{"id":8991,"date":"2014-07-30T11:43:47","date_gmt":"2014-07-30T10:43:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/eslb\/?p=8991"},"modified":"2014-07-30T11:43:47","modified_gmt":"2014-07-30T10:43:47","slug":"education-scotland-higher-computing-science-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/dyw20\/2014\/07\/30\/education-scotland-higher-computing-science-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"Education Scotland Higher Computing Science Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Higher Computing Science\u00a0 &#8211; <\/strong><strong>Conference Report<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Background information<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Education Scotland held a conference on Thursday 29 May 2014 as part of the ongoing support of the new national qualifications.\u00a0 The need for this national event became clear following a series of meetings early in 2014 between the Technologies team at Education Scotland and the following local authorities:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>North Lanarkshire<\/li>\n<li>East Ayrshire<\/li>\n<li>West Dunbartonshire<\/li>\n<li>South Lanarkshire<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Discussion with the local authority representatives focused mainly on the implications of moving from 2 Higher Grade courses in this area of the curriculum to one new higher.\u00a0 The opportunity to up-date the content was quite rightly taken.\u00a0 However this has resulted in a significant amount of new content which has resulted in practitioners being uneasy about their ability to deliver the subject content for this new qualification.\u00a0 In order to evaluate the scale of the difficulties Education Scotland established a Short Life Working group for Computing Science to discuss the best ways to address the issues that were being highlighted.\u00a0 This resulted in two main areas of activity<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u2018crowd sourcing\u2019 of support materials<\/li>\n<li>organising and planning a national conference.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0The main aims of the conference were to<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Examine a range of appropriate approaches to learning and teaching<\/li>\n<li>Exemplify a significant amount of new course content<\/li>\n<li>Continue to build a successful learning community for computing science<\/li>\n<li>Examine other areas for development to be addressed over the next academic year<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0<strong>Conference organisation and delivery<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The programme for the event was a mix of keynote presentations and workshop sessions. \u00a0Gerry Docherty set the scene for the conference.\u00a0 He is currently Chief Executive of Smarter Grid Solutions a fast-growing company, with operational bases in Glasgow, London and New York. \u00a0He leads on the implementation of the ICT and Digital Technologies Skills Investment Plan.\u00a0 This plan makes explicit the need for developing skills in this key area of the Scottish economy.\u00a0\u00a0 It also makes clear connections to the industry working much more closely with the education sector.\u00a0 From an education perspective, Education Scotland see this report as being a powerful driver behind the support we are going to be giving this area of the curriculum over the next year or two.\u00a0 Gerry did a tremendous job setting the scene for the conference and many of the issues he raised in the morning were discussed again in the closing plenary.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Peter Donaldson set the scene for the afternoon sessions by outlining the aims and objective of PLAN C (Professional Learning and Networking for Computing).\u00a0 He explained that the Core PLAN C team are connected to 50 lead teachers who are then connected to a further 10-25 teachers in their local area with industry, HE and FE encouraged to link in taking a more strategic approach to supporting work in this area of the curriculum.<\/p>\n<p>The workshops were delivered by 9 practitioners identified by the Computing Science Working Group and delegates were able to attend 3 workshops over the course of the day.\u00a0 It was planned that each of these workshops would focus on learning and teaching as well as new course content.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Evaluations<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The evaluations and conversations with various stakeholders during and after the event indicate these aims were met.\u00a0 The table below indicates how successful the event was with respect to the evaluation forms returned at the end of the event.\u00a0 This is based on 66 returned evaluations.\u00a0 In total there were 125 delegates in attendance and 30 out of 32 local authorities had representatives and there was representatives from the private sector and from colleges.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/eslb\/files\/2014\/07\/graph-e1406716642846.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-8992\" title=\"graph\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/eslb\/files\/2014\/07\/graph-e1406716642846.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"260\" height=\"257\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The key statistics from the table above are<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>92% of delegates agreed that \u2018meeting and exchanging ideas with colleagues was valuable\u2019.<\/li>\n<li>94% of delegates agreed that \u2018the workshops sessions and discussions were helpful\u2019<\/li>\n<li>89% of delegates agreed that \u2018the suggested approaches to learning and teaching were appropriate\u2019<\/li>\n<li>67% of delegates agreed that \u2018a significant amount of new content was exemplified\u2019<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The figure of 67% in the final statistic is probably explained by the fact that the delegates were approaching the new content from a slightly different teaching background.\u00a0 These being either a Computing Science or Information Systems background.\u00a0 It is also an indication that much more needs to be done to support teachers in this area.\u00a0 One of the comments from the delegates also helped explain this<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Still need more detail.\u00a0 Some subjects were over-subscribed, more access to these would be helpful.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Further comments from delegates were very helpful and they focused on the following key areas.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">Ongoing Support<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The delegates recognise that this is just the start<\/p>\n<p>\u2018More events like this to show ideas and methods.\u00a0 Better continued support.\u00a0 Direct guidelines to local councils as to how staff should be supported &#8211; reinforce the importance of computing science.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018We are still unclear about the depth of coverage and are simply guessing.\u00a0 Fortunately we have a year to get the handle on this so hopefully more information will come out from SQA and yourselves.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018More meetings where we can gather, talk face to face and get away from being lots of \u2018wee islands\u2019 &#8211; the sessions were excellent and I am away feeling muchh more confident about the higher. Anything for ISDD would be great.\u2019<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">Professional Learning Community<\/span><\/p>\n<p>While computing teachers have an excellent \u2018professional learning community\u2019 through CompEdNet there is still more that we can do.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Local ES events welcome.\u00a0 How can we develop a shared agenda?\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018More of the same please. Always good discussions + inspiration.\u2019<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">The role of key organisations<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In the context of on-going work across education and the ICT sector this comment is pertinent<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Very interesting and useful event.\u00a0 Great speech by Gerry Docherty\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Education Scotland and SQA are still expected to do more in this area too.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018SQA arrangements still require more guidance on depth of treatment required.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018More detail on the support team at Education Scotland.\u00a0 Who&#8217;s our contact? Who does what?\u2019<\/p>\n<p><strong>Summary\/Conclusions<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Education Scotland would like to thank the Computing Science Working Group for their support in making this conference a great success.\u00a0 The conference would not have been possible without their knowledge and understanding of the computing science context in local authorities and in schools.\u00a0 Workshop presenters did a superb job and the level of \u2018interactivity\u2019 in the sessions was impressive.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The following comment is one that we should finish on<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Absolutely fantastic, we need more of these to get up to speed.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It may be worth considering following this conference up in May 2015 to cover other aspects of the new higher but also have a focus on the new \u2018Advanced Higher\u2019.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Next steps<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The following suggestions have been made as to how we build on the success of the conference<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Work with the CompedNet practitioner network to identify the features within Glow that will support what they are doing through their professional on-line community. \u00a0This will focus on the added value Glow brings that is different from what\u2019s on offer already through CompEdNet e.g. Glow TV, Glow Meets etc<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Create user stories (identifying practice that\u2019s worthy of sharing)<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Monthly Computer Science update (publication, 2 sides A4)<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Host a series of regional events to roll out the information from the conference<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Host an online national conferences.<\/p>\n<p>Education Scotland is aware that more support is required for computing science and this will continue over the next academic year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Higher Computing Science\u00a0 &#8211; Conference Report Background information Education Scotland held a conference on Thursday 29 May 2014 as part of the ongoing support of the new national qualifications.\u00a0 The need for this national event became clear following a series of meetings early in 2014 between the Technologies team at Education Scotland and the following local authorities: North Lanarkshire East Ayrshire West Dunbartonshire South Lanarkshire Discussion with the local authority<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/dyw20\/2014\/07\/30\/education-scotland-higher-computing-science-conference\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63370,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[88,78,39,44],"tags":[280,29,49],"class_list":["post-8991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-qualifications","category-professional-learning","category-skills","category-technologies","tag-computing-science","tag-stem","tag-technology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/dyw20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/dyw20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/dyw20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/dyw20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/63370"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/dyw20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/dyw20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/dyw20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/dyw20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/glowblogs\/dyw20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}