Computing & IT Subject Network event

Scotland's College's organised a full day event at the City of Glasgow College to provide an IT Subject Network Conference. These events run annually and are popular with college lecturers.

There was an excellent turn-out, with more than 70 people attending. John Connell gave the keynote talk, discussing changes in education, specifically those brought on by changes in technology. John is passionate about the need for education to modernise.

This was followed by a presentation from me and Gerry Mackie about the on-going review of HNC/D Computing and HNC/D Computer Networking. My presentation focussed on how qualifications are developed.

View more presentations from bobbyelliott.

Gerry talked about how the new qualifications are shaping up and the tasks that lie ahead.

I pointed out that the new awards should be validated at the end of 2010 and available to centres from early 2012.

The day also included a number of workshops, many based around recent SQA developments such as the new NC in Computer Games Development, led by Fiona Jackson of Forth Valley College. Korima Audish, of Kilmarnock College, gave the presentation.

and the new NPA in Mobile Technology, led by Jim Kriegar of Anniesland College.

I thought that the event was excellent and it was good to see SQA developments play such a central role to the event.

Contact Gerry Dougan for more information about Scotland's Colleges.

Survey is closed

I closed the survey this morning. There was a fantastic response, with 133 people taking the time to complete the questionnaire. There was a great response from FE and a reasonable response from HE, but not many employers completed it, so we will have to try to engage with them in another way.

The responses were overwhelmingly supportive of the QDT proposals so we will certainly proceed on the basis of the current proposals. That means that we will develop the five proposed awards, and that the aims and objectives of each qualification are about right.

I don't plan to publish the results of the survey since it is one part of the larger, on-going consultation process with the sector that Gerry has been leading. Gerry will produce a consultation report, which will include the results from this survey, in the near future.

So, we are now in a position to finalise the qualification frameworks. We'll share the frameworks with you (via this blog) as soon as they are ready.

Once we have done that we can identify the new and revised units. And once we have done that, we will be looking for people to write the units between now (June) and September. Look out for invitations on this blog.

Contact Caroline if you want to see the qualification frameworks.