
My ICT teacher can’t mark my homework - robinhouston
http://mulqueeny.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/my-ict-teacher-cant-mark-my-homework/
======
roel_v
It's stories like this where I would like to see a more 'journalistic'
approach, i.e. hearing both sides of a story. I have a hard time believing a
teacher would simply put an 'F' on a project because, even though he's seen it
running on the phones of his colleagues, he would say 'I don't understand how
it works so I'll just fail it'.

On the other hand, I have no such qualms believing a version where a 16 year
old who thinks he's God's gift to mankind (hey, I was one of those) puts
something together that doesn't fit the requirements of the project, submits
it despite being repeatedly being steered in a different direction, comes up
with unrealistic readings and interpretations of the assignment or context of
the class to get them to fit his world view, and then (even if he does get a
passing mark in the end) complains to everybody who will listen about how he's
being discriminated against and how much smarter than everybody else he is,
and oh I'm so wasting my time here between all these morons.

I've been that student in an eerily similar situation, although I was 18 at
the time and it was Jave Applets which were a hot new thing back then, and if
I would have been my teacher at the time, I would've failed me, too (although
the one I actually had did too give me a passing mark out of pittance).

In short, sounds like biased view, happily accepted by the author to 'prove'
his pet peeve (a pretty marginal one, for that matter), but devoid of real
value or content.

~~~
alextgordon
> It's stories like this where I would like to see a more 'journalistic'
> approach, i.e. hearing both sides of a story. I have a hard time believing a
> teacher would simply put an 'F' on a project because, even though he's seen
> it running on the phones of his colleagues, he would say 'I don't understand
> how it works so I'll just fail it'.

You have to understand how the system works in the UK. From ages 15-18, there
are ~4 years of exams, preparation for exams, that kind of thing. Ultimately
these exams are mostly meaningless, their main purpose is to get you a place
at university (which is only 3 years, go figure).

The exams are set by these big official exam boards. Now during this time, the
teachers aren't going to be thinking "Does this deserve an A", they're going
to be thinking "Would an _examiner_ give this an A". The exam boards circulate
marking schemes. If it doesn't meet the criteria sufficiently (has the
candidate demonstrated with this that they know the difference between a file
and a folder in this project?), it's not going to be given an A, regardless of
merit.

I've had teachers explain to me that otherwise A-quality projects have been
given low marks because they were written in C++ instead of VB6.

~~~
AlexC04
I was an ICT teacher in the UK for 5 years. Our requirement is that we teach
units to an accepted common standard.

[http://www.teach-
ict.com/contributors/Ritchie_King/gcseproje...](http://www.teach-
ict.com/contributors/Ritchie_King/gcseproject/SampleSSCoursework.pdf)

Is an example of one marking scheme that I found (on a quick search).

See page 7 and notice that the requirement is that the student "identify" on a
scale of 5 marks

\- A clear statement of the problem, giving some background detail and
identifying user(s)

\- Consideration of possible alternative solutions with adequate justification
given for the chosen method

\- Quantitative objectives or user requirement

Now if a student just goes out and makes a mobile app that doesn't cover any
of the requirements so for the above section I'd have been forced to give a 0.

The UK school system has a number of very deep, systematic problems that are
preventing it from delivering a good education in IT.

It's a shame, it's frustrating and it's not going to change any time soon.

~~~
eftpotrm
One thing I had drummed into me in my UK ICT education (admittedly 15 years
ago and it wasn't called ICT then) was that we were aiming at fulfilling
client desires; that we shouldn't just go off and produce something cool, if
it wasn't of use to the described and defined end user (who we had a great
amount of freedom to select) and we couldn't objectively justify our
development approach, it wasn't good enough.

Now, I can't say I object to a marking scheme that requires students to learn
to develop what is useful and efficient rather than just what is cool...

~~~
daredevildave
I would much rather kids make stuff that is cool, rather than stuff that is
useful. They have 60 years after they leave school to make useful stuff
(probably for other people).

~~~
eftpotrm
There was a strong software engineering and project management streak to the
course when I was on it; you were taught that code was written for a purpose
and for an end user, and that you should be aiming at that target. You could
have written a game or a graphics demo if you could have justified it, but you
had to actually produce what you could argue somebody wanted.

Frankly, for a relatively vocational course, I think that was the right
balance. If they want to play then let them but teach them the discipline of
producing to a spec too.

------
patio11
A realization I came to late in life: hypothetically supposing one has a
finite number of awesome points, do not spend awesome points on activities
which have negative marginal returns to awesome points, like school or many
day-jobs. You could theoretically invest awesome points into making schools
give positive marginal returns to awesome points, but they'll generally revert
to goals they consider more important, like making sure many students graduate
mostly literate and providing secure well-paying jobs to politically
influential constituents.

~~~
ErrantX
This.

At school I was consistently the one who tried the "alternate" method. By
which I mean; when setting a task to the class there was always a heavy
suggestion of "how it should be done" or "the tool to use". Often with a "and
you also might consider if you have the time..."

My approach was always to play with that alternative (which was really thrown
in for us to say "we considered it" in the report :)). And as a result always
used to suffer.

Sometimes because of unfinished work (but, hey, I was exploring something
difficult!), or because it was unexpected. By about 16 this was massively
disheartening; I've always had a deep interest in _exploring_ a problem rather
than having it laid out on a plate, but whenever I did the school frowned on
it.

A lot of kids have this problem; when I teach clubs/classes now I get them
expecting to be marked to a set scheme, having to hit certain keywords to get
the marks.

On the face of it, sure, standardised marking has strong advantages when class
teaching. But the objectives are too rigid and do not allow for individuals
who are developing an understanding, rather than following the script.

The saving grace was 6th form (aged 17/18) where my Electronics teacher
convinced me to try something really ambitious and explorative (for a 17 year
old newbie engineer!). Mostly it went wrong - but our team got the highest
marks in the class. The comment I distinctly remember being on our report(s)
was: "I have no idea how you got that second part to work, but it was
brilliant!"

Guess what I did at university

~~~
alanfalcon
>Sometimes because of unfinished work (but, hey, I was exploring something
difficult!)

This reminded me of a passage from Cryptonomicon which has previously been
quoted on HN:

"They gave him an intelligence test. The first question on the math part had
to do with boats on a river: Port Smith is 100 miles upstream of Port Jones.
The river flows at 5 miles per hour. The boat goes through water at 10 miles
per hour. How long does it take to go from Port Smith to Port Jones? How long
to come back?

Lawrence immediately saw that it was a trick question. You would have to be
some kind of idiot to make the facile assumption that the current would add or
subtract 5 miles per hour to or from the speed of the boat. Clearly, 5 miles
per hour was nothing more than the average speed. The current would be faster
in the middle of the river and slower at the banks. More complicated
variations could be expected at bends in the river. Basically it was a
question of hydrodynamics, which could be tackled using certain well-known
systems of differential equations. Lawrence dove into the problem, rapidly (or
so he thought) covering both sides of ten sheets of paper with calculations.
Along the way, he realized that one of his assumptions, in combination with
the simplified Navier-Stokes equations, had led him into an exploration of a
particularly interesting family of partial differential equations. Before he
knew it, he had proved a new theorem. If that didn't prove his intelligence,
what would?

Then the time bell rang and the papers were collected. Lawrence managed to
hang onto his scratch paper. He took it back to his dorm, typed it up, and
mailed it to one of the more approachable math professors at Princeton, who
promptly arranged for it to be published in a Parisian mathematics journal.

Lawrence received two free, freshly printed copies of the journal a few months
later, in San Diego, California, during mail call on board a large ship called
the U.S.S. Nevada. The ship had a band, and the Navy had given Lawrence the
job of playing the glockenspiel in it, because their testing procedures had
proven that he was not intelligent enough to do anything else."

Re-re-quoted here for convenience, though the original davidw comment with
quote can be found here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1866629>

~~~
ErrantX
A fun quote, for sure.

And of course there is a risk associated with being too clever for your own
good. Which is where a good teacher comes in...

:)

------
ZenJosh
Some context: First, I most definitely do not think I'm God's gift to man. Ive
seen kids with skills leagues ahead of my own who are true masters, my skills
in comparison are basic.

Before I started the assessment, I asked for the mark scheme to make sure my
project hit the criteria for a passing grade. We weren't asked to build in
powerpoint, but most opted to do so for lack of a better option. I asked if it
would be a good idea to build an iPhone app for the assessment and the teacher
of my class said "Sure if you can, give it a shot". I have no idea when the
teacher became aware that the project would fail but at no point was a concern
raised with me until final marking.

I didn't build a complex project 'just to be different', I instead thought
"Well here's an opportunity to learn to do something I didn't know how to do
before". Id been developing web things for a while but hadn't dipped into
native code up until that point

~~~
politician
The problem isn't that you did a far better job than the drones you go to
class with, or that the teacher doesn't really actually know the material
they're required to teach, or that the politics of the system dictate that a
marking scheme exists that is as unimaginative as it is explicit.

No, the problem is that as an autodidact 16 year old in a government run
public school, you have a very limited if nonexistent ability to discover that
fact. Take solace in this F, and know that you have a disfunction that public
schools and universities are mostly ill-equipped to handle -- the ability to
learn for yourself.

Take patio11's advice: don't spend your awesome points on tasks that are
ultimately unimportant. Or as some dudes from way back said, "don't give your
pearls to swine lest they trample it and then turn on you."

~~~
pjscott
> Take patio11's advice: don't spend your awesome points on tasks that are
> ultimately unimportant. Or as some dudes from way back said, "don't give
> your pearls to swine lest they trample it and then turn on you."

Isn't that exactly what he did? Instead of wasting time on a crap project that
wouldn't teach him anything, he decided to learn something new and
interesting. Combine that with the ability to shrug off the occasional poor
grade from a clueless teacher, and you've got a powerful combination for
winning school.

------
DevX101
Unfortunately, the sad truth is that market forces will dictate that there are
few competent programming instructors for high school. If you're good enough
to teach and critique real programming projects, you're also good enough to
get a job paying at least twice as much as a teacher.

For the teachers not necessarily motivated by money, they would probably
prefer become university professors where they can do research and work at the
cutting edge.

I'll make the guess that most of us here were self-taught to a large degree.
Therefore, the realistic solution to the problem is probably not to get better
teachers (which you can't do, since you won't pay them what they're worth).
But to connect students to learn from each other. Exactly what the author of
this post is doing.

~~~
3pt14159
So it is non-market forces then. In a real education market teachers wouldn't
have a salary that is function of time, but of the resolution of supply and
demand. Parents, knowing that their child is interested in attending a school
with a solid programming platform would pay more to schools that diverted
resources towards this area. Those schools would be encouraged to locate
competent teachers which they would do so with a combination of increased
salary and possibly increased research time (or startup hacking time).

~~~
jseliger
"In a real education market teachers wouldn't have a salary that is function
of time, but of the resolution of supply and demand."

That's true, but teachers' unions demand that, with very few exceptions, all
teachers with x years of experience be paid the same amount, regardless of
discipline or skill. I wrote about this issue some in "Are teachers underpaid?
It depends": [http://jseliger.com/2011/07/10/are-teachers-underpaid-it-
dep...](http://jseliger.com/2011/07/10/are-teachers-underpaid-it-depends),
since I don't think one can address the issue of "teacher" compensation
without looking at teacher expertise and opportunity costs.

------
estel
It's a separate but related problem that ICT in UK schools is unequivocally
not about any sort of programming or software development, and very much
focussed only on teaching pupils how to use the various components of
Microsoft Office.

Arguably, this is more relevant for the majority of people, but these are
easily skills that can be incorporated into other classes where relevant, and
the complete dearth of programming remains a crying, crying shame.

~~~
arethuza
What are these "UK schools"? From what I can tell the Scottish courses _do_
include development. Here are some past exam papers and coursework:

[http://www.sqa.org.uk/pastpapers/findpastpaper.htm?subject=C...](http://www.sqa.org.uk/pastpapers/findpastpaper.htm?subject=Computing)

~~~
calpaterson
"Computing" is not the same as "ICT" as a subject. Though it's true the that
Scottish Higher system is almost uniformly better than the English and Welsh
"A" Levels/GCSEs, there is also something resembling Computer Science on the
latter's curriculum ("Computing"). Here it is (for the AQA board):

[http://web.aqa.org.uk/qual/gce/ict/computing_noticeboard.php...](http://web.aqa.org.uk/qual/gce/ict/computing_noticeboard.php?id=04&prev=04)

The trouble is, and this is true of all areas of the UK, is that the Computer
course is not offered and "ICT" is offered instead. ICT is the "Microsoft
Office" qualification that people are referring to. If you're 16-18 and want
to study "Computing", chances are that your school doesn't offer it or the
staffing is painfully poor. At my university, a few years ago, there were only
a tiny handful of people who'd taken a good quality course in Computer Science
in college or sixth form.

~~~
fanf2
This is exactly the problem. If you want to get involved in promoting
computing at school (rather than ICT) have a look at

<http://www.computingatschool.org.uk/>

------
JoeAltmaier
Similar experience in US school. Took IBM assembler class. 1st assignment:
divide two numbers, assert, get dump and mark on dump where result of division
was stored.

Instead I wrote a macro-driven RPN calculator. Did some fancy math, printed
the RPN stack at every step, exited cleanly.

Got the paper back - red X, you have 2 days to turn in the requested
assignment.

Needless to say I did the absolute minimum for that instructor for the
remainder of the term. She got what she wanted - a drone student showing
absolutely no initiative (at least in her class)

~~~
scott_s
I assume you showed at each step where the results of the computations were
stored? That's what the assignment was really about: can you inspect the stack
and find a known value?

I was a TA in a computer systems class. Many of our homework assignments told
the students to do a certain set of things, then explain why they see what
they see. What I looked for was _understanding_. If you had shown on even one
of the stacks where an expected value was, I'd give full credit.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Hm. I don't think that was the point. It was just to get everybody down to the
computer center, run something, get your output back. We never looked at dumps
again, we learned to use I/O macros next.

I believed the instructor was arrogant and dumb, probably felt challenged by
somebody brighter than her. But I was 17 and the same I guess.

~~~
scott_s
You never looked at dumps again as an assignment, sure, but being able to
inspect a stack dump for an expected value is an invaluable tool when
debugging.

------
FuzzyDunlop
I can identify with this. However when I did my GCSEs and A-levels, a very
large requirement of the project was the creation of a design spec and
thorough documentation. The actual implementation was just one part, not the
entirety.

That the kid in the story says he had to go back and comment his code suggests
he fell into simple trap of getting so carried away with what he wanted to do
that the other major requirements were left by the wayside.

I fell into the same trap when I wanted to do my database coursework with PHP
and MySQL. I got so far in and realised that if I carried on, I'd never get
the written work done. I did brilliantly in the exams, top marks in the class
each time, but my desire to try and do something impressive brought my overall
mark down. So I'm a web developer who got a C at A-level ICT.

Of course since it was nearly 6 years ago when I left sixth form, and 8 when I
left secondary school, the curriculum might have changed.

------
dotBen
I took my GCSE IS (Information Systems, IE 'computing'/whatever) in 1998.

I remember failing the mock examination because I kept making reference to the
Internet, World Wide Web, etc in my answers and I was told that as our
syllabus pre-dated the Internet I was not able to use it as an example even
though I was correct.

I was encouraged to use "Prestel" (if anyone remembers that) as an example of
an interactive system via modem rather than the Internet. :/

For 'fun' I also completed A Level Computing in 3 months at an evening school
(usually you would learn it over 2 years) just to prove I could do it. I got
an overall B because I couldn't complete all of the coursework in 3 months,
but aced the exam.

If I ever have kids and raise them back home in the UK, I'll teach them
ICT/Computing/whatever myself and encourage them to take something else that I
can't teach them personally (like Drama, Music, etc)

------
fish2000
One of the best things in this article is how the kid, in the quote wherein he
describes his 11-year old experience, spells the prefix "pseudo" as "sudo" --
that one little blip of an error totally reinforces the autodidact angle of
the piece way better than any explicitly expositive thing (provided the reader
is also of the nerdy inclination).

~~~
ZenJosh
The story was written as a quick response to an email on a list, not an
article for the front page of hackernews. Please excuse the obvious errors (of
which I am sure there are quite a few)

~~~
fish2000
Aha I had assumed that it was an error on the part of the quotee -- this was
not the case then? Either way, no judgement on my part, I'm not pedantic about
such things.

~~~
ZenJosh
I was in the terminal at the time and broke my workflow to reply, I was still
in 'sudo' mindset not 'pseudo' mindset \-- Sorry, I just realized I misread
the entire comment and assumed it hostile, my bad!

------
drivingmenuts
This is a universal problem: teachers who are actually technically brilliant
within their area of competence can't get paid enough to make it worthwhile to
teach, nor will they be valued enough to make it mentally and emotionally
rewarding.

The sobering reality is that most people really are just average and spending
the kind of money to attract truly brilliant minds to enlighten the small
percentage of young geniuses therein probably can't be justified by any
politically acceptable means.

~~~
gaius
Teachers in the UK are generously paid (when you include their gold-plated
final-salary pension scheme, and unparalleled job security) and get 75 days
vacation a year.

------
SagelyGuru
I used to do admissions interviews for computer science at a UK university.
Some applicants liked to boast about their A grades in ICT. My usual response
to this was: "err, ok, I won't hold it against you".

------
nmcfarl
ICT appears to mean "Information and Communications Technologies" something I
didn’t know.

Also man is that a depressing story.

~~~
Tibbes
Brief summary of computing in UK schools:

Back in the days of the BBC Micro, computing in schools involved some
programming.

After that (probably in the early nineties), the subject split into two:
Computer Science and IT. Then with the rise of the internet IT was renamed CIT
(Communications and Information Techologies) and finally reordered to ICT.
Computer Science was also renamed Computing at some stage.

ICT involves no or extremely minimal programming. Computing does, but it has
proved the less popular option and died out in the majority of schools -
partly due to an uninspiring syllabus and lack of teachers.

~~~
ElliotH
There is in fact a Computer Science GCSE and A level which is distinct from
Computing.

The A level computing syllabus (haven taken it myself) is quite dated, but one
of the two papers does involve some writing of pseudocode, and the coursework
is a programming project with lots of freedom (as well as a bucketload of
documentation writing)

~~~
estel
Really? I'd never heard of them, and a quick Google doesn't find any Computer
Science GCSE or A-level that isn't a colloquial reference to the Computing A
level.

~~~
ElliotH
Its anecdotal, but I know a few people who definitely claim to have taken
'Computer Science' as opposed to 'Computing' A levels.

------
anons2011
ICT in UK schools, or England in particular is a bit of a joke (Especially at
GCSE or A level) It was all about Frontpage and Access as well as Flash :/

It would be much better if they taught basic programming. C, Java etc. Or even
focussed on web developed in PHP, as well as the front-end side of things
HTML/CSS/jQuery (And teach them about semantics and accessibility! not table
based rubbish generated in Dreamweaver)

As well as getting people used to using an IDE rather than Dreamweaver. I
think if they focused it more towards Comp sci, and less about making
slideshows it would encourage alot more people to experience, and maybe create
something awesome.

At the time I thought all you need to do to become an IT teacher was be
proficient in Office :P

~~~
robgough
I'm 26 now, so this is ten years ago, but back then it was not uncommon for me
or one of my friends to be the ones unofficially actually teaching the IT
courses. I've heard the same story from others the same age as me.

I avoided ICT GCSE for exactly this reason - and did something "fun" instead
(Music for anyone interested), but I've many friends who weren't so lucky.

------
yock
No teacher worth a damn would fail a student for producing something well and
truly good simply because they didn't understand it. What a waste.

------
gyom
Having studied maths and computer science, I've seen something happen like
that in both fields.

In a real analysis class, we were asked to give an example of an irrational
number, without proof. My friend wrote "sin(1)" and, even though we were all
convinced that it was correct, the teacher felt that it was a bit too
"clever". My friend should have gone with the old sqrt(2), but he decided to
be a little more original.

The teaching basically told us to prove the claim, at home, and to find a
convincing argument. Then he went back to the exam and gave my friend the
points that he deserved. It's not that he couldn't prove the thing himself,
it's that he didn't feel like wasting his time because of some student's funny
answer.

~~~
dxbydt
Just a nit - sin(1) is transcendental ( by the Lindemann Weirstrass Theorem).
All real transcendental numbers are also irrational, but the converse is not
true ie. the square root of 2 is irrational but not transcendental.

So I guess your teacher was just looking for a plain old irrational number and
going all transcendental on him is "a bit too clever" as you put it :)

------
jiggy2011
From what I remember GCSE ICT is a complete waste of time. All we learned was
how to add clipart to a MS Word Document and how to use some weird proprietary
non relational database system. We also had to know something about the data
protection act (I think , it was such a waste of time I never bothered to goto
the exam).

If you want to do university Comp Sci you will not need this qualification at
all, just skip the classes and concentrate on maths , science and english.

If you just want an "intro to using computers" course, there is better stuff
on youtube.

Of course it could have improved since my day but this article doesn't make it
sound like it has.

------
lobo_tuerto
I got into a computer systems engineering major at the National Polytechnic
Institute in Mexico City, that was around 2000.

When I took the Programming III course (language: C++) I was really excited as
I had done my own research into the subject, and was expecting to use the STL,
templates and what not, the problem was the teacher only allowed _programs_
that ran in TurboC++ 3.1, if it didn't ran in that IDE/Compiler well, you were
out of luck and you would just get a fail.

I immediately changed the course to a more open minded teacher, that indeed
let us use gcc and all the things that it compiled.

------
speleding
If the purpose of schools is to teach 90% of the students to comply as
accurately as possible with the orders they are given then this is a success.
This is what businesses expect from the 90% when they enter the work force.

If the purpose of schools is to encourage the 10% free thinkers to explore and
grow then this is utter failure. It's hard to reconcile both views in one
school system, but I wish we'd err on the side of the 10%. Those are the ones
who will make a difference.

------
itsnotvalid
I think the problem lays down on the face that failing grades are given to
work that are beyond the skills of the marker, is just plain wrong.

If you know that they are not cheating (plagiarism or finding someone else to
do) and the end result is so good, a failing grade is simply unacceptable.

Luckily my ICT teacher didn't mark by reading code.

------
robterrell
This is a enormous failure of the teacher. The kid should have talked it a
supervisor, because any teacher should be able to look beyond their own
ignorance of the subject of a student's project and instead ask questions
about the thought process the student used in making their project, and given
a grade based on that.

~~~
AlexC04
There are two sides to that story. There's quite a bit going on that has been
left out. England's school system really doesn't work in a way that teachers
can just hand out whatever grade a student "deserves".

The kid was handed a syllabus, a marking scheme and told "if you do this
you'll get an A". He threw out the mark scheme and did his own thing.

He then tried to get an A for doing whatever the hell he wanted.

I applaud him for pursuing his own interests and taking charge of his own
learning - I really do - but the system doesn't allow for that.

You don't hand in creative writing and expect to get a math credit. You don't
hand in physics to your chemistry teacher.

I wish the system in England were different. Maybe I'd still be teaching there
if it were, but you're casting a lot of aspersion and judgement on a subject
that you don't seem to know much about.

~~~
JimDabell
> He threw out the mark scheme and did his own thing.

That's not what the article says. It says the brief was to "design and create
a multimedia project", which he did.

It says that most people went with Powerpoint, but it doesn't say that's what
was asked of them.

~~~
seabee
The brief is just that. The mark scheme undoubtedly suggests a more
restrictive approach into how you produce a project in line with that brief.

It's like listening to the first sentence your client utters ("I want a
program to calculate my expenses...") and then creating Excel when all they
wanted was a calculator. For better or worse, it's not about doing whatever
you like, and hiding behind the brief when there was a more detailed set of
specs is immature.

~~~
JimDabell
You are assuming that there was a more detailed spec. that asked for something
different to what he did. There's no indication of that in the article, you're
just inventing things to prop up your argument.

~~~
seabee
I'm assuming? I did the same course that student did. The curriculum hasn't
changed towards 'we won't tell you what you need to score the marks' - quite
the opposite. It was like this 6 years ago and it was like this a years ago
when my coworker showed me his mark scheme for a similar curriculum-mandated
ICT project.

> There's no indication of that in the article

Because if there was, it would severely weaken his whole 'I'm surrounded by
idiots' argument, wouldn't it? Good for the kid for making a cool app, but he
has to learn that you don't get judged on your merits but by how successfully
you complete your task.

Have you had any experience with GCSE ICT? As far as I am concerned, there is
one person making judgments with less information and that person is you.
Let's not forget you are seeing one side of the story - don't be so foolish
and pretend it's the whole truth.

You can even view the mark schemes online! Here is but one exam board that
does this:

[http://www.edexcel.com/quals/gcse/gcse10/ict/Pages/About_GCS...](http://www.edexcel.com/quals/gcse/gcse10/ict/Pages/About_GCSE_ICT.aspx)

It's amazing how I am ignorantly downvoted for something that is common
knowledge among schoolchidren, seeing as they are given a mark scheme for
_every piece of coursework in every subject they take_. I can only assume
these people aren't from the UK...

~~~
JimDabell
> The curriculum hasn't changed towards 'we won't tell you what you need to
> score the marks'

I never said it did. It's perfectly possible to have a spec. that allows for
more than one type of implementation. This is schoolwork, not NASA. The aim is
to show that they understand the concepts and can produce results. Exact
requirements aren't necessary for that.

From the spec. on the site you linked to - it seems Unit 4: Creating Digital
Products is the relevant unit:

[http://www.edexcel.com/migrationdocuments/GCSE2010/UG023092-...](http://www.edexcel.com/migrationdocuments/GCSE2010/UG023092-Edexcel-
GCSE-2010-ICT-Issue-2-180310.pdf)

It states:

> > They can choose what sort of product to design and make, but it must
> include an appropriate user interface and user input must determine the
> outputs that are produced.

It seems to me there's a lot of freedom for students to choose implementation
platform and language. While your school in particular might have been more
specific in what you should build (and really, given the limitations of
teacher knowledge, that makes sense), it doesn't follow that his must have
been similarly restrictive. Unless you were literally in the same class as
him, you aren't in a position to know what was asked of him, and your
assumptions directly contradict the article.

> > There's no indication of that in the article

> Because if there was, it would severely weaken his whole 'I'm surrounded by
> idiots' argument, wouldn't it?

My point is that without further information, you aren't in a position to say
that he ignored the spec. The article's direct statements trump your
assumptions.

> As far as I am concerned, there is one person making judgments with less
> information and that person is you.

The only thing I have stated in my comments thus far relates to what is
directly stated in the article and what you are saying. I'm not making
assumptions, all I'm doing is pointing out you are doing so.

~~~
seabee
Right, first off, you are citing the brief and claiming that this is the basis
on which people are marked. This is the very mistake I stated in the
grandparent post and that you are making again. Stop claiming I am making
'assumptions' when you obviously have no clue as to the facts. The mark scheme
is found under the 'Detailed unit content' section and that specifies a lot of
things you need to do in addition to simply 'making a product'.

> without further information, you aren't in a position to say that he ignored
> the spec

So if you read between the lines in the student's statement, where in this did
he say he did anything other than write some code? And you're accusing _me_ of
making assumptions?

> The article's direct statements trump your assumptions.

So find me the statements which show he actually did all the legwork you are
required in the class. You are completely wrong here.

> From the spec. on the site you linked to - it seems Unit 4: Creating Digital
> Products is the relevant unit

It's not in fact the relevant unit, as there are several exam boards he could
have used. That was given as an example (was in fact my coworker's unit). The
brief actually matches OCR's ICT course (section 2.4):

[http://www.ocr.org.uk/download/kd/ocr_31062_kd_gcse_2010_spe...](http://www.ocr.org.uk/download/kd/ocr_31062_kd_gcse_2010_spec.pdf)

Note how there is no requirement as to how to implement it. But also note how
there is no requirement for candidates to show their code, even!

The student says:

> I argued the case and managed to scrape a pass by teaching him the basics of
> Objective-C from scratch and by commenting every single line of code I wrote
> to explain exactly what it did and how it did it (all 3,400 lines, including
> standard libraries I used) which ended up being a huge time sink.

This kid didn't read the mark scheme or he would know that you are not asked
to comment the code, nor does doing so confer any direct proof that you can do
any of the things that spec says you should demonstrate.

You're meant to show designs for the different parts of your programs, you're
meant to demonstrate that you wrote code and that it does what you say it
does, and you're meant to establish a testing procedure and document the
outcome, among other things.

What you do NOT do is comment your code and call it a day. I know because I
tried doing precisely that in my own project and was told "we don't want code,
we want documentation". When the teacher says he doesn't have a clue how it
works, it's because he was given a code dump. Documenting it so that a non-
programmer can understand what you are doing is tedious but that is what
you're being asked here.

------
badclient
Reminds me of the time that I wrote an essay on spam and the instructor
circled the title and wrote "the food? Explain".

She was an English PhD student teaching a course on computers in society.

~~~
scott_s
I think that's quite different. Rather than not knowing herself what spam is,
I find it more likely she was telling you to define it in case another reader
does not.

------
Tichy
What kind of multimedia project is that? Wouldn't a teacher be more specific
about what to implement and what tools to use? That story sounds kind of
silly...

