as you intend to continue

• Establish good IT habits
• Analysis, design, development, evaluation
• Design without computers!
• Enforce a separate time for design.
• Dont repeat the question!
• Think before writing! Plan your answer.

6
Good IT habits for the kiddies

• Use IT terms properly (e.g. efficiency, Mbps)
• Be specific, not vague (lots of megs)
• If you are given a case study, your answer must
  related to that case and not others.
• Only give the number of things you were asked
  for.
• Give your best answer first

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• Answer the question you were asked, not the
  question you wish youd been asked
• Read questions carefully, looking for key words
  like efficiency, data, and/or
• Look for and obey verbs in questions e.g. list,
  explain, justify
• Allocate time according to marks allocated and
  space given for answers.

8

• Get a working product finished, then go back and
  make it pretty if time allows.
• Working is worth 90. Pretty is worth 10.
• Dont waste time on trivial pursuits. Keep a
  sense of perspective.
• Learn at least the basics of all aspects of the
  course, not just the bits you have fun with

9

• You will have to work in small groups. You will
  not usually get to choose your team-mates or
  topics.
• You have to be able to come to a working
  relationship with people you may not really know
  nor like. Get over it. Thats life.
• You the teachers can help by allocating marks
  to both the group and individuals e.g. design
  is marked as a group product and everyone gets
  the same mark. Evaluation is marked
  individually.
• Kids will work better together for the teams
  (and their own) good.

10
IT skills, continued

• Students must be skilled up using software by the
  time an outcome begins.
• You the teacher - will have made it abundantly
  clear what tools will be used, what functions
  they will need to know, and to what level of
  sophistication.

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• Its up to you to determine the level of
  difficulty of a task, but if its too easy
• You cant differentiate your top students from
  your plodders
• You will bore your better kids and theyll either
  play up, and/or decide ITs too boring to take in
  yea12r
• They wont learn anything. They must be pushed,
  even if they whinge.

12

• You will get a broad range of abilities.
• Girls are often least skilled, but better
  organised and answer questions better.
• Boys often fiddle endlessly and neglect stuff
  they dont like.
• YOU should address both of these known tendencies.

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• Build flexibility and choice into tasks.
• You can use Dreamweaver or Notepad its up to
  you, as long as the website works.
• You can either just indicate where a macro would
  be handy (1 mark) or actually create it (5 marks)
• You should annotate your printouts to show clever
  things you did that are otherwise not obvious in
  printouts e.g. rollover effects, pop-up tool
  tips.
• Your client for U2O3 can be either an external
  body or one within the school. Bonus marks are
  awarded to those who go to the extra effort of
  dealing with outsiders.

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• Reward high performance, but let the plodders
  still know they can muddle through and get
  recognition for what they manage to do.
• Make sure the nerds dont get in over their
  heads and try using functions they are not good
  at (e.g. PHP or Javascript).
• Remember - a plain product that works is 100
  times more useful than an ambitious one that
  doesnt, or is unfinished.

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Design must be useful

• Dont give the impression that design is just a
  formality to keep the teacher happy.
• Every task needs a design element
• Design is significantly valuable in the marking
  scheme.
• Design is done before, not after production
• It has its own (generous) allocated time
• It is done with the computers turned off
• It is handed in at the end of the allotted time
  and marked and handed back to use during
  development.
• Any additions to design during or after
  development therefore do not improve the mark!

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Speaking of marking schemes

• Make sure kids know what needs to be done in a
  task. Make instructions very clear.
• Make sure they are clear what needs to be either
  handed in, or stored in their network drive with
  its location/filename given to you, or emailed to
  you or whatever.
• Kids must know what each part of the task is
  worth so they can allocate time.

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Before a task

• They must know
• when it starts
• what tools they need to use
• what minimum level of skill they will be expected
  to demonstrate (e.g. everything up to chapter 6
  in the tutorials, including relationships and
  scripting)
• Where possible, give them a stripped down
  practice task first.

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Preparation at Home

• Kids will need to practise at home, so
• Try to use software they are likely to have, or
  be able to easily get at home. E.g. Microsoft
  Office, free 30 day trial of Filemaker, free open
  source software.
• Lend out CDs of free software so they dont have
  to download it at home.
• Tell them they can practise at lunchtimes (does
  your school have a room open?)
• Where licensing allows, give copies of tutorials
  for them to take home.

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Unit 1 Outcome 1 (U1O1)Converting a printed
document to onscreen format

• Intersperse theory with prac.
• They may be in year eleven but in fact they are
  slightly taller year tens.
• Most have the attention span of cricket stumps.

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Theyre not stupid, but

• Dont assume they have grasped efficient work or
  study habits.
• Drill in good practice over and over like youre
  talking to a brain-damaged badger.
• If you dont hand in your design you cant get
  any marks for it
• Dont spend 35 minutes fiddling with a logo
  thats worth 2 marks
• This is due on FRIDAY! THIS Friday. Put it in
  your diary!
• Theyll still insist later that you never told
  them!

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The outcome

• The Case Study
• McKinnon Secondary College is a large government
  secondary school in the south-east suburbs of
  Melbourne. It has approximately 1411 students,
  of whom about 480 are in the senior school, years
  10 to 12. The college has a proud academic
  tradition and aims to provide a quality education
  and a secure learning environment to all its
  students.
• For many years, the McKinnon Secondary College
  Senior School Handbook, a Microsoft Word document
  of about 100 pages, has been printed in about 600
  copies and distributed to senior students, staff
  and parents. Many in the school community are
  affluent, well-educated middle-class
  professionals.
• The college is concerned that the printing costs
  have become excessive and many parents have
  reported that they have not used the handbook
  much since it is so hard to find the information
  they want.
• The college has decided not to print any more
  copies of the handbook in future it would be
  made available only on the schools website and
  on CD.
• You have been hired to convert the handbook into
  an onscreen version. The existing version is to
  be found on the network in r\IT\11IT\U1O1\handboo
  k.doc

THE SETTING
THE PROBLEM
THE OBJECTIVE
CONSTRAINTS?
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Spoon feed them for a start!

• Make the first task pretty easy to build their
  confidence in IT and practise good work habits
• Give them the document to be converted
• Makes it easier for you to compare finished
  products
• You can set the level of difficulty of the
  document
• Prevents them bringing in something they found on
  the web

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• MOST OUTCOME WORK SHOULD BE DONE IN CLASS!
• Collect all work in progress, and instructions,
  at the end of each class
• Tell them they must not work on it out of class
  time (with rare exceptions, e.g. looking for
  pictures)
• They can practise their skills out of class,
  though
• Give them a folder file naming scheme where
  their files must be stored.

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Security

• Watch out for USB drives they bring in to class
  during outcomes
• Turn off their email?
• Check date last modified on the network
• Create separate outcome home directories only
  accessible during outcomes.

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Analysis

• Part 1 ANALYSIS (15 marks)
• Time allowed 1 period. To be completed with the
  computers turned off.
• Describe the college and its organisational
  goals. (2 marks)
• Describe the colleges information problem. (2
  marks)
• Describe the intended audience of the onscreen
  product. (2 marks)
• What is the purpose of the information product?
  (2 marks)
• Describe key features that the finished
  information product should have, and qualities it
  should try to avoid. (4 marks)
• How can the finished information product be
  evaluated to determine its level of success? (3
  marks)

Standard analysis questions get students to
expect them
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DESIGN

• Part 2 DESIGN (15 marks)
• Time allowed 1 period. To be completed with the
  computers turned off.
• Use screen mockups to design the appearance of
  all aspects of the information product,
  including type faces, colours, screen layout,
  decoration, graphics and multimedia components,
  if any. (6 marks)
• Create a storyboard representing the structure of
  the webpages used in the information product. (3
  marks)
• Design the hyperlinks that will be needed to
  efficiently and effectively move through the
  onscreen information product. (3 marks)
• Design the file and folder naming scheme to be
  used (3 marks)

Mandate what design tools they should use. Later
on, they need to decide for themselves
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DEVELOPMENT

• Part 3 DEVELOPMENT (15 marks)
• Time allowed 4 periods.
• Transform the printed handbook into an attractive
  and accessible onscreen version. If you cant
  complete the entire handbook in the time
  allotted, attempt a representative selection of
  its parts.
• You will be assessed on
• appearance, readability, layout (6 marks)
• accuracy and ease of navigation (4 marks)
• observance of appropriate formats and conventions
  (5 marks)

Escape clause for kids in trouble, via a handy
guide to senior IT practice
Clear assessment criteria
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EVALUATION

• Part 4 - TESTING AND EVALUATION 15 marks
• Time allowed 2 periods
• Create a testing table showing (4 marks)
• what features were tested
• how each was tested
• what the expected result was
• what the actual result was
• if the actual result differed from the expected
  result, how it was fixed
• Provide evidence of evaluating the efficiency and
  effectiveness of the onscreen product such as a
  quick survey conducted upon three fellow senior
  students. The questions should be designed to
  discover whether the aims described during
  Analysis have been achieved, and the problems
  have been successfully avoided. (6 marks)
• Write a description of the possible positive and
  negative implications to the audience and the
  college if the onscreen product replaced the
  existing printed document. Be sure to consider
  social, technological and economic factors,
  including necessary skills, work practices, and
  equipment (5 marks)

Again, quite prescriptive and strict. They
actually appreciate it!
Important words in bold!
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Marking the sucker

• Try to return it ASAP not easy sometimes
• I mark it in sections, e.g. go though everyones
  analysis before doing design.
• Sometimes question by question (do everyones Q1,
  then everyones Q2)
• Lets you keep a consistent marking standard in
  mind.
• Shuffle papers so first and last kids are not
  being marked in that order each time!

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U1O2 databases

• Needs a lot of warming up time
• Some kids do databases in year 9/10 IT
• Some dont electives!
• Assume no knowledge at start
• Self-paced tutorials
• Demonstrations

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U1O2

• Make their database have to be relational
• They need it for ITA
• But keep it relatively simple e.g. only 2 related
  tables
• Again, make the instructions detailed, timings
  strict, marking clear.
• Allow high-fliers to show their stuff

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Typical Housekeeping

• Produce the following PRINTED output
• One sample certificate (10 marks)
• A list, sorted by staff name, showing the courses
  the staff have taken (6 marks)
• A list, sorted by course, showing the staff who
  have taken each course (6 marks)
• A list of the PD undertaken by ONE teacher (Hint
  do a Find) (6 marks)
• A screenshot of one layout where data input is
  done (6 marks)
• A printout of your relationships map (File gt
  Define gt Database gt Relationships gt Print button
  (6 marks)
• Optional script listings, if you used them
• Notes
• As always, your work must be your own.
• You must not work on the outcome out of class
  time.
• On your sample certificate, you may hand-annotate
  neat or impressive features or techniques that
  you used that are not visible in the printout.
  (e.g. scripting)
• On your sample certificate, indicate where your
  database is saved and what its filename is.

Note in U1O2 they have to choose a wise storage
location and filename. A little more independence
and responsibility in each task
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U1O3 ICT Issues

• The first group task
• Warm them up with theory of issues what is an
  issue? They often have no idea.
• Wired.com
• Simple pair-based practice task on an issue you
  allocate at random

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U1O3

• Preparation
• You will be assigned to random teams of 2 or 3
  people (at your teachers discretion)
• You be assigned a random topic from the list
  attached.
• You will have approximately 90 minutes to
  research your topic and prepare a slide show
  which demonstrates your understanding of the
  issue expresses your teams opinion gives
  strategies for responding to the issue and
  maintains the attention of a chosen audience
  type.
• Note All tasks are carried out as a team, and
  assessed as a team, except for the final
  evaluation which is done alone and assessed on an
  individual basis.

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Baby steps

• Getting your team organised
•  
• As a team, prepare a project plan indicating
• The tasks needed to be done
• Who is responsible for the tasks
• The time to be allocated to tasks
• What audience you intend to present to
• Major milestones by which you will measure
  progress

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Next

• Research
•  
• Using electronic and other sources, acquire
  information on your assigned issue. Develop a
  bibliography of resources used. Find information
  on
• an overview of issue what it means
• who the stakeholders are (those who has an
  investment in the issue, are affected by the
  issue, have an opinion on it)
• the different viewpoints of stakeholders
• why the issue is causing tensions between
  stakeholders
• which factors are most relevant to the issue
  legal, social, economic and/or ethical

Lots of terms to define in theory lessons. Once
a week out of the computer room is wise
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• Production
•  
• Use presentation software to create a slideshow
  of about 10 slides which includes the following
• The names of the team members, your topic and
  your project plan (10 marks)
• A summary of what the issue means (5 marks)
• An explanation of why it is an important issue in
  terms of its legal, social, economic and/or
  ethical implications or effects (5 marks)
• Who the stakeholders are (5 marks)
• An outline of the different viewpoints of the
  stakeholders are, and their main reasons for
  holding those viewpoints (10 marks)
• Your teams opinion on the topic, with supporting
  evidence (5 marks)
• Suggested strategies for encouraging people to do
  something about the issue (5 marks)
• Your bibliography of resources used. (5 marks)

Lots of BOLD TEXT and itemisation of marks!
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Evaluation

• 4.0 Evaluation to be done individually by team
  members
•  
• Write a brief personal and private evaluation of
  the performance of your team. Explain how well
  you feel your fellow team members contributed to
  the finished product. This may be an opportunity
  to you to explain why a team member does not
  actually deserve the same mark as you! (10 marks)
•  

Let them dish the dirt on slackers in their
group. They will, too!
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Holiday time

• Get them to prepare for unit 2 software during
  the holidays
• Prepare to cope with kids coming in to unit 2
  without having done unit 1. Start again!

40
U2O1 programming

• Again, needs a long lead time to get them ready.
• Language? Use what you expect them to use in
  Software Development next year
• Or start them easy and branch from there
• Perhaps first steps using Logo?!
• Repeat 4 fd 30 rt 90

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Programming Folio

• Outcome just needs to show a development of
  skill.
• Start at 0 knowledge
• Some kids could do this in their sleep. Try to
  let them go off on their own track.
• Not easy! Huge variation of ability and interest
  in programming.

42

• Programming Folio
•  
• For each of the following tasks, design a
  solution with pen and paper and then attempt to
  implement the solution using Visual Basic 6. The
  tasks begin easily and get more difficult as they
  continue.
• Not everyone is expected to implement all of the
  tasks. How far you get, and whether you can even
  design a solution (without actually creating it
  in VB) are important indicators.

Be realistic. Let kids show what they can
achieve, even if its not a lot
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A range of abilities

• Task 1 Hello, world
• Task 9 Reading from a sequential access file,
  modifying data, and writing it back.

To save on correction, I told them to choose 2 or
3 of the tasks they managed to complete and show
me in class. Easy correction, just looking over
their shoulders, it let me ask them why they did
it that way, and it put the onus on them to
think about about where they did their best work!
44
U2O2 - networks

• Again, a lot of theory to cover to get them ready
• Juggling theory and prac is an artform
• Dont want too much of either one in a given week!

45
Networking - their first test

• Your boss asks you whether it would be wise to
  create a small network using the four computers
  in your office. What reasons might you offer for
  creating a network? (3)
• Draw a picture of a recommended network and label
  its components. On the picture, indicate what
  hardware, type(s) of cabling and type of topology
  you would recommend. (8)
• Justify your choices of hardware and topology.
  (4)
• Excluding network and data security issues, list
  the software you would need for the computers and
  the network to work properly. For each piece of
  software, explain what it does and why it is
  necessary. (4)
• Your LAN requires security measures and
  procedures to be implemented. What hardware,
  software, staff training and/or office procedures
  will you take to maintain network and data
  security? (4)
• List some possible economic effects of installing
  the network. Consider both long-term and
  short-term costs and benefits. (4)
• Six months after the network is created, the boss
  asks you to evaluate how well it has addressed
  the organisations needs. What criteria would
  you evaluate, and what methods would you use to
  evaluate them? (3)

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U2O3 working for a client

• Fun!
• Useful!
• Challenging!
• Relaxing for me!
• They take it seriously!
• Bliss

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Whos the client?

• Preferably, a stranger/outsider
• Not a softy family member!
• Local primary schools?
• Must be web-based or programming
• Their programming is rubbish!

48
Clients

• Ended up with 2 primary schools
• 3 learning area managers in our college LAMS
  were ordered to be tough!
• Task was to create / extend / update websites
• Groups of no more than 4
• Extra marks for working outside the college

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Work product

• They handed in their teams design and a URL of
  the site they worked on
• Their client emailed directly to me a
  confidential evaluation of the team members
• Personal evaluation of their work, and their team
  mates performance

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And in the end

• Unanimous raving review of the teams by clients.
• Fantastic results.
• Pressure of public exposure made them knuckle
  down.
• I could spend 2 weeks of class sitting at the
  front of the room working on our reporting
  package!

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Exams

• Make it challenging
• Make it long make them work up until time runs
  out
• Watch out for old VITTA exams they tend to have
  unit 1 and 2 material in them, which is hard on
  kids who do only one unit
• Easy way to add up exam marks

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Resources

• Textbook? I dont set one the kids dont use
  it
• ITA mailing list - www.edulists.com.au
• VITTA - www.vitta.org.au
• My IT Lecture Notes vceit.com
• VCAA where ITA lives - www.vcaa.vic.edu.au

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Tanks!

• Mark Kelly
• McKinnon Secondary College
• vceit.com
• kel_at_mckinnonsc.vic.edu.au