I’ve mentioned previously that we had almost established the lead person network (LPN) for colleges, well I’m pleased to say that the network is now complete. We now have a Computing contact person for each college. The SQA Computing team has been using online mailing lists and online groups for a long time, but the recent re-organisation of colleges in Scotland meant that these groups were out of date, so we have been working on getting a lead person for…
I attended the annual Computing at School Scotland event on Saturday, held at Napier University. Computing at School is a UK-wide organisation that aims to promote the teaching of Computing in schools. It is supported by BCS, Microsoft and Google. Saturday’s event was the usual interesting mix of talks and workshops. The keynote was given by Elizabeth Montgomery (HMIe) about the importance of computer science to the UK economy. A couple of the workshops related directly to SQA, including one…
In the recent HN Update letter to centres, you were informed that we were in the process of discussing plans for the forthcoming meeting of Heads of Computing. The annual event will take place on Friday 30th January 2015 at 1000 hours (Registration from 0930 hours) in the Stirling Highland Hotel, Spittal Street, Stirling FK8 1DU. The event will cover current and future curricular developments as well as a number of spotlight items of interest to the field. Places are…
SQA was the first awarding body in the UK to offer qualifications in computer games when we introduced the HNC/D Computer Games Development in 2005. We revised that award in 2009, and it is now due to be reviewed again. I met with Gill Flockart, of Dundee & Angus College, this afternoon to discuss the possible changes required to the existing award. Gill is going to scope the likely changes. She will consult widely during the scoping process to discover…
Both PC Passport and NPA Digital Literacy are being reviewed during the current year. In fact, PC Passport was meant to be reviewed last year but, instead, we forked the development to create Digital Passport. We now want to turn our attention back to PC Passport. I intend to organise two “pre-QDT” meetings to discuss how to take each of these developments forward. These meetings would be wide-ranging discussions on what, if any, changes need to be made to these…
We’ve just about got a lead person for each new college. We have lead contacts for 17 of the 19 Scottish colleges, and we hope to have a “complete set” in the near future. I’ve created a private group for the lead people so that we can easily communicate and share information. This lead person network will not replace the usual channels of communications, such as this blog and my annual update letters, but it does provide me with a…
As you may know, this award is due to be reviewed this year. The current award was introduced in 2007. I plan to convene a meeting of centres, with an interest in this award, in the coming weeks to decide the best way to progress this development. There are a number of options including leaving it as it is (but updating its contents) and bringing it into the Digital Passport family of awards. Please contact Liz if you are interested…
There are a series of Christmas lectures on cyber security coming up in various places around Scotland. I attended last year’s event in Glasgow, which was great fun, so I can highly recommend it. Tickets are available now. The events are organised by Martin Beaton of SICSA. SQA is currently considering the development of a number of qualifications in this area. Contact Liz for more information about our plans.
The annual Heads of Computing event will take place on Friday, 30 January in either Stirling or Edinburgh. I haven’t worked out a detailed agenda yet, and we’re not sure about the venue at this time, but please add that date to your diary. These events have been running for around 20 years now, and they are always well received. The event will follow the usual format, beginning with a keynote speaker and including updates about what’s been developed, what we’re currently…
I’ve mentioned previously that I am trying to identify a lead person from each college to act as the main point of contact between my team and each college. This person will be a subject specialist. Around half the colleges have now responded. I’ve asked Liz to contact the other colleges to get a name. So, if your college hasn’t responded yet, except a call from Liz. Once I have a designated person for each college, they will be invited…
I recently updated the FAQ for this new qualification. We are pilotting this award during the current session. A number of schools, colleges, training providers and third sector organisations have joined the pilot. It’s not too late to participate. The pilot runs from August 2014 to June 2015, and you can join (or leave) at any time. The component units are available (to all centres) now but only designated centres can offer the group award. You can find out more…
I updated my qualification portfolio diagram this morning. There are one or two minor changes (corrections) but no additions. It’s worth noting the qualifications in bold (these are new and you may not be aware of them) and the qualifications in italics (these are currently being revised). Here are the awards that we are presently revising: NPA Digital Literacy (SCQF Level 3) PC Passport (SCQF Levels 4, 5 and 6) HNC/D Interative Media HNC/D Information Technology HNC/D Computer Games Development.…
As you know, we’ve been developing a couple of Higher National Units in the area of big data for a few months. They are: Big Data (SCQF Level 7) Data Science (SCQF Level 8). They’re almost complete now. The Big Data unit is complete, and is currently going through vetting, so I would be interested in your comments on it. Both units will be available to centres from January. The Level 7 unit will be added to HNC Computing, and…
The External Verifiers (EVs) for my subject area met on Saturday for their annual update meeting. The Senior EV (David Drennan) leads the event. The meeting took place in the SQA offices in Glasgow. There have been a few changes to the team. For one thing, there are now more women on the team than men, which is a first for the Computing EV team. When I was an EV in the 1990’s, if I remember correctly, there wasn’t a…
