I attended the Ofcom Scotland Stakeholder Event on Tuesday 15th September 2015. It was an interesting seminar with a wide and varied audience, but the focus was primarily on digital participation amongst the general population in Scotland compared with the UK. James Thickett and Vicki Nash from Ofcom presented some interesting data from the annual Communications Marketing Report (CMR); highlights included: 64% of adults (over the age of 16) have a smart phone; smartphones have overtaken laptops as the most…
SQA recently launched Ushare, a free online community where users can rate, comment on and share links to open-source learning and teaching materials. Ushare allows students, teachers, lecturers and other education professionals to share links to relevant resources, such as articles and videos, presentations and research that assist with the delivery and study of a number of SQA qualifications and awards. Users can create a profile, share a link to a resource they think is useful, or rate or comment…
According to the Scottish Household Survey published in August 2015 eighty per cent of Scottish households have internet access at home, an increase of almost 40% from a decade ago. More people are using mobile devices (compared to laptops and computers) across a wide range of ages and socio-economic groups. However, around one in five adults do not use the internet at all. The main reason given is that they don’t like or need the internet or technology. But there…
I attended a Digital Leaders salon at Glasgow University last week. These are free monthly events that anyone interested in digital can attend. The speakers were Kate Farrell, a former Computing Science teacher who is now Education Manager for Scotland, Computing at School. Kate talked about teaching and training Computing Science teachers, and a 6th year pupil from Williamwood High School related her personal experience of the delivery of IT at her own school. There followed a good-natured and respectful discussion of some differing…
One of the recommendations of the Scottish Government’s Digital Participation Charter is to encourage and support staff to become digital champions and share their digital skills with others. In an earlier blog post I mentioned that SQA is committed to volunteering as a key part of our Corporate Social Responsibility strategy. Our employees are able to spend 21 hours a year on volunteering activities that help our communities and the development of digital skills in communities fits perfectly with themes of social…
The opinions expressed here are the personal opinions of the SQA Digital Skills team. Content published here is not read or approved by SQA before it is posted and does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of SQA.
The opinions expressed here are the personal opinions of the SQA Digital Skills team. Content published here is not read or approved by SQA before it is posted and does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of SQA.
