First, I commend the version of the paper made available by Tom Worthington. Sadly, I think that not having ICT as a learning area in its own right allows us to forget the important principles such as that new technologies, properly used, are inclusive according to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities - which would suggest we should not publish anything of consequence as PDFs, especially if they are not fully accessible PDFs. So please, look at Tom's accessible version of the paper at http://blog.tomw.net.au/2011/04/ict-in-australian-curriculum.html#accepaper.

But, more to the topic at hand, I endorse the paper and its goals because my own experience working on IT developments has shown me that there is a significant problem that runs across the range of disciplines that arises from people's skills being foremost in their minds rather than IT principles, and therefore the possibilities, offered by the new technologies.

I have been working with educators, information experts such as librarians, people concerned with inclusivity of the technologies for people with disabilities in particular, and more. We spend a significant amount of time trying to explain the possibilities because many of those we work with take for granted their experiences with, for example, Microsoft products, and think only within the capabilities of their experiences. In the last five years, we have managed within the ISO and other contexts to develop a sensible, interoperable way of describing educational resources (what is now available as Metadata for Learning Resources (MLR - ISO/IEC 19788)). Most of the heavy lifting in this process was finding ways to help those with narrow ways of thinking about technology to open their minds to the reality of what is doable. This was a shared concern for us, as Australians, with colleagues from Canada, Sweden, Norway, the UK, France, etc. We all found it frustrating and felt that if only IT were something people learned about, instead of just did, we would have achieved better results more easily.

At last year's meeting at MIT of those interested in the new Scratch environments for kids, combining very cleverly the social networking, communications, open sharing, programming (and whatever else), there was a panel discussion about the need for American children (in particular, but also others) to learn about technology - as a topic. I commend this discussion to all ... see http://techtv.mit.edu/collections/scratch:1231/videos/8131-scratchmit-fr...

I am very pleased to see this submission and agree with in general with the directions it adopts.
It has concerned me greatly to see ICT merely subsumed as a subset skill for other disciplines.
There are two emphases I would wish to recommend however which are omitted from the following statement made in this submission:

"There is a body of knowledge associated with ICT that is not covered in other learning areas. Typically this content focuses on the characteristics of data, people, procedures and electronic equipment and how they interact to create structured information. This knowledge and these skills form the educational and career pathways to supporting the digital economy."

These two aspects are:
• the creation of interactive digital multimedia
• introductory computer programming skills

I made the following personal submission to ACARA in July 2010 which may prove relevant here:

Need for dedicated IT electives in Stages 4-6

Stages 4-5

It is important to recognise that computing skills cannot be developed adequately by programming ICT across the curriculum alone.

It is vital that students have the opportunity to elect to study the subject as a discipline in its own right, taught by staff with specific training in this area.

Although a cross curricula approach is vital in introducing IT skills throughout all disciplines, if left as the only exposure, the result is fragmented and the content often poorly taught.

Further the exposure of students will be limited to the narrow emphasis of those parts of ICT chosen by teachers for particular courses.

• Need for wide ranging general computing course in Stages 4 and 5
• Should not merely train in the use of software applications, although this should be part of its content
• Should emphasise digital literacy in:
How computers work
Software, hardware, data handling
History of computing and emerging technologies
Internet and its protocols
Mobile technologies
Social and ethical issues
Multimedia
Databases and spreadsheets
Website development
Networking
Robotics and Artificial intelligence
Introductory software programming
• Should cover technical digital media skills apart from the creative/artistic emphasis found in Visual Arts digital media subjects
• Emphasis needs to be on project based work which explore and emphasise digital skills where a practical approach is vital

We are witnessing creative digital industries at the crossroads of significant change. The explosion in mobile technology, 3D cinema experiences, expanded delivery of media via multiple devices has resulted in a large demand for those with these skills.
Our near neighbours are investing large amounts of money at secondary and tertiary levels in education for a continuing revolution in the use of digital media. Our national creative advantage will be maintained only by inspiring students at secondary school level to consider such careers.

Stage 6

Senior secondary study in computing needs to provide for the following broad areas of emphasis:

• A broad based general IT course without prerequisites
• An introductory course in computer programming for more advanced students
• A practically oriented IT vocational course
• A creative practical multimedia based course with emphasis on advanced interactivity IT skills (multimedia authoring)
• A visual arts digital media creative course
• Elective opportunities for specialisations: robotics, AI, movie-making etc

D Grover
21 July 2010

I agree with the report's arguement that ICT will be required for students to be successful in their studies, as well as citizens and workers. I have suggested the Australian Computer Society, support the ACCE position.

The report could have put the point more strongly that ICT is not just an enabling technology, but is also has deep theoretical underpinnings, which deserve academic study and is profoundly changing our view of the world.

The paper was released as a PDF file, which is not very useful for online distribution. So I have converted the document to HTML by hand. Perhaps the authors need to update their ICT skills by doing my ANU course on e-document management ;-)

Also there was a web link missing from the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians, which I have added. Unfortunately, I was not able to convert figure 1, which is an image of a table.

It is very important, in my opinion, that provision is made for, and distinctions are made between, the use of ICTs to assist in learning and the study of ICTs as a discreet academic study.

Having said this there needs to be clear documentation of what ICT competencies/digital literacies are needed as general capabilities. An excellent point in the position paper is that such skills are not effectively learned through osmosis.

Current documents do not encourage the explicit teaching of such competencies nor guarantee that students will in fact have them taught to them at all.

A very interesting paper. Overall I agree with the idea that ICT should be framed as a single coherent subject, with ICT competence distinguished from Digital Technologies.

We do have a significant problem to solve. That is, some aspects of ICT make topics in other subject areas redundant. For example: spelling (would a word-processor user need it quite so much?); Languages beyond English (it's not perfect, but Google Translate helps me read Chinese, which I have never learned).

Modern research is showing pupils using ICT can learn entirely new topics (robotics for instance) which can be placed into Digital Technologies; and existing topics at much younger ages (we have successfully taught integral calculus to 11 year-olds to university standards).

I strongly support the position paper.