Proposed HNC/D Computing Frameworks
Information posted on the HN Review Blog on the latest versions of frameworks.
Software Development in Scotland
The Chairmain of Google, Eric Schmidt, delivered the MacTaggart Lecture in Edinburgh on Friday. He criticised British education in general but specifically the teaching of Computing: “Your IT curriculum focuses on teaching how to use software, but gives no insight into how it’s made.” Scotland has avoided that. Software development has always been a key part of the Scottish curriculum. At a time when computer science and programming was being reduced in the UK, the Higher Still programme protected “pure” computing,…
E-Assessment Scotland Conference 2011
I attended the E-Assessment Scotland Conference 2011 today at the University of Dundee. It was my first time at this event. I really enjoyed it. Although most attendees came from the university sector, the college sector was well represented, with 13 Scottish colleges in attendance. I didn’t see any school representatives on the list of attendees. It followed the usual conference template of keynote speakers and seminars and workshops. The keynotes were uniformly good. The first keynote – from Steve…
Qualifications Development Forum
The team work within the Qualifications Development directorate within SQA, and every year the whole directorate attend a forum event. There was an event yesterday afternoon, held in Glasgow. These events are a collection of workshops, from which each person chooses to attend three. I attended one about the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), another about research in assessment, and one on the design of qualifications. It was particularly interesting to catch up with what’s happening with CfE. This is an…
Follow us on Twitter
I mentioned in a post last week that I would write something about our use of Twitter. The team has been using Twitter for a year, and around 250 people now follow us. That’s not bad, but we would like it to be much higher. Twitter is a “micro-blog”, which means that it’s used for small messages. We use it for updates and other bits of information that we think you want to know. Not everything in this blog is…
Using the right unit specification
I spent most of this afternoon proof reading the annual reports from the Senior Verifiers for my subject areas. I’ll post something about these reports later, but one comment seems particularly appropriate at this time of the year. The Senior Verifier for Computing commented that “there were several instances of centres not using the latest versions of unit specifications”. It’s pretty fundamental that you are using the latest unit spec. You should download the current version of unit specifications from…
Following this blog
This blog has been around a long time, since 2004 to be precise. It has gradually built-up a pretty good readership, with around 100 visitors each day. The recent survey showed that it was the second most popular communication channel, after the SQA website. There are various ways to follow this blog. You can, of course, simply visit this web page from time to time. You can bookmark the URL (http://sqacomputing.blogspot.com/) and add it to your favourites. But that means that…
Communicating with centres
The recent satisfaction survey exposed two criticisms of the service we provide: (1) the way we recruit people to help us; and (2) the way we communicate with centres. I’ll say more about recruiment another day, but I would like to discuss communications today. The specific criticism about communications was that we use too many different ways of communicating with you, such as our website and Blogger and Twitter. A frequent comment was: “Why don’t you put everything in one…
Welcome back
Many lecturers and teachers return to school and college today to commence academic session 2011/12. Welcome back! We hope you have a good year. If you scroll through this blog, you’ll see what the team has been doing over the summer months. The main development has been the HN Review, which is reviewing five popular Higher National Qualifications. There was a little slippage in assigning unit writers but we are now pushing ahead. Internet Safety has went into a review…
Internet Safety review commences
I wrote in this blog in April that we were would review the Internet Safety qualification at some point in the coming financial year. Well, that review commenced this morning with the first meeting of the Qualification Development Team. The review is being led by Ted Hastings, who created the original award, which has been very well received by thousands of learners in schools and colleges since its introduction in 2006. SQA was the first awarding body in the UK, and…
Changes to HN Unit Specifications/Materials
The following changes have been made to HN materials over the summer break so please make sure that you have downloaded the most up-to-date versions before delivery (please refer to the History of Change section within the documents for more information on the reason for change): F1W0 34 Project Management for IT (update to HN Unit Specification)F1VV 34 User Interface Design (update to HN Unit Specification)F1VY 34 Manage Database Systems (update to HN Unit Specification and HN Exemplar) There have…
Using social media for teaching and learning
I came across 85 Resources: Educator Guide for Integrating Social Media today, which looks like an excellent resource for teachers who want to use social media. The site includes lots of useful links and resources for teachers.
About this Blog
The web log of the qualification team for Computing within SQA. Look out for news about Computing qualifications and related information.
