I am the Qualifications Officer for vocational Computing awards and have been with SQA since 2010. Non-advanced qualifications at SCQF levels 3 – 6, such as National Certificates, National Progression Awards and National Units for Computing, fall within my portfolio. I also look after Scottish Vocational Qualifications for Computing. I am currently coordinating a number of NPA developments including NPA Digital Literacy (SCQF Level 3), NPA Computer Refurbishment (SCQF Level 4), NPA PC Passport (SCQF Levels 4, 5 and 6)…
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We’re in the middle of lots of developments right now. Helen is co-ordinating a number of NPA developments including NPA Digital Literacy (SCQF Level 3), NPA Computer Refurbishment (SCQF Level 4), NPA PC Passport (SCQF Levels 4, 5 and 6) and NPA Cyber Security (SCQF Levels 4, 5 and 6). Caroline is co-ordinating the development of HNC/D Information Technology, HNC/D Computer Games Development, HNC/D Interactive Media, and a new general purpose HN Unit (Digital Skills at SCQF Level 7). There…
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A big change for the new blog is that it will have contributors from all of the Computing teams within SQA — the school team, the vocational team, and the CfE team. That’s an important change and reflects SQA’s thinking about education. It seems like a good idea for each of the contributors to introduce ourselves. So I will start today. I am the Qualifications Manager for vocational Computing awards. I’ve been with SQA since 2000 when I was responsible for school and…
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Welcome to the new home for the Computing blog. We’ve moved from Blogger to WordPress. SQA is rolling out new blogs for a range of subjects. Computing is the first one to go live but the others will follow in the next few weeks. The new Computing blog will include contributors from all sectors — not just the vocational team. So look out for contributions from the school and CfE teams. That means that the blog will cover all types…
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This blog has been going since 2004 and, over time, I think, it has proven to be a success, with around 100 unique readers per day. It’s become an important source of regular information to centres about vocational Computing qualifications. SQA wants to make greater use of social media, and we think subject-based blogs, like this one, are a good way of doing that. So, we are extending the blogs to 10 subject areas (including Computing). We’re going to use…
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I recently mentioned that I planned to put together some advice about how computational thinking could be included within vocational Computing awards. I’ve now done that. The advice has been given to Qualification Development Teams so that it can be considered when they are devising awards. Good practical skills require good under-pinning knowledge, and computational thinking ensures that skills can be transferred from one technology to another, which is vitally important in the computing sector.
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Some time ago, I tried to set up a page on Facebook for SQA Computing. It didn’t work. The main problem was that it tried to link my social (real) profile with this (work) page. And, as you know, Facebook doesn’t like people to have more than one account (on the basis that there is only one “real” you). I attended a Microsoft event last week, part of which focussed on “corporate social networks”. Microsoft’s offering is Yammer. Facebook is…
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The QDT for PC Passport visited the Microsoft offices in Edinburgh yesterday. Microsoft had kindly invited the team to look at the latest version of Microsoft Office (Office 365) and I was pleased to accept the invitation. PC Passport aims to cover the same territory as Office 365 — word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and databases. I was keen that the revised award is fully compatible with the latest version of the suite. It was an interesting afternoon. Office 365 has…
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The Qualification Support Team (QST) for vocational Computing qualifications met on 19th March in the SQA Glasgow Office. This was a combined meeting to cover both Advanced (HN/PDA) and Non-advanced (NPA/NC/NU) qualifications. The QST discussed the proposals from the SQA centres and the following changes to the existing qualifications have been approved: Add F3GB11 Communication and F3GF 11 Numeracy to GC8R 45 NC Computer Games Development as optional units Add H17W 34 Software Development: Developing Small Scale Standalone Applications as an optional unit…
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The Qualification Development Team (QDT) for the NPA in Digital Literacy met for the second time last Thursday. We had already agreed the structure of the award so the purpose of this meeting was the discuss the contents of the component units. We’ve made a lot of changes to the old award, which focussed on IT, numeracy and communications. The updated award has more of a focus on computing skills, and includes social media and online safety. We made considerable…
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