to be aghast you can get a GCSE in 'digital communications'

[fyrtlemertile]

Was speaking to a family member today whose choosing her options, apparently English Literature is an option, like History, French, Art or Music used to be while 'The English suite of qualifications are English Language, Media Studies and Digital Communications. Gifted student may have the opportunity to take English Literature as a twilight course and it will be offered as an option for band 1 students' (Band 1 = top half of the year, sets 1,2 and 3 I think).

AIBU or is digital communications probably a GCSE in facebook, texting and tweeting?

Not really fair to have a go at LeQ for spelling. English Lit. isn't about spelling. I studied for the same qualifications as LeQ and my spelling is rubbish (dyslexic). It hasn't caused me any problems so far.

Incidentally, DH works in a computer-based industry, as do several of our friends. Most have Arts degrees, including someone with - yep - English Literature. DH has no formal qualifications in any kind of computer-related discipline. It does make me a bit sceptical about some of the buzzy-sounding qualifications you can get.

Back in the 80's I was told to do " office skilsxand information processing" GCSE in preparation for my assumed career as a secretary as I wasn't university material. A decade later everything I learned was obsolete.

When I aced my A levels and attended an RG university ( who overlooked the OSIP Gcs3) I studied journalism and learned analogue techniques for film and radio. Within 10 years these skills were obsolete.

Education seems unable to keep up with the pace if change. A digital communications gcse is only as good as the technology the schoolmcan afford.

Having worked with young people it is essential that they learn about digital communications! Most of the business world communicates via email these days. And most young people have no idea how to write one properly... no subject headers, no understanding of reply to all, never CCing, bad grammer...

And I loved eng lit. Loved it.

berrie, that has nothing at all to do with digital communications. If you can write a letter properly, you can write an email properly. Bad grammar isn't something unique to the internet.

I don't think dumbing down like that is helpful to anyone.

That is a good point. Certainly I can compose a business letter etc as a result of OSIP.

But surely this is better undertaken in a general class. This is a lifeskill. Why a GCSE? And surely most who need it will go on to college or training where they will learn specific systems for the job they want?

You lot sound so... old. And bitter.

Have you any idea what this GCSE actually contains? I can't find a syllabus online, so I can't tell either way. I wouldn't assume it's such a 'soft subject' until you know what it is about.

And as for employers and universities not taking it seriously, a university usually won't be looking at GCSE results, and any employer who does (so, presumably recruiting candidates with no A levels) probably won't be looking for English Lit.

I appreciate that the people who are defending this GCSE may mean well but I am just really really really sad that there are children who are being effectively told that English Literature is a 'special' option for 'special' people who are willing to give up out-of-school time for it. This is not going to help social mobility. Every child should be considered worthy of being helped to access literature and the arts, not just the geeks or the ones with the pushy parents.

yeah, but English Lit will be even more 'special' and elitist once Gove's got his hands on it and stuffed it with things even an Eng Lit PHD finds bloody tedious and hard going... it may be the Mail who are getting het up about DC GCSE, but it's actually going to be the Tory plans on Education which mean that some kids will be forced into this less well-regarded qualification, I reckon.

Loopy, what's old and bitter about being concerned that students shouldn't get palmed off with rubbish? Or about pointing out the blindingly obvious fact that, actually, 'digital communications' is a slightly odd place to be teaching grammar, and that lack of grammar does rather argue for the need for English teaching.

I think we are looking at it with the benefit of hindsight.

But hell, we are old, what do we know, eh?

I would have assumed that Communications meant Marketing and PR.

You lot are assuming a huge amount here.

And the assumptions aren't even consistent. There's some people bemoaning the use of twitter, others saying about professional conduct when writing emails, others talking about computing GCSEs, still others talking about marketing.

If you're going to condemn something, at least find out what the hell it is you're actually condemning! Otherwise you sound like the comments section of the Daily Mail website.

MN is better than that, I'd have thought.

So, does anyone have any factual evidence of what IS or is NOT within the scope of this GCSE?

Or not?

(This thread is bringing back memories of my own school education, when I wasn't allowed to do woodwork as "there's no point learning how to be a carpenter" from my dad, despite the fact that it was actually a "Design and Construction Technology"-type class whose official name I don't even remember. It was just called woodwook by everyone, including the teachers.)

If it's the course taught by edexcel:

www.edexcel.com/quals/gcse/gcse10/english/digital/Pages/default.aspx

But I can't get access to its spec. Anyone?

I think there are a lot of misconceptions on this thread about what the digital communications GCSE actually is. First of all, it is a pilot being given a five-year trial by one exam board. The schools which offer it are doing it in a number of ways - some are offering it alongside the new English GCSE (which is a single GCSE that combines elements of the seperate Lang and Lit GCSEs). Some are offering it as an alternative to English Lit to weaker students (alongside English Lang). Some are even offering it as an extra GCSE to able Yr 9s, to bridge the gap between KS3 and GCSE. Very few, AFAIK are doing what the OP's school are doing and offering it INSTEAD of Eng Lit across the board.
The content has nothing to do with learning about IT. Basically, they will be reading and analysing examples of digital text (websites, blogs, social networking sites etc) and then creating a website of their own. It is in no way a suitable replacement for the Eng Lit GCSE for an able student, though it might be valuable for keeping less motivated pupils engaged. The content in my opinion is not sufficient to keep a pupil of average ability sufficiently challenged. I would be very wary of this if I were the OP.

I see I x-posted with you FRGR. Yes, I have seen the spec and it is as I descibed in my post below. Sparse on content and not sufficiently challenging for most pupils.

Eng lit is a fantastic experience and I hate this idea it is for the elite too. Why shouldn't everyone enjoy Macbeth? It is a great story. Same withlord if the Flies, The Great Gatsby ... But maybe not 'the prelude' bleurghhh

It's about education not training for work. Literature is for everyone, can be enjoyed and understood by everyone, it's our birthright for christ's sake.

"I expect you could teach some useful transferable stuff Winter, but I don't think that's what IT was about when I did it. If it's changed now that's great, but I don't see how you could avoid teaching a lot of stuff that would go out of date very fast."

I can think of loads of "IT" stuff that won't go out of date fast

• Logic (poss covered in Physics, think we did)
• The principles of relational databases (although this is set theory - so poss higher than GCSE level)
• Principles of accessible websites
• The role of hardware and software in making IT equipment work - e.g. memory, what is an operating system? A file system? Client/server systems. The internet and the WWW.

I have mixed feelings on this. In most cases, unless you don't plan to do A Levels and go to uni/college, it's not like your GCSE is actually going to have any impact on any job you may go for in 5 - 8 years time, so I see no reason why studying things at GCSE level should be about finding work.

I believe that at school especially, children should be learning to learn. They should be learning the skills that will help them to analyse, to make decisions, to assess. They should be gaining general knowledge and an understanding of the world that will stand them in good stead as they attempt to navigate their lives, study further, work etc. It's not necessarily about gaining concrete skills. Let's be honest, unless you plan to become something like a telephone engineer, even studying at college or university is not going to give you exact concrete skills and you will have to learn as you go along.

Accordingly, I'm not anti digital communications as a GCSE on the basis that this is how the world is moving and being able to navigate and speak that language will help. I would however prefer students to also do traditional subjects like English lit or science subjects as these also teach important and useful analytical skills and language.

"It depends what Digital Communications actually involves. I think it's jumping the gun to assume it's a course on texting and using Facebook. My guess its that it'll be focused on things like managing communications portals, using LANs and intranets to share data, creating data feeds, blogging, communications, brand promotion, social media strategy and search-engine optimisation. Which are increasingly important skills to have now that so much business is conducted virtually and via digital mediums."

Agree Egsit and as a cureent university student I can honestly say that these are very important skills in modern university settings. Most university courses require students to have these skills at hand and this is echoed in the fact that even essay's and portfolios must be submitted in digital copy as well as hard copy.

Can i just say something to thoseof you who think its a useless subject?

Im back at uni after a long long time. Then, you could get away with being able to turn on a computer, and be willing to learn. ie no prior knowledge of computing required. Now, if you are not incredibly computer literate, you will FAIL, drown, die, within a week. in fact, you wouldnt last the week as youwould have needed toenrol online first.

I used to be able to get up and do a presentatino without visual aids, as long as i knew what i was talking about. Now if i do a powerpoint one its considered boring. Am seriously considering not worrying too much about content next time, and using the time instead to learn how to use prezi.

When i was at school, we were taught how to write a letter, as is my dd now. I think it owuld be useful to her to be taught how to deal with all the newer methods ofcommunication, including social media.