An article from The Guardian’s website came to my attention today (hat tip to @woodsy), debating how what is taught in school as ICT is really only how to use Microsoft Office, and find things on Google. However, as I don’t agree with all of their points, I thought I’d write about it here.

Firstly, the praising of the BBC Micro irritates the hell out of me. Did you have one during the 1980s? I didn’t. Nobody I know did. Schools had them. My primary school had one (for the entire school, kept on a trolley in the corridor for special occasions), and there was a couple lying around at secondary school for the first couple of years I was there. Nobody taught how to use them – just how to insert a disc and do shift-break-break-shift to load it.

Everyone I knew in the 80’s and into the early 90’s had either a Commodore 64, or one of the ZX Spectrum models. My older brother had a range of ZX Spectrums and eventually, just as they were starting to become unpopular, I got my ZX Spectrum+2. It came with a light gun and a copy of The Living Daylights. I couldn’t complete the first level, as either the game had a bug or the gun just didn’t work, but shooting produced no noticeable results. I never had another game that worked with the gun. Continue reading IT in schools →