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upskilling short courses at glasgow caley uni

Glasgow Caledonian University: Upskilling Short Courses

GCU is offering around 250 fully-funded places on individual modules or short courses to help fill a skills gap in the Scottish economy.

The upskilling scholarship opportunities are designed to further develop the knowledge of those working in or seeking to enter, the financial services industry, cyber security, data, renewable energy and virology.

Candidates will become registered GCU students and will work towards achieving modules with portable academic credit via online study.

Supported by the Scottish Funding Council and the National Transition Training Fund, the upskilling scholarships are available to anyone over 24 who is resident in Scotland.

For more information and to view the full range of opportunities, access the links in the comments below.

 

Upskilling Short Course Links

AI Machine Learning short course scholarship

https://www.gcu.ac.uk/study/aimachinelearningscholarship/

 

Bank Operational Risk Management CPD Scholarship

https://www.gcu.ac.uk/study/bankoperationalriskmanagementcpdscholarship/

 

Climate Change and Carbon Management CPD Scholarship

https://www.gcu.ac.uk/study/climatechangeandcarbonmanagementscholarship/

 

Cyber Security Short Course Scholarship

https://www.gcu.ac.uk/study/cybersecurityscholarship/

 

Data Analytics and AI Machine Learning CPD Scholarship

https://www.gcu.ac.uk/study/dataanalyticsandaimachinelearningcpd/

 

Data Science Short Course Scholarship

https://www.gcu.ac.uk/study/datasciencescholarship/

 

Distributed Instrumentation Maintenance Aware Design

https://www.gcu.ac.uk/study/maintenanceawaredesignscholarship/

 

Financial Risk Modelling

https://www.gcu.ac.uk/study/financialriskmodellingscholarship/

 

Financial Services Regulations CPD Scholarship

https://www.gcu.ac.uk/study/financialservicesregulationscpdscholarship/

 

Renewable Energy Technologies CPD Scholarship

https://www.gcu.ac.uk/study/renewableenergytechnologiescpdscholarship/

 

Virology Short Course Scholarship

https://www.gcu.ac.uk/study/virologyscholarship/

 

promoting effective computing pedagogy

Promoting Effective Computing Science Pedagogy – The National Centre for Computing Education

The National Centre for Computing Education (NCCE) have created 12 pedagogy principles for teaching computing science.   

 

You can download a handy classroom poster featuring all 12 pedagogical principles, to act as a quick reminder for busy teachers. 

 

The National Centre for Computing Education promotes effective pedagogy in a number of ways 

micro:bit

micro:bit

Every primary and secondary school in Scotland will receive 20 V2 micro:bits.  The roll out of these devices started in April 2022.  Read more about the roll out here. 

The micro:bit Educational Foundation (@microbit_edu) is a UK-based not for profit organisation with a mission to ‘inspire every child to create their best digital future’.  The foundation helps children participate in the digital world, with particular focus on girls and those from disadvantaged groups. We work in collaboration with educators to create and curate exceptional curriculum materials, training programmes, classroom tools and free resources.

The micro:bit is a very small but functional computer. It has a range of inputs, outputs and sensors built-in. It can be programmed using blocks of code or JavaScript text-based code (you can even write your code in one format and convert it to the other!) on the Microsoft MakeCode site.

Programmable devices can be an excellent way to engage learners with a hands-on experience of coding, which is an abstract concept.

Here is an example of a micro:bit in action:

This is the front view of the original micro:bit (v1)t

This is the back view of the original micro:bit (v1)

This is the front view of the new micro:bit (v2)

This is the back view of the new micro:bit (v2)

micro:bit across the curriculum

other micro:bit posts

The Micro:bit Educational Foundation are looking for primary school (second level) teachers from Scotland to take part in a piece of research about their experiences… Read more

PASSWORD GENERATOR MICROBIT LESSON

micro:bit have created this series of three lessons (designed for learners aged 11-14 years) to introduce cyber security. Learners explore the need to create strong… Read more

Microsoft MakeCode for micro:bit This site from Microsoft offers projects to get you started with your micro:bit computer – it also has an online micro:bit… Read more

Running an Esports Club – British Esports Association

Esports (or electronic sports) is a term used to describe competitive video gaming. With 81% of children playing video games online nowadays, games are arguably a larger part of their lives than ever before.

The British Esports Association (BEA) is a not-for-profit national body established in 2016 to promote esports in the UK, increase its level of awareness, improve standards and inspire future talent. As a national body, their aims are to support esports and provide expertise and advice.

They help to educate parents, teachers, media, policy makers and government around what esports is and what its benefits are. BEA aim to:

 

  • Promote esports in the UK and increase its level of awareness
  • Improve the standard of UK esports
  • Inspire future talent

There has been lots of work with colleges in Scotland so far but the BEA are keen to support more schools setup, deliver and develop esports clubs for children and young people. Running an esports club is about more than playing games, there is the setup of equipment, recruitment of friends and peers, and all the digital literacy required to produce videos of their games. In fact, capturing gameplay can become a whole production with sounds, graphics and video editing going on to showcase their gaming skills.

 

Find out more about esports and the British Esports Association with these links:
British Esports Student Champs
Student Champs Resources
Esports in Education Conference
Glasgow Clyde Case Study
British Esports Champs 2021 Aftermovie
Forth Valley College Division 2 Rocket League Interview
Scottish College Cup
Diversity and Inclusion of Esports

Esports Parents and Carers Guide with NSPCC and British Esports Association

The British Esports Association (@British_Esports) has developed a new Parent & Carers Guide in collaboration with the NSPCC, which aims to educate parents and carers about esports and online safety.

This guide has been created to provide information to help parents understand more about the esports industry.

The contents of the guide include:

  • Information about the British Esports Student Champs
  • Benefits of esports
  • Esports in education
  • Academic pathways
  • Inclusivity and diversity in esports
  • How you can get involved with your child
  • Parents testimonials
  • Online safety

 

Tom Dore, Head of Education at British Esports Association, said:

“At British Esports we’re helping to establish industry standards for safeguarding and keeping young people safe online. Developing the Parent & Carers guide in collaboration with NSPCC has allowed us to celebrate many of the positives around esports, and also highlight important issues around safeguarding and online safety.

It is crucial as an industry that we’re doing everything we can to keep young people safe while participating in esports. We should look to traditional sport, and other established industries, to learn from their ongoing work. British Esports strongly encourages all stakeholders in the esports industry to scrutinise their own practise around their work with young people and prioritise safeguarding and online safety throughout their organisations.’

 

Find out more about the guide

 

View the guide

micro:bit Educational Research

The Micro:bit Educational Foundation are looking for primary school (second level) teachers from Scotland to take part in a piece of research about their experiences in primary education and the teaching of digital skills.

Teachers who take part will be entered in to a prize draw with multiple prizes of £50 and £100 and a top prize of £500 to be won!

 

The research will help inform a programme of activity, delivered by the Micro:bit Educational Foundation, to support UK primary school teachers teaching digital skills, including free CLPL and classroom resources. Your input in to the research is crucial to ensure the programme gives teachers across Scotland the support they really need.

We are looking to recruit teachers who are willing to take part in a short (10 min) online survey in late September/early Oct 2021 and then again in December 2022 (estimated date) and June 2023 (estimated date).

 

It’s important that we hear from teachers across the UK and so your contribution to the research will be extremely valued.  We want the views of teachers across UK, so make sure Scotland is represented.

Sign up here: https://form.jotform.com/212093636436052

BINARY: UNDERSTANDING HOW COMPUTERS WORK AND CHALLENGE IN NUMERACY

Computers are mathematical machines that operate on digital information, meaning the information is either ‘off’ or ‘on’. This is represented in computing with the binary number system, which only uses 0 and 1. These binary digits are called bits in computing. 

So, in computing 0 = off and 1 = on. This allows computers to use a series of ‘switches’ to make decisions based on a series of logical decisions (this is what a computer programme or ‘code’ is).  

These pages explore and explain binary further: 
What is digital data? – BBC Bitesize 

Binary Number System (mathsisfun.com) 

Beyond Programming: Binary (code.org) 

How computers see the world – Binary – KS3 Computer Science Revision – BBC Bitesize 

 

This could be explored from as early as First Level, MTH 1-12a states that learners should have ‘discussed the important part that numbers play in the world and explored a variety of systems that have been used by civilisations throughout history to record numbers.’  

CS Unplugged has 6 great activities to introduce the binary system to young learners. 

 

Everything on a computer is represented by binary, including images. Every image is created on a grid with each box on it called a pixel. Every pixel is either ‘off’ or ‘on’ and represented as 0 or 1. Once learners are confident with this concept you can even get them to calculate the size of larger binary pictures or coloured images – this involves multiples and conversion of units (every 8 bits is converted to a byte!) 

These are some fun unplugged activities to introduce learners to binary representation of images:
How do digital images work? – BBC Bitesize 

Colour by numbers – CS Unplugged 

Binary Images (code.org) 

 

If you are working with more confident learners, you might want to explore this even further. When the computer uses binary to ‘make decisions’ it is using Boolean logic, which is a form of algebra. Boolean statements are either ‘false’ or ‘true’ – that is they either meet a parameter or value, or they do not. In computing this is represented by binary, so FALSE = 0 and TRUE = 1. 

Using Boolean logic in programming – Boolean logic – KS3 Computer Science Revision – BBC Bitesize 

 

Famous mathematicians involved in computing: 

The modern binary number system was developed by Gottfried Leibniz in the 17th century.
Boolean logic was developed by George Boole, a 19th century mathematician. 

Ada Lovelace invented the first computer programme in the 19th century. 

Alan Turing was a mathematician who used one of the first ever computers, called Colossus, to crack the German communications code during WWII, and helping the Allies end the war.
 

USING COMPUTING SCIENCE TO TEACH PROBLEM SOLVING

Computers are mathematical devices, it’s as simple as that. The first computers were built by mathematicians (and still are, although they are now called computing scientists). One of the first ‘computers’ was designed by Charles Babbage to perform complex calculations. They have developed unimaginably since then, but computers still work on mathematical and logical principles. So, to understand computers and computing requires numeracy and maths.  

Understanding how computers use the information we give them helps us understand how to use computers to solve problems. This is called computational thinking and is an important skillset to learn in computing. In Scotland we promote the Barefoot computational thinking skills: 

  • Predicting and analysing 
  • Making judgements 
  • Making steps and rules 
  • Spotting and using similarities 
  • Breaking down into parts 
  • Removing unnecessary details 

Barefoot Computing Information and Posters | STEM

Computational thinking is a problem-solving strategy that can be effective in the numeracy and mathematics classroom. These are some resources that can be engaging ang challenging when developing problem solving or computational thinking skills: 

Barefoot 

Barefoot provides a wide selection of activities to develop computational thinking in your setting, as well as posters and information to support your own understanding. These are some of the Barefoot Maths activities. You will need to signup (for free) to access:

Bebras 

Bebras runs an annual challenge to test across the UK, with over 200 Scottish schools registered. You can test yourself with last year’s Bebras Challenge or register (for free) and test yourself on challenges all the way back to 2013. Bebras offers challenges for a range of age groups:

CS Unplugged 

CS Unplugged offers a range of units to develop computational thinking and problem solving. Some of these range from magic tricks to understanding the binary number system:

Let us know how you get on with any of these resources on twitter @DigiLearnScot or  SHARE YOUR STORY

It might also be worth considering the PRIMM (predict, run, investigate, modify, make) approach to solving problems, and coding, alongside computational thinking skills.