I met with Alan Hamilton, a GLOW Development Officer for LTS, this afternoon to discuss Internet safety resources available to schools via GLOW. Alan told me that there is a the dedicated GLOW group called Internet Safety and Responsible Use that every teacher is automatically subscribed to, and also two blogs relating to Internet safety, one about resources and one for teachers. I agreed to use the resource blog to link to the various SQA resources that support our Internet…
We met with Loraine Johnston, of James Watt College, this morning to discuss a new PDA linked to CIW. We currently have a PDA that links to CIW’s Foundations curriculum but we have been planning on extending links to include the CIW Site Designer award for some time. We asked Lorraine to do a mapping of existing units to the Site Designer course a few months ago. The results were mixed — some coverage but not 100%. So we decided…
There is a new facility available on the SQA website which tracks all changes made to exisiting HN Unit Specifications and any changes to existing Group Award structures across all subject areas. This could prove to be a useful tool for all practitioners looking to ensure they have the most up-to-date information. Click here to access.
The Internet Safety unit has been very popular in schools and colleges in Scotland — and across the UK. Infact it’s SQA’s most popular award in England. It was originally developed in 2006 as SQA’s first “paperless qualification” with digital teaching, learning and assessment materials — including SQA’s first course deliverable on a mobile phone. Thousands of young (and not so young) people have undertaken the qualification. Some schools offer it to every pupil in specific years (such as S2).…
The Group Award structures within each of the following HNC/D Arrangements documents have been updated and can be downloaded from the SQA website from 1st August 2010: 1. HNC/D Computer Games Development2. HNC Computing3. HND Computing: Technical Support4. HND Computing: Software Development5. HNC Information Technology6. HND Information Technology7. HNC Interactive Media8. HND Interactive Media9. HNC/D Computer Networking & Internet Technology
It can be confusing comparing qualifications from different awarding bodies and, especially, from different countries in the UK. A colleague sent me this useful leaflet this morning, which explains how the different frameworks relate to each other.Qualifications Can Cross Boundaries I thought that you might find it useful.
I attended the International Computer Assisted Assessment Conference today, in Southampton, where I presented a paper on the assessment of online writing. It was a good event with interesting keynote talks and presentations on a variety of topics such as the potential for wikis to assess collaborative writing, the barriers to the uptake of e-assessment, and selecting questions from an item bank. My own presentation was based on a recent paper I wrote about the challenges in assessing online writing such…
I was in London today to meet with representatives of CEOP, who we are working with on a new qualification relating to child protection called the PDA in Online Protection & Safeguarding of Children. This qualification is designed for teachers, police officers, social workers and others who work with children. As far as I know, it’s the first national qualification in this area in the world and, partly as a result of its innovative nature, it has been a long…
I received an e-mail this morning to inform me that the new units that were developed as part of the NPA in Computer Games Development (at SCQF 4, 5 and 6) are now available on the SQA website. These units are: F915 10 Computer Games: Design (SCQF 4/Intermediate 1) F916 10 Computer Games: Media Assets (SCQF 4/Intermediate 1) F917 10 Computer Games: Development (SCQF 4/Intermediate 1) F915 11 Computer Games: Design (SCQF 5/Intermediate 2) F916 11 Computer Games: Media Assets…
The UK’s Digital Champion, Martha Lane Fox, recently published a report on the use of the Internet in the UK. The Manifesto for a Networked Nation makes interesting reading. Her manifesto is simple: by the end of the current parliament, everyone of working age should be online and no-one should retire without web skills. She points out the size of the challenge – 10 million adults in the UK have never used the Internet. These are primarily the socially disadvantaged…
Online services provide a great way to communicate and collaborate with people, and I’ve recently been working on ways SQA can use web services when we develop new qualifications. I came up with this diagram. It shows how services such as blogs, wikis, online storage and e-groups can be used during the qualification development process. I’ll resist calling it “Qualifications Development 2.0”! I hope to use this approach when we develop the revised HN awards in Computing and Networking. If…
The details for this year’s Scottish Learning Festival were recently published and the programme includes a seminar dedicated to the new NPAs in Computer Games Development. The lead developer (Julie McLaren of Madras College) will be leading the event. I hope you chose to come along and find out more about these new awards. You can sign-up for Julie’s seminar here. In the meantime, contact Hilary if you want to know more about these new awards.
I met with David McDade, of Stow College, this afternoon to discuss a proposal for a new HN award. SQA’s procedures permit centres to come forward with ideas for new awards – and I thought Stow’s idea was a good one. The process is very simple. Basically, the centre notifies SQA about the idea, fills in a form, and then gets on with developing the award. Most centres have devolved responsibility for validating SQA awards, although SQA has to validate…
I updated the team organisation chart today. Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io Please download and print this document and use it when contacting SQA.
SQA has had formal links with Oracle for several years. Oracle has recently updated their Certified Associate curriculum (from 10G to 11G) and requested that we update the links to reflect this change. Our links with Oracle involve college and school programmes. I met with Willie McCabe (of James Watt College) and Wendy Reith (of Royal High School) this afternoon to discuss how we should deal with the changes. On the college side, we agreed to update the PDA in Database Programming (at…
I recently mentioned that the units within the new NPAs in Computer Games had been finalised but I didn’t mention that these units would also be included in the NC Digital Media Computing frameworks. I have still to think through exactly what will go where, but it is (highly) likely that the units (and the associated NPAs) will be put inside the appropriate NC awards. For example, the NC award at Level 4 will include the NPA Computer Games Development…
We recently developed three new NPAs relating to computer games, entitled NPA in Computer Games Development at SCQF 4, 5 and 6. I spent most of Friday doing final checks on the units that make up these awards. The original proposal was a single award (at Level 4) composed of existing units but, after consultation, this changed significantly – to three awards consisting of entirely new units. So what was originally a small development became quite a large project. But…
I attended the launch of Getting British Business Online (GBBO) on Tuesday evening, which was held at the Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh. This initiative aims to get 100,000 new businesses online by the end of this year and is supported by Google, BT, and E-Skills among others. It’s a really attractive initiative since it provides small businesses with a free website (with a personalised domain name), including online payment facilities. Around 250 people attended the event. Mostly small (one or…