[Year 12 Its] Degree of Difficulty for Outcome 3

[Alex and Alison Hopkins]

Dear Robert,

Thanks for the helpful response.

Could I ask one supplementary question.  I'm using VB .NET with my
students.  I've been programming in the language for about two years.
There are many tasks where my first response to a programming challenge
is to check a reference book - or the code snippets that can be stored
for reference within the Visual Studio toolbox - for information on the
syntax of a particular operation.  In such a situation the challenge
isn't remembering the syntax but applying to the coding context the
logic that is required;  the syntax is secondary.  To what degree is it
intended that students' use of such resources be restricted / opened?
Even 'simple' i/o using Stream Readers/Writers in Net seems
syntactically more difficult than putting a front-end to a db.

Again, much thanks for the comments.

Alex Hopkins
Bayside Christian College


-----Original Message-----
From: is-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:is-bounces at edulists.com.au] On
Behalf Of Robert Timmer-Arends
Sent: Tuesday, 31 May 2005 6:03 PM
To: Year 12 Information Technology Systems Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Year 12 Its] Degree of Difficulty for Outcome 3

Hello Alex

last year was my first year as well and I had to come to grips with the
same question. Several resources are available to help you decide, the
first of which is the preamble to the approved programming languages
list from VCAA
http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/correspondence/bulletins/2002/june/02junbul.p
df

If you read you will see that you have to set something that will
require students to construct a GUI (web or desktop). It should also
require students to have code that is more than just a simple sequence
(I focussed on some sort of data entry validation to provide this; ie is
a number between certain values, if not error, if so continue), and some
file i/o (many people using VB or a web-based language seem to be
setting a task that involves the students in creating a front-end to a
db - I decided to stick to (very) simple file i/o in VB).

The second source is the study design. The key skills for outcome 3
suggest the program should employ 'data structures', but the key
knowledge just talks about data types. I chose to interpret this as
single variables of different data types, the student having to decide
what data was required and what type it had to be. Remember the outcome
requires students to demonstrate an ability to construct a 'module'

The third source was Kevork's resources web site where I obtained
examples of tasks others had kindly donated for the rest of us to use
(thank you
all!)

In the end though, while we do need to have a minimum below which a
program cannot be accepted as demonstrating an ability to write a
program, I did keep in mind the level at which my students were. For
several it was their first foray into programming and I couldn't,
therefore, set a programming task that was too large. The task I settled
on involved the construction of a GUI with validation on some numeric
entries. The numeric entries had to undergo a couple of calculations to
produce a result. The data and result had to be able to be written to
disk and read back again at some later date. The really good students
got that; the strugglers at least got the calculation working.

Hope this helps!

Regards
Robert T-A
Brighton SC


----- Original Message -----
From: "Alex and Alison Hopkins" <alexali at surf.net.au>
To: <is at edulists.com.au>
Sent: Monday, May 30, 2005 9:35 PM
Subject: [Year 12 Its] Degree of Difficulty for Outcome 3


> Could I check with others as to the degree of difficulty required for 
> the 3rd IS SAC.  Being my first year teaching IS, I'd like to check 
> that the programming tasks I have in mind are in line with 
> expectations.