AMLinington

Ghost in the Machine : Systematically ignore all 'Your password will expire in X days. Do you want to change it now?' messages then complain to ICT that 'Someone changed your password'. Deceive, Inviegle and Obfuscate : Disable something deliberately that you know to be a high priority item in order to bring ICT to you under false pretenses so that you can ask a mundane and/or not-work-related IT question that you know would have taken forever to make it through the service desk incident prioritisation protocols. Cognitive Dissonance : Send in a help request phrased in such a way that the only person that can understand it is you. "The thingy in Word I use all the time to do stuff with is broken".

I'm certain my views on this subject have been well echoed by other posters but I saw this and couldn't resist adding my tuppenceworth to the discussion. In my opinion, the teaching of ICT in secondary schools is woefully inadequate. There tends to be a fatal dichotomy of ability as far as teachers are concerned. Having done a PGCE myself I have seen this in practice. On the one had you have very passionate, committed teachers with a very high degree of technological competency. On the other you have teachers drafted in from other subjects with little or no technological knowledge, competency or even passion for the subject that teach IT because they know roughly how to use Office. This is very poor and inadequate. When I went to school ICT was a dreadful subject comprised of making lego trucks go through gates and learning how to use MS paint. But with the way we are becoming more and more immersed in technology in our daily lives, learning how to use MS Word is no longer appropriate. Most school children know the fundamentals of using Office programs before they get to secondary school. The structure of writing letters and presenting power point presentations is not the responsibility of ICT departments. This should be taught as part of the english language curriculum! The way I see it, young people should be taught the basics of hardware maintenance and basic networking. They should be taught to build, install and configure a PC and connect it to a simple network. Some have argued that pupils should be taught programming languages but I disagree as there are too many to choose from and from a practical perspective you can't teach them all. I certainly believe that knowledge of the types of programming languages and what they are used for would be an advantage as it gives pupils an insight into HOW the programs they use are constructed and how they work, and so learning ABOUT programming languages should definitely be on the curriculum. I feel that pupils should be taught basic html to help them understand how the WWW works and how sites are constructed, and an overview of network infrastructure is essential. A student should be taught about the role of domain controllers, AD servers, SQL servers, exchange servers, etc and how they interact in a business environment. It would help if these were taught from a 'function' perspective rather than 'form' so the focus is on the function of the servers rather than the specific operating systems, as again different businesses prefer different software and a student should be able to understand these regardless of 'brand name'. As much as I would like a non-brand-specific curriculum in the interests of maintaining an 'impartial' viewpoint, in reality we know this won't happen and that pupils will most likely be taught microsoft technologies. Therefore rather than a pupil coming out with a worthless GCSE in Powerpoint, perhaps schools ought to look at industry recognised qualifications such as the CompTIA A+ - many entry level IT positions consider this qualification to be either essential or at least desirable and it would at least give our school leavers something to work with when looking for a job. Because it's an industry standard, this qualification would also weed out a lot of the dumbing down of our GCSE qualifications - if a pupil fails the exam they fail the exam. None of this 'E-Grade' business. Pass or Fail. Obviously there should be some 'achievement' to show what level of competency they have achieved (perhaps some sort of NVQ?), but as far as I'm concerned, if the subject is taught properly there should be no reason why these students cannot pass the most basic of entry-level IT qualifications. Of course we all know that you can 'cheat' on these exams by coaching for the exact questions (there are forums out there that will tell you exactly which set of questions is currently in use), but then isn't this happening in our schools anyway? If there were wide reform in ICT Teaching this practice wouldn't much matter anyway as the subject would be taught in it's entirety anyway. Those are just a few of my thoughts anyway. I know that if I'd been presented with the guts of a PC and some instruction on how to put them together I would have found ICT FAR more useful and relevant. A.

Wow! OMG! I wouldn't tolerate that kind of behaviour from a neighbour. I think you've gone above and beyond in helping her but I concur with other posters - there is a line and she crossed it! Big style! When you help her, is it because she specifically asked you to or did you offer because she was moaning about it in the sort of way that suggests that she hopes if she moans enough someone will do it? I would say if you offered to help her to stop her moaning I'd not bother offering to help. Or supply her with details of a local business she can pay to do the work for her. It is likely she will then want to know why you won't help her. I would then explain to her that her behaviour offended you and you felt that your right to privacy in your own garden has been infringed because you feel uncomfortable that she has spied on you. I would explain that you like the Chimnea and as it is ornamental only her comments serve only to hurt you (do you use it as a planter at all - that would 'prove' it has no 'antisocial' use?) and to that end you will no longer be offering your assistance to her. That's certainly how I would approach the situation if it were me. Don't let this woman walk all over you! From a legal standpoint there is nothing she can do even if she claims you burn noxious rubbish (which you've said you don't do as you don't burn anything at all in it) as she would need to prove it and would have to call environmental health when you are burning noxious rubbish so they can measure the 'fumes'. If it is ornamental she won't have a leg to stand on... A.

Hi there, My route into IT is convoluted too: I'd always been into computers and gadgets etc, but my REAL learning started when I became friends at 14 with someone studying computing actively and he encouraged me to learn with him in my own time to the point where I was able to maintain hardware and understand basic networking. Unfortunately the school and college I went to did not offer IT as a study option. GSCE was a 'Short Course' half-baked course with ancient machines and lego cars we had to 'program' to run a course. It was a bit rubbish really. To make matters worse, my coursework was the best in the school and someone (I know who but can't prove it) stole my work. So I stopped bothering to study IT 'formally' and just 'tinkered' by myself and with my friend. I took A-Levels in Geog, Chemistry and Physics then went on to do a BSc (Hons) in Geology. Having decided I really wasn't cut out for field Geology I started looking at Lab roles but these were heavily competitive positions and always needed a higher level of qualification - so first you'd need a Masters, then a PhD, then Post Doctorate stuff etc etc and financially I couldn't afford to be a perpetual student so *Gasp* I went out into the world of work. I took a couple of random jobs mostly repping work and floated around for a while before returning to University to do a PGCE (the company I was repping for went into liquidation so I was 'cast loose' so to speak). I WANTED to teach IT, but since ALL my knowledge about IT was self-studied and not certificated I wasn't eligable and had to teach Secondary Science.... I spent a LOT of time over in the IT department at my second placement as the head of IT and his other teacher were both heavily technical and I got on very very well with them and decided that I wanted to teach IT instead of Science. Trouble is, because all my learning up to that point was self-studied, no self-respecting IT department would have looked sideways at me. So these two teachers advised me to take a year out after my PGCE and get into first line support and start taking some 'sponsored' exams such as the CompTIA A+, MCP etc as a way to 'prove' what I know. So I did. Thats how I ended up in the IT industry. Why am I still here nearly 4 years later? Because having got these exams, I found that actually, I really didn't fancy going back into teaching, I was much happier in a technical role as I was always learning new things (I LOVE learning). So I decided to stay in the 'Commercial' sector as I really enjoy the challenges of learning new things and pushing myself to expand my technical knowledge. It's been a strange path but having tried a number of different types of job and different types of industry, I feel as though I have found the right place for me where my skills and interests fit in nicely with my job role and career aspirations. I am always looking out for new courses to do, new IT-things to try and new exams to take. Since my previous company didn't feel that I needed the Networking exams to do my job, and as I am now in a role where networking is essential, I am setting my sights on some networking quals. I'm thinking of starting off nice and basic with a CompTIA Networking exam, then I'll look again at the Microsoft range since I have an MCP:XP it would be another step down the MCSE path (or whatever the latest acronym is). If I could give any advice to students out there looking to study computing I would say : YES, study it! Computing is a solid foundation upon which to progress an excellent and very varied career. With the economy the way it is, many people find that their qualifications mean nothing - this is not the case with IT. Make your choices carefully and make sure you do not 'over specialise' too early in your career. If you have an opportunity to take industry exams rather than academic ones, do so as they will be worth more to employers than a BSc as they prove practical, useful knowledge. Yes, you might be able to completely recode a pocket calculator into a subnet calculator and fit transistors to a motherboard in a smily face which results in improved motherboard power management (this is a joke btw), but this is no use if you can't find a job doing it. I fully intend to encourage my children (when I have some) to learn practical IT skills so they will always have SOMETHING to get a job with. Even if that role is a first line support role that will pay them £16k a year, it's a step on the path and there will be other opportunities you can move into. Especially with the rising price of University education, practical skills are becoming more marketable. A.