Viewing Thread:
"What do they teach us in School?"

Surely games would be at a better standerd if we all could put our creative minds to work and create a game! Our heads must be streaming with ideas, but I feel the industry does not give the public a good enough chance to make themselves heard. All these programmers and developers are good at making games but many other people who have not been given the chance probably can do better.

One of the reasons for this may be that the public is not educated enough to the standerd that is required. If taught at a young age then the person would grow to know gaming. Its like you learning French or German, I didnt know a thing when I was 11 but now I know quite a bit, over time, slowly learning it. If I didnt go to school i would not of found the time to learn this laungage, so school is a good place to learn programming etc as it sets time. HTML/programming is a laungage isnt it?

The things they teach in IT, i could do with my eyes closed! They tell you how to print and even go through how to click on the 'start bar'. Thats because in school there are many novices so they have to go slow. But the more 'advanced' users have to go through the basics they already know!

For example, here is a conversation I had with a teacher the other day in I.T, after me and my mate got annoyed beacuse we were in a GCSE I.T class that made you fill in boxes in word proccesing and print out 50 of them, all with different info:

Me: Sir!
Teacher: Hold on Ryan, i will get to you.
Me: Sir!
Teacher: (Ignores)

Teacher: Yes,Ryan?
Me: Erm, why have we been printing out 50 diffrent letter things for the last 4 weeks?

Teacher: Beacause that is your task.
Me: But I.T is not about printing un useful information.

Teacher: What is it then?
Me : Well at the moment this class is for novices!

Teacher: Like who?
Me : Well everyone you think does not know how to print!

Teacher: I understand you know how to print but this is the ciriculam.
Me : Well according to the ciricullam the nation is going to turn into a population of printers!

Teacher: Printing can be advanced!
Me : What part? Reading the button that says 'Print' that you have to press?

Teacher: No.
Me : Well what then?

(Teacher walks off to help a kid in need of clciking his mouse as Ryan sticks his finger up at the teacher)

See how stupid it is.

Well anyway, I was going off the point! sorry i was angry as it is a after school class you got to do.

So, should we be educated so that the education will slowly build up to the point that we can makes games?

Or should we be left so our briallnt ideas can rot?

Tell me what you think?

It's not just schools though!

Ever heard of New Deal?

It's terrible.

I was out of work for quite some time last year, and got put on the New Deal program.

They said I would be able to learn some new skills.

I was looking forward to it.

When I got there I recieved some workbooks on Word, and Excel. Only when I had worked through these could I move on to Access!

Considering that I had been using these programs for a couple of years already, this was no challenge, so I ended up just helping other people that didn't know how to do the basics.

I already had a C&G in Applications Programming, and all they could offer was Office training!

Things got worse though, as they sent me do to some voluntary work at a Playgroup.

Basically I had to write Newsletters, using Publisher, and make some posters!

If anything it set me back, as it completely shot my confidence.

I was so desperate to get out of the situation I took a job phoning people all day to ask if they intended to pay their bills!

meka_dragon: Choose life!

Our school now has several new IT suites, all networked ona good fast connection, yet all we're ever allowed to use them for is typing up reports, which is exactly what we were doing on the Acorns, not P3 550s....
One teacher is getting annoyed, and has started some IT clubs of his own accord, but it's still basic "Today we're going to create a web page in MicroSham Publisher" stuff.
I wouldn't swap it for another language (I do French, German and Latin atm), but it would be nice to have as an extra-curricular thing where we're treated as if we have at least some intelligence...

If you had Programming in schools, they'd start with binary and hex and make it part of Maths. That's what they usually teach at college. It would have to be linked with all other subjects in the curriculum to be used, but it's most closely linked to Electronics.

Basic programming could be taught in a 6 form at school or in a college, which would be better as a lot of people don't really want to learn about it. It would have to start with the history of computers and computer language, as this is always a good starting point for teaching programming and makes you appreciate how we've come along from punch cards etc.

When I was at school I.T. (or computer science as it was known back then) was a half lesson instead of physics, which taught you about methods of input (from the first computers), output and BBC Basic, Logo and basic binary programming. Most people got lost at creating a Logo program and these were people who signed up for the lesson! I ended up having to help the teacher in the end as he got so many hands up that he ended up spinning on the spot, but then again, this was the mid-eighties.

Wait until you get to degree level

"Today we're going to be talking about error correction in pipelined processors"


Muh?

I would put I.T laugage skills to work, but I would not put my German Skills to work,ever.

Instead of having French.............YES!!!!!!!

Even harder then Caveman?

Yeah that'll work!!

hahaha

do u know how hard C++ is.
Its like learning Greek and French with Spanish included!

What until you get to AS level...


"Today we're going to talk about point of sale terminals."



ARGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

So having game making in school?