Category: Learner Digital Literacy

the skills and knowledge taught to learners

Digital Critical Friends – ScotlandIS and DYW Glasgow

What is this project?

In response to the Logan Review, ScotlandIS has worked with DYW Glasgow to develop an innovative and responsive project to provide every secondary school  in Glasgow, North Lanarkshire, and South Lanarkshire with a senior tech expert at their disposal – these are Digital Critical Friends.    

ScotlandIS aim to raise awareness of the skills and knowledge required for working in the tech sector amongst educators, learners and their families. The programme will help teachers shape a curriculum that matches the needs of industry and ensure learners are aware of the opportunities for work, training, and further study.

There were 35 schools in Glasgow involved in the pilot programme and they have also matched schools and partners in: North Lanarkshire, East Dunbartonshire, Scottish Borders and developing partnerships in: South Lanarkshire, West Dunbartonshire, Inverclyde, Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire. 

 

Why is this programme needed?

There is currently a shortage of learners qualifying in, studying, or having the opportunity to study Computing Science in some schools – especially girls and young women.

Only 27% of young women say they would consider a career in technology, and only 3% would say it is their first choice of career. (PwC UK, Women in Tech Report) 

 

The tech industry in Scotland promises creative, flexible, and highly rewarding career pathways, and it is estimated that around 80% of future jobs will require STEM skills, including Computing Science. 

13,000 digital tech job opportunities are created every year in Scotland, filling all of them would add £1bn to Scotland’s economy. (ScotlandIS)  

 

How does this work?

ScotlandIS will work with individual DYW regional teams over the next 12 months to provide a Digital Critical Friend in every secondary school in that region. 

Digital Critical Friends will inform teachers and pupils of what is happening in the sector: where the new technologies are, share emerging career opportunities and how to access them. They can also support teachers and management tap into increased funding for their department to encourage more young people to study the subject.    

Digital Critical Friends can connect flexibly, by video call, email or over coffee. They will act as a sounding board, a friend, a guide to the teachers. They’ll be willing to take part in catch-ups and could present to students about subjects that interest them, demonstrating how exciting the tech sector is. Teachers and Digital Critical Friends may also arrange a visit to each other’s workplace in order to understand the opportunities and challenges that they work with.  

This programme also complements others that are available, including Tech She Can and Scottish Digital Literacy Week (03/10/22).

 

Who is involved and supporting?

There are already a number of well-known organisations supporting the programme, including but not limited to:

  • Strathclyde University
  • RIIOT Digital
  • Leidos
  • BJSS
  • Morgan Stanley
  • Capgemini
  • Capito

If you are interested in becoming a Digital Critical Friend or would just like more information on the programme, please feel free to contact Nicola Taylor, Head of Operations and Skills at ScotlandIS: nicola.taylor@scotlandis.com 

Digital Critical Friends – ScotlandIS and DYW Glasgow

What is this project?

In response to the Logan Review, ScotlandIS has worked with DYW Glasgow to develop an innovative and responsive project to provide every secondary school  in Glasgow, North Lanarkshire, and South Lanarkshire with a senior tech expert at their disposal – these are Digital Critical Friends.    

ScotlandIS aim to raise awareness of the skills and knowledge required for working in the tech sector amongst educators, learners and their families. The programme will help teachers shape a curriculum that matches the needs of industry and ensure learners are aware of the opportunities for work, training, and further study.

There were 35 schools in Glasgow involved in the pilot programme and they have also matched schools and partners in: North Lanarkshire, East Dunbartonshire, Scottish Borders and developing partnerships in: South Lanarkshire, West Dunbartonshire, Inverclyde, Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire. 

 

Why is this programme needed?

There is currently a shortage of learners qualifying in, studying, or having the opportunity to study Computing Science in some schools – especially girls and young women.

Only 27% of young women say they would consider a career in technology, and only 3% would say it is their first choice of career. (PwC UK, Women in Tech Report) 

 

The tech industry in Scotland promises creative, flexible, and highly rewarding career pathways, and it is estimated that around 80% of future jobs will require STEM skills, including Computing Science. 

13,000 digital tech job opportunities are created every year in Scotland, filling all of them would add £1bn to Scotland’s economy. (ScotlandIS)  

 

How does this work?

ScotlandIS will work with individual DYW regional teams over the next 12 months to provide a Digital Critical Friend in every secondary school in that region. 

Digital Critical Friends will inform teachers and pupils of what is happening in the sector: where the new technologies are, share emerging career opportunities and how to access them. They can also support teachers and management tap into increased funding for their department to encourage more young people to study the subject.    

Digital Critical Friends can connect flexibly, by video call, email or over coffee. They will act as a sounding board, a friend, a guide to the teachers. They’ll be willing to take part in catch-ups and could present to students about subjects that interest them, demonstrating how exciting the tech sector is. Teachers and Digital Critical Friends may also arrange a visit to each other’s workplace in order to understand the opportunities and challenges that they work with.  

This programme also complements others that are available, including Tech She Can and Scottish Digital Literacy Week (03/10/22).

 

Who is involved and supporting?

There are already a number of well-known organisations supporting the programme, including but not limited to:

  • Strathclyde University
  • RIIOT Digital
  • Leidos
  • BJSS
  • Morgan Stanley
  • Capgemini
  • Capito

If you are interested in becoming a Digital Critical Friend or would just like more information on the programme, please feel free to contact Nicola Taylor, Head of Operations and Skills at ScotlandIS: nicola.taylor@scotlandis.com 

Save the Pacific Northwest tree octopus activity

Welcome

We want to alert you to our very important activity this week: we want the learners of Scotland to help us save the Pacific Northwest tree octopus!

 
This website has lots of great info about the octopus and ways for you to help it:

Octopus website

 

Once you’ve read a bit more about the octopus – have a think about how you could use your digital literacy skills to find out more about it and use this info to create some posters, slides and websites to raise awareness of the octopus’ plight and help save it!

tree octopus

Let’s get started!

Wait a minute, though… tree octopus?

Before you go making any resources we want you to check some things:

  • Who created the page and wrote the information?
  • Does it have pictures or video that show you the tree octopus?
  • Are there links to other sites about the octopus?

     

  • See inside the page

Teachers click here

What next?

Hopefully, you spotted the clues that the tree octopus isn’t real pretty quickly and pointed this out to your teacher!

We think that by learning some of the skills used to make the fake info on this website, you’ll be better prepared to spot other info like this and know how to check it for accuracy.

We want you to create your own fake animal awareness campaign. You’ll need to think of an animal and then imagine it living in a biome, or habitat, that isn’t it’s natural home… like a mountain-dwelling narwhal or Arctic elephant!
Then you’ll need some facts that sound believable, even though they’re not true – so things like what your imaginary animal eats, where it sleeps and how big it is.

Finally, you’ll create some online content, maybe using slides, websites, blogs or even a video.

You can share these with us on twitter: @DigiLearnScot

Activity 1 – fact finding and note making

  • Use your web browser to find out three (or more) facts about an animal
  • Then pick a biome it wouldn’t normally live in and find out three facts about that place and how animals normally survive there
  • Make notes of this info as you go – it’ll come in handy later

 

teachers might want to use some of these ideas to expand upon the features of fake news and unreliable sources:
Digital Media Literacy: The Blur Between Facts and Opinions in the Media (gcfglobal.org)

Digital Media Literacy: What is Fake News? (gcfglobal.org)

Activity 2 – photo manipulation

The photos on the octopus site were faked and so are many other photos online and in newspapers and magazines too. 
Read this page to find out more about manipulated photos

You don’t need fancy software to edit photos, here are some tips:
PowerPoint – remove background
Keynote – instant alpha

  • Start with a background photo of the place your imaginary animal is going to live – add it to your app
  • Then add the photo of your animal
  • Now, use either the remove background in PowerPoint or instant alpha in Keynote, for example, to cut out any background on your animal picture
  • It should now look like your animal lives in the place you have as the background

Here’s my mountain-dwelling narwhal from earlier:

Activity 3 – making fake news

You now have an imaginary animal, some facts about it and a photo proving its existence – now all you need to do is put it together and share it with the world to convince them of it’s existence!

You could have a look at these:
https://www.beano.com/games/random-animal-mash-up 
https://switchzoo.com/newzoo/zoo.htm 

There are lots of great tools for creating and sharing content online, here are just some of them:
Sway

Glow blogs

Slides

Sites

We can’t wait to see your fake news imaginary animals on twitter!

ALL CREDIT FOR THE OCTOPUS CONTENT TO THE SITE’S OWNER: Save The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus (zapatopi.net)

make it happen

Make It Happen – supporting schools with digital learning

Based in Scotland, Make It Happen is a charity with a clear focus, to inspire children and young people’s engagement with digital learning. One of the main ways they inspire learners is through their innovative and exciting app competition which is run for entire primary schools.

They also run special online #Happathon events, create resources and can offer support to both pupils (Digital Leaders) and staff to equip them with knowledge and ideas about how to use specific resources. 

 

Make It Happen delivered an online presentation to explain who they are and what they do:

  • Make it Happen
  • Engagement with schools
  • Support for teachers

Want to explore careers in tech? Make It Happen have shared this presentation all about careers.

Microsoft Accessibility Tools Quick Guide Posters for Learners by Viewforth High School

At Viewforth High School, we are on a digital journey to ensure all learners and educators are able to benefit from digital technology to raise attainment and improve outcomes for all.  

Most of our students are familiar with Microsoft Teams accessing via Glow and staff have been using it to set work and assignments during previous lockdowns and continue to do so now we are back in school.  

However, some pupils are faced with challenges when trying to access digital learning both in school and at home and to support our pupils in accessing their learning we identified areas where both the skills of staff and pupils needed to be developed. One of these key areas was the accessibility features (and knowledge of these) of digital tools for pupils and ensuring staff know how to use these tools with pupils.  

In response to this, I have created several Quick Guides to support both staff and pupils in accessing and using the features of Microsoft Tools.  

 

I created guides for each of the following tools: 

  • Immersive Reader 
  • Live Captions 
  • Speech to Text  
  • Translate 
  • Office Lens 

These guides have been shared amongst staff and with colleagues in other schools across the country to support them to support their pupils.

Microsoft Accessibility Tools Quick Guide Posters for Learners by Viewforth High School

At Viewforth High School, we are on a digital journey to ensure all learners and educators are able to benefit from digital technology to raise attainment and improve outcomes for all.  

Most of our students are familiar with Microsoft Teams accessing via Glow and staff have been using it to set work and assignments during previous lockdowns and continue to do so now we are back in school.  

However, some pupils are faced with challenges when trying to access digital learning both in school and at home and to support our pupils in accessing their learning we identified areas where both the skills of staff and pupils needed to be developed. One of these key areas was the accessibility features (and knowledge of these) of digital tools for pupils and ensuring staff know how to use these tools with pupils.  

In response to this, I have created several Quick Guides to support both staff and pupils in accessing and using the features of Microsoft Tools.  

 

I created guides for each of the following tools: 

  • Immersive Reader 
  • Live Captions 
  • Speech to Text  
  • Translate 
  • Office Lens 

These guides have been shared amongst staff and with colleagues in other schools across the country to support them to support their pupils.

Tech We Can: Tech for the Planet lesson resource

Tech She Can is delighted to share the brand new Tech We Can lesson, ‘Tech for the Planet’ which is out now!

“Since the COP26 climate summit earlier this month, topics such as sustainable living and protecting the future of our planet have dominated the news agenda, as well as entering our everyday conversations, including those taking place in schools and among young people.

Our latest free on-demand Tech We Can lesson, ‘Tech for the Planet’ aims to show some of the innovative ways in which technologists around the world are using technology to protect our air, reduce waste, help clean the oceans and preserve our wildlife. It also highlights role models working in these areas – Lucinda Jones from Unilever and Mikya Rozner from Tesco – which we hope will inspire young viewers to consider a future career in technology.

You can watch the lesson, aimed at 8 – 14 year olds, and taught by Becky Patel and Katie King here.

If you’d like to explore other Tech We Can educational resources, for use at school or at home, please head over to techwecan.org to gain access to a wide range of on-demand lessons and lesson packs. Each explores the use of technology in a different area – from sport, to food and outer space – and highlights the types of careers that students could go into in the future.

 

 

Go to Tech We Can resources

Tech We Can: Tech for the Planet lesson resource

Tech She Can is delighted to share the brand new Tech We Can lesson, ‘Tech for the Planet’ which is out now!

“Since the COP26 climate summit earlier this month, topics such as sustainable living and protecting the future of our planet have dominated the news agenda, as well as entering our everyday conversations, including those taking place in schools and among young people.

Our latest free on-demand Tech We Can lesson, ‘Tech for the Planet’ aims to show some of the innovative ways in which technologists around the world are using technology to protect our air, reduce waste, help clean the oceans and preserve our wildlife. It also highlights role models working in these areas – Lucinda Jones from Unilever and Mikya Rozner from Tesco – which we hope will inspire young viewers to consider a future career in technology.

You can watch the lesson, aimed at 8 – 14 year olds, and taught by Becky Patel and Katie King here.

If you’d like to explore other Tech We Can educational resources, for use at school or at home, please head over to techwecan.org to gain access to a wide range of on-demand lessons and lesson packs. Each explores the use of technology in a different area – from sport, to food and outer space – and highlights the types of careers that students could go into in the future.

 

 

Go to Tech We Can resources

Christmas Activity Booklets for Early, First and Second Level – North Lanarkshire Digital Pathfinders

The North Lanarkshire Digital Pathfinder Team have created these digital Christmas Activity Booklets for Early, First and Second level.

Book Creator was used to create the booklets as it allows children to access the books independently at home or in school. The booklets are a more sustainable method to accessing a range of Christmas activities across the curriculum and can help to reduce photocopying. The learners have enjoyed using this resource as it allows them to engage with different digital media. The booklets also provide the opportunity for the learner to consolidate their digital skills and use personalisation and choice when completing the activities.