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Through Design And Technology, All Pupils Can Become Discriminating And ...

Through design and technology, all pupils can become discriminating and informed users of products and become innovators. (Moon, 2001:60)
The fact that design and technology has been transformed from a noncore to a core subject is in itself an important leap forward for the curriculum and for the knowledge economy in the education sector. Yet there is still much work to be done by the SEED in order to completely overhaul the educational culture in Scotland. Design and technology and the benefits of ICT methods of teaching must be introduced to primary as well as secondary sector contexts. An enterprise culture should be fostered in preteens in order to institutionalise the concept of a knowledge based education at an early age. A policy to remedy this is already underway in Scotland with an investment of £62 million secured to install a National Grid for Learning (that is connected by the information highway) in addition to an investment of £23 million in teacher training for the use of ICT in every Scottish classroom. The aim is for one in five secondary school children to have access to a modern computer and for one in every fifteen primary school children to have access to the same. In this way, the gap between primary and secondary sector learning in design and technology can begin to be reduced.
Without a doubt, ICT is the most important factor in bridging this gap and in making the design and technology curriculum relevant for the future as well as the present. ICT can revolutionise the Scottish knowledge economy by concentrating on the four key skills that pupils are expected to gain from Key Stage three and four: finding things out; developing ideas and making things happen; exchanging and sharing information; and reviewing, modifying and evaluating work as it progresses. The below table shows how ICT is being implemented to develop Scotland's knowledge economy via (specifically) the subject of design and technology (Leask, Litchfield and Younie, 2005:10):
Key skills
ICT Learning

Finding things out
Product surveys, consumer preferences, environmental data

Developing ideas
CAD, spreadsheet monitoring

Making things happen
CAM, simulations, textiles, embroidery, control

Exchanging and sharing information
Advertising, product design and realisation, multimedia/web presentation

Reviewing, modifying and evaluating
Industrial production, engineering/electronics


ICT can therefore offer a broad, challenging, progressive and inquisitive curriculum that can hone the technological, communicative and creative skills of all of the children in the classroom. The role of ICT teaching is even more important during Key Stage 4 when learning becomes even more skillspecific.


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