I am a year 12 student studying 3/4 Informatics, so far i am very pleased with the subject. The new study design is quite different, however, i have found it to be very interesting. Currently doing the SAT which i am also enjoying.
Good luck to everyone with their studies! :)
Will the new study design have any effect on the scaling compared to previous years, or will study scores still scale down by around 5 or more for this subject?
ty mens
I did Software Development last year and Informatics this year so I was lucky enough to experience both study designs. I'm not sure whether this was just in my school or not, but in Software last year we were given only a couple of periods to analyse, design, develop and evaluate a solution based on a case study for two of our SACs I believe. Everyone in my class struggled as we were expected to complete the development phase in around 100 minutes, leading many of us to submit websites with many faults and in some cases not even full functionality. I can't confirm this for sure, but I heard other schools were given several days to complete their solutions, including permission to work on them at home (which would be extremely unfair if it was true). I believe the new study design with the SATs helps to rectify issues like this, but as some of the previous posts said, most of the students just end up doing nothing until the last week or so. I think it may be a better idea to have some system that's in between the previous one and the current one, so that students have enough time to complete their work, but not so much that they end up leaving it till the last minute. Furthermore, the only 2 IT teachers at my school (1 for each unit 3/4) are both average at best, and don't seem to fully understand either of their respective subjects. Also, the content that we are required to learn is sometimes fairly outdated. As a result of this, sadly I think IT has become a bit of a bludge subject for some students, and I'm not sure how effective it is in preparing us for IT at university (I'll have to find out next year).
It isn't much better. University is an academic journey, so most of the content that you will learn is theoretical. You will get opportunities still for some practical stuff like programming, but most of it is theory. If you think it's hacking, building PCs and so on... you are totally mistaken and have the wrong idea in your mind. Hence why a good illustration should be made between TAFEs and unis, where TAFE often provides practical hands on skills in various disciplines (hence why you have very specific diplomas - e.g. network security, systems administration).
In regards to being only given 100 minutes for a development phase, that is outrageous! I'd definitely be giving feedback on that.
Yea, I'm hoping to use that theoretical knowledge and possibly apply it in my spare time. I'm glad to see that someone understands my pain haha, I spent a good part of a month complaining about it to my friends, but none of them do IT so they don't really understand. I was hoping it would be accounted for through moderation of some sort (and maybe it was), but no one in my class got 40 or above so it was quite disappointing.
Students don't get rewarded for doing IT. The fact that the content is easy means that scaling hurts. Like i've said previously - Algorithmics is a step in the right direction, given that content is relevant to university but the other two are garbage and should be changed.
I do understand your pain - given I did IT Apps back in 2012 (Informatics now) and probably going to start teaching VCE Comp in under a year from now. I get your frustrations and believe me - the numbers (enrolments) don't lie. I got 40 on the dot for ITA back in 2012 and even that got scaled down a good 3-5 (can't exactly remember, but it was significant enough).
Yea I definitely agree. I was considering doing Algorithmics but only 1 other person in my cohort was interested in the subject so it wouldn't have run regardless (not surprising considering the lack of IT students at my school). Glad to hear that you're going to be teaching VCE Computing, it'll definitely help the students by having more younger, passionate teachers rather than some of the older teachers who lost interest in the subject years ago.
Its one of my favourite subjects this year. My teacher was awesome at explaining and made it interesting by linking our school course work with current IT events and news. The SAT part was also fun because we could choose what we wanted to do, which got me to do some creative work. Overall really enjoyed it.
Hi, Aaron and the discussion group
First of all just finished my major exams only got 2 left one of them which is informatics, really worried about it. I have few questions about study scores predictions and exam revision. I enjoyed the SAT was really interesting and fun but took long time to finish.. p.s our teacher was new first year teaching year 12, she is now retiring since job is hard. Anyway i always loved IT and want to pursue my career into it. What would i need to get a 40+ study score... my scores were SAC 1 - 80%, SAC 2- 89%, SAT- 32/40. And what would be some good rdbms practice except for playing around with microsoft access and also some work for ERD diagrams.
Thanks
I would aim for an A+. Informatics is a very.. interesting subject. Depends on your cohort etc too. To be safe, get an A+ on the exam. That's probably the best advice I can give you. I averaged upper 90's in SACs, got an A (not an A+) and just got 40. The cohort I was in was extremely weak, I was rank 1 by a long mile. Make sure you nail key concepts like normalisation.. its a subtle point in the study design but believe me when I say year in year out this is a common error (pg. 29 of the study design).Thanks Aaron for the advice
That's awesome that you want to pursue a career in IT. It definitely needs more enthusiastic people like yourself.
Same with you EdwinJS, I would recommend looking at vceit.com by Mark Kelly. Honestly the fundamental concept of Computing hasn't actually changed THAT much. Don't be fooled by the new accreditation period. Go through the key knowledge points in the study design and find content relevant to that. Past exams from old study designs are good, as long as you get the questions that are still relevant in the current study design.
All the best :)
Updated thread to reflect a general Q&A thread, rather than a specific 2016 cohort. Post away if you're doing Informatics!
I'm doing Informatics this year. Hopefully people use this thread this year as much if not more than last year. I swear I think I saw a digital tumbleweed blow by.
If any one is doing Informatics this year, please reply so we can all support each other!!
That is great to hear JO101! Please come back and let us know what you think of the exam when you do it. Cheers!
It was good...40+ SS. Mark Kelly helps
It was good...40+ SS. Mark Kelly helps
My teacher put a photo of Mark Kelly photoshopped as jesus up on the classroom wall we used the website so much.
Unfortunately it seems that Mark Kelly is giving up on Informatics... :( :'(
Read the 21st of February entry at his website: http://vceit.com/wp/newsblog/
He is so right though. It is dry. Computing in general is dry. Algorithmics is the only breath of fresh air going around, and only 12 schools statewide offer it. I recently completed a Bachelor's degree in IT and the course content taught is somewhat distanced from what is actually taught at university level now. I really hope for the sake of Computing's future that the entire SD & Informatics courses are completely rewritten and dragged back into line with what university and industry expects. It feels old, it is old. This is the VCAA's fault - so schools can't really be blamed for VCE content.
You really have to ask yourself why enrolment numbers are low..... some reasons:
* Dry content
* Penalised for taking the subject (via scaling and moderation)
* IT/Computing is perceived as 'difficult', much like the perception of maths to the regular student.
* Lack of emphasis on computing/coding/even STEM in the junior/middle years (7-10). It really puzzles me why some form of IT is not compulsory at year 7 & 8, just like english & maths are. Giving students an iPad and saying they've addressed IT (instead of actually running classes) in those years is just not right.
I completely agree with you.
VCAA desperately needs to overhaul the entire VCE Computing course.
It is a bit annoying though, as Computing seems to be one of VCAA's lower priority subjects.
Maybe if they paid a little attention to the course, they would see how badly this course needs to be rewritten.
Hopefully, with the change of the high school curriculum, it will mean that VCAA does pay attention to this potentially amazing subject (if they make coding compulsory in Year 7)
Has everyone finished SAC 1? How did you all go?
Not sure if anyone will answer,
but for the first point ont eh study design, I'm kind of confused on what to know for that ' techniques used by organisations to acquire data through their interactive online solutions', as well as 'techniques to efficient and effective data collection'
My textbook isn't too clear on it :/
Thanks :)
How on earth are you meant to write a conclusion for the last part of the first criteria sheet?
"Draw a valid conclusion to the hypothesis that is fully substantiated"
I need to get this finished tonight and I am sooooo lost. I have no idea of where to begin.
How long should I make it? 3 sentences? 3 paragraphs?
Any help or tips would be appreciated.
The full criteria is on page 6 of this PDF
http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Documents/vce/computing/SBA_Informatics.pdf
State if your hypothesis is supported or not, then summarise up how you came to that conclusion based your analysis of your data. Take in to account all your findings and bring them together. If someone were to only read that section of your report, they would have a clear idea of your overall findings and be inclined to agree with your support or refutation of the hypothesis.
rip god
(https://screenshotscdn.firefoxusercontent.com/images/d6f77f0c-d070-4ac0-9bf2-305e0aeade7f.png)
rip. That website has helped me out so much over the past 2 years.
I’m gonna try and archive that entire site.
been there, done that. :) All I can say is, good luck to those wanting extra resources now! Literally that's the site i've always linked to VCE Comp students. I reckon Algorithmics will end up outdoing Computing in a decade sooo...
Does it count as sharing copyrighted materials if I download all the powerpoints and upload them on the AN notes?
And yeah good luck to future students. Literally my first computing class my teacher showed us vceit.com saying it is the #1 place for resources.
Algorithmics actually looks much more interesting then informatics anyway. I only took informatics because that is what my school offered.
I'm currently doing physics but am thinking of dropping out for computing.
I'm a little confused by the subject names - my school has informatics as a subject but I can't find anything on the VCAA website? Instead they have applied computing - software development or data analytics. Is it just undergoing a name change or are there changes to content or the way the subject is taught and assessed?
Sorry for the dumb question but i'm so confused!