What’s in a name?
At this week’s Naace Executive Meeting (of which I am Vice Chair), it was decided to recommend to members that the name of the association be changed from Naace to The ICT Association. An Extraordinary General Meeting will be held at the forthcoming Strategic Conference at the end of February to vote on this change.
Over the last year it has been increasingly obvious that despite the amalgamation of the various ICT associations into one body, the retention of a name from one of those associations, at best led to requests for clarification, at worst, mis-understandings over the role and function of the organisation. The proposed name change provides an opportunity both to offer clarity and inclusiveness, something that it is difficult to disagree with. It will be interesting to hear members views at the EGM in a month’s time.
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January 30th, 2007 at 1:13 am
Sounds like a good idea to me. The new name clearly embodies what it is about.
February 22nd, 2007 at 3:11 pm
I agree that anything is better than Naace, which means very little to anyone except a Naace member. But “ICT” as a term has similar problems. I’m sure most educationalists will know what it means - but to most children, parents and other interested “stakeholders” I would suggest it means the computing equipment and what they do with it in school.
I’m convinced that very few people outside of schools know that ICT means Information & Communications Technology - and even fewer have a grasp of what that phrase means.
I suppose you could argue that that is true of most of the subject associations. The problem for me is that generally they are concerned with the teaching of that subject per se. Whereas the appropriate use of ICT in schools is far, far wider in scope than just what you teach the children about it.