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…

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.

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…