One thing I had drummed into me in my UK ICT education (admittedly 15 years ago and it wasn't called ICT then) was that we were aiming at fulfilling client desires; that we shouldn't just go off and produce something cool, if it wasn't of use to the described and defined end user (who we had a great amount of freedom to select) and we couldn't objectively justify our development approach, it wasn't good enough.
Now, I can't say I object to a marking scheme that requires students to learn to develop what is useful and efficient rather than just what is cool...
I would much rather kids make stuff that is cool, rather than stuff that is useful. They have 60 years after they leave school to make useful stuff (probably for other people).
There was a strong software engineering and project management streak to the course when I was on it; you were taught that code was written for a purpose and for an end user, and that you should be aiming at that target. You could have written a game or a graphics demo if you could have justified it, but you had to actually produce what you could argue somebody wanted.
Frankly, for a relatively vocational course, I think that was the right balance. If they want to play then let them but teach them the discipline of producing to a spec too.
I agree with you 100%, and from an educational and learning theory perspective that's the way to go. Something that is engaging, interesting, exciting and cool is highly motivating and therefore has a much greater chance of being able to "sneak in" the learning while the kids think they're just having a bit of fun.
Unfortunately, that's now how it works in England. It's completely bass-ackwards and all performance and learning has to be measured so that it can be inspected, compared to others' and reported on.
Unless there is a political "sea change" in England with respect to this issue, your "preference" is worthless. Edexcel, is a private publisher who writes the exams, and sells the textbooks and makes millions of pounds a year on the system as is. Inspection and Regulation can be billed at a tremendous markup and it pays for a lot of lobbyists.
Unions in England were broken by Thatcher, so the 3 (4?) teacher's unions (yes, plural) are powerless to lobby against the system ... in a brilliant case of divide and conquer, they spend as much time arguing amongst themselves as lobbying for teacher's right to be trusted.
The office of inspection of schools has a motto of something like "Better education through inspection" ... how disjointed is that? Not through "instruction" or "enjoyment" or "making cool stuff" but "inspection"
Sorry ... your preference is irrelevant.
I feel very passionately about that, every day they're failing their children and they can do so much better.
It's a large part of the reason I've quit teaching but, Que Sera right?
Now, I can't say I object to a marking scheme that requires students to learn to develop what is useful and efficient rather than just what is cool...