Well done to Tony Gurney and his team for winning the IBM competition to design a poster for IBM System i. The competition was lauched by IBM last October and finished on the 31st December 2007. The winners each receive a 4GB iPod Nano.
Read moreRead more about Congratulations to Ayr CollegeThere have been a couple of tweaks made to the above Units (Computing: PC Hardware and Operating Systems Essentials & Computing: PC Hardware and Operating Systems Support) and both units are now identified as Version 02. The changes made to both Units are as follows: Change of wording from Restricted Response Test to Multiple Choice Test within Assessment Guideline sections. Change made to suggested time allocation. This now states 80 minutes for Multiple Choice Test rather that 90 minutes (5…
Read moreRead more about F1XA 34 & F1X9 34 Computing: PC Hardware and Operating Systems Essentials/SupportI’ve had some feedback about access problems with Blogger. It appears that many colleges and local authorities have blocked the blogspot.com domain name – which means that many people can’t access this blog (at work). So I’ve created a small survey to ask if you can access Blogger and, if not, if you can access a popular alternative (WordPress). Interestingly, SQA blocks Blogger but not WordPress. I appreciate that if you can read this message then you can access Blogger…
Read moreRead more about Access problems to blogThe Graded Unit exam exemplars have now been finalised and are with our Support Materials Department for publishing. We have produced the following: DH36 34 Computing: Graded Unit 1 Exemplar (3 versions)DE36 34 Interactive Multimedia Creation: Graded Unit 1 Exemplar (3 versions)DV6D 34 Information Technology: Graded Unit 1 Exemplar (3 versions) These will be in addition to the exisiting exemplars available on the SQA secure website bringing a total of six graded unit exemplars per subject (ie DV6D 34 Information…
Read moreRead more about Exam Exemplars – 2008Today saw the final work-based pack for PC Passport: Advanced added to the SQA Secure website. This now completes the full suite of ASPs available to support the award at Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced levels. Access to these materials are through the SQA Co-ordinator within your centre.
Read moreRead more about PC Passport Assessment Support Packs (ASPs)I met with Jane Richardson of Oracle this morning to discuss developments relating to SQA’s links with Oracle. We have two on-going developments: one relating to NQ (their Database Design course maps onto the Information Systems course at AH level) and one relating to HN (the Database Design course provides credit transfer to several HN units). Oracle has recently updated it’s Oracle Academy programme, which now includes several qualifications. The one that we’re interested in is called Introduction to Computer…
Read moreRead more about Oracle AcademyI attended the second meeting of this group yesterday morning at Jordanhill Campus of the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. The group is looking at ways of stimulating the interest in Computing and related subjects in schools to address the significant decline in numbers in Higher Education. It was a productive meeting with a number of concrete proposals coming out of it. We agreed to carry out a survey to get some hard evidence about the issue and also to…
Read moreRead more about Computing Education Steering GroupSome time ago, I mentioned that I would create a blog to record the development of the new HND Interactive Media qualification. The blog is now available. Please visit the blog and bookmark the URL so that you can visit from time to time and keep up-to-date with developments. Although I will occasionally write to centres, the blog provides a great way of finding out (and contributing to) what’s going on since SQA staff and the development team (once selected)…
Read moreRead more about HND Internative Media blog is now availableEvery police cadet in Strathclyde is currently undertaking SQA’s Internet Safety award and this morning I met with Rob Hay of Strathclyde Police and Steve Lamb of James Watt College to check on progress. Things seem to be going well. Sixty-four cadets are currently doing the unit and progress appears to be good. The cadets are distributed across nine areas within Strathclyde so we’re making extensive use of e-learning and e-assessment. You can get more information about this project (or…
Read moreRead more about Internet safety and police cadetsThis morning I met with a few college representatives who are interested in developing a new qualification that links with IBM’s System I curriculum. This project has been on the go for some time but, due to a number of factors, has never got off the ground. It now seems that we can progress things. We explored a number of options – including the development of a new HN unit that will map on to the corresponding IBM award, permitting…
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