I.J. Modern Education and Computer Science, 2017, 1, 1-14 Published Online January 2017 in MECS (http://www.mecs-press.org/) DOI: 10.5815/ijmecs.2017.01.01 K-12 Curriculum Research: The Chicken and the Egg of Math-aided ICT Teaching Pia S. Niemelä Tampere University of Technology/Pervasive Computing, Tampere, Finland Email:
[email protected] Martti Helevirta Tampere, Finland Abstract—In this article, we examine the relationship in Index Terms—ICT curriculum comparison, computing K-12 education between Mathematics and Information fundamentals, variable, function, math-aided ICT, and Communication Technology (ICT). The topic is transfer, computational thinking reviewed from various angles, based on both a literature study and by directly contrasting the Finnish National Curriculum (FNC) of 2014 (effective since autumn 2016) I. INTRODUCTION with the National Curriculums of the UK (UKNC)[3] and Being able to handle a computer and the internet is not the US (USCC)[2]. only the new norm, but nowadays it is a new necessity. Finland has chosen a cross-curricular approach to Nearly all social and commercial enterprises now conduct developing the new curriculum for teaching ICT, which their business on-line, and the face-to-face meetings involves integrating it mainly with math, but also with which our parents went through in order to, for example, handicraft, and various other subjects. This is in direct pay a utility bill or even take out a bank loan are now rare. contrast to the UKNC, for example, which teaches ICT as Our society expects and needs every independent citizen its own field, to be taught through the Computing and to be able to function on the internet.