Category Archives: CfE

Curriculum for Excellence aims to achieve a transformation in education in Scotland by providing a coherent, more flexible and enriched curriculum from 3 to 18. (LTS)

CfE, Computing

Shut down or restart?

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The Royal Society have published their report into the state of Computer Science in school in both England and Scotland.

Here are their main findings.

Main findings

1. The current delivery of Computing education in many UK schools is highly unsatisfactory. Although existing curricula for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are broad and allow scope for teachers to inspire pupils and help them develop interests in Computing, many pupils are not inspired by what they are taught and gain nothing beyond basic digital literacy skills such as how to use a word-processor or a database.

This is mainly because:

1.1 The current national curriculum in ICT can be very broadly interpreted and may be reduced to the lowest level where non specialist teachers have to deliver it;

1.2 there is a shortage of teachers who are able to teach beyond basic digital literacy;

1.3 there is a lack of continuing professional development for teachers of Computing;

1.4 features of school infrastructure inhibit effective teaching of Computing.

2. There is a need to improve understanding in schools of the nature and scope of Computing. In particular there needs to be recognition that Computer Science is a rigorous academic discipline of great importance to the future careers of many pupils. The status of Computing in schools needs to be recognised and raised by government and senior management in schools.

3. Every child should have the opportunity to learn Computing at school, including exposure to Computer Science as a rigorous academic discipline.

4. There is a need for qualifications in aspects of Computing that are accessible at school level but are not currently taught. There is also a need for existing inappropriate assessment methods to be updated.

5. There is a need for augmentation and coordination of current Enhancement and Enrichment activities to support the study of Computing.

6. Uptake of Computing A-level is hindered by lack of demand from higher education institutions.

This builds on a lot of what the government has been saying this week, it looks like changes are coming.

CfE, Computing, Projects, Software

XP Login Screen saver

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It seemed like such an easy task when I started doing it.

Take a powerpoint slideshow and display it before the user logins in, on our workstations.

I wanted to display revision notes on our XP workstations in the Business ICT suites, when they were sitting unused.

I settled on exporting the slides as JPGs and using a photo screensaver to display a folder. I started with a GPO delivered from our server but this only allowed me to force the user screensaver to the ssmypics.scr, which then displayed the users My Pictures folder. It was a disaster, all the kids downloaded images started popping up at random during lessons. I scrapped that and took to the net, a lot of the sites recommended redirecting the “My Pictures” to a single network share, not my preferred choice in a school.

Two sites were very useful and slowly a solution began to present itself.

  1. Set up the screen saver on a workstation, export the registry and import it into the target.  For 80 machines this was going to be a pain so I needed another plan.
  2. This site was useful but appear to be using server 2008 which I don’t have, but an idea took hold.

My solution

  1. I created a folder on my workstation called c:\ss and added the pictures I wanted to use. I decided to create a batch file that an admin could use to push out the files rather than use the GPO to copy them. I figured this would lessen the load on the network as the files would only be pushed out as required rather than at each machine boot. However, if you know another way please let me know. Here is a copy of all the  Scripts I used. You run ICTDIST, this then causes 80 copies of copy2machine to run and push the files out to the machines.
  2. I used my workstation to create and edit a .REG file that could be imported in the work stations.
  3. I created a GPO called Screensaver – ICT on the server. Disabled the user configuration settings and created a startup script. I clicked on show files and dragged in the .reg file. Then clicked add and entered “regedit” in the script name and ” /s screensaver.reg” in the parameters.
  4. All machines had a gpupdate performed on the and rebooted.
  5. The screen saver was then observed working on the machines 🙂

Any time we want to change the images we just update them and the admin pushes out the changes. I guess other departments will want to use this at some point. If they do we can create a SS folder in their subject areas and use the GPO to copy the right graphics files across at machine boot.

Anyway I hope this helps someone, feel free to leave a comment I will answer ASAP.

CfE, Computing, Games, Online Resources, Software

Muvizu

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I was looking for some easy to use 3d animation software, Alice is nice but not exactly easy to get into.
I found a review on the register and it took me to Muvizu, what a cracking little piece of Windows software. I confess to not having used it for hours (yet) but first impressions are magic.
It does need a OK spec of computer though, so it might not run everywhere you want to use it.  The tutorials appear to be youtube based so I guess I’ll need to learn it all at home.
CfE, Computing, Games

Game to Learn?

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A note for my pupils.

I spent all Saturday at game to learn. Where we listened to a lot of educators talking about using video games to learn new skills. If you want to check out the #gametolearn hash tag on twitter you will get a better sense of what was going on.

Abertay is a great looking campus and lecture theatres have not changed a lot since I was at uni (digital projectors and WiFi are a welcome addition). However students are students and a lot of the teachers in the audience were playing with their mobile phones and laptops even when people were talking. We were creating the twitter feed and researching the topic and presenters as it happened,  it was very engaging and I know I took a lot away from the experience.

The question is – Do you have the same level of self control? I had full access to the internet and mobile phone during a class but stayed on topic (OK a topic that interests me). I will be honest I was surprised that I didn’t hit facebook or youtube.

I had prepared for each seminar the night before and looked up people and facts on the net ( I even found an old uni classmate who is now a lecturer (and a PhD)). My laptop had all the software loaded on it and although I never used it as much as the iPad (my main twitter client) it did come in handy to collect digital notes etc.

I did spend an hour or two on Saturday night; tweeting , reading notes and blogs, catching up and making plans for the future.

So I guess education has not changed that much, prepare, take part and review. Which is what I hope all my classes are doing each night.

CfE, Computing, Software

Powerpoint Overload

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I see a lot of powerpoints in use and I have made use of quite a few over the years, a lot of them are weak at best. I found this article while looking for a way to improve what I was offering. It makes good clear sense and although I may not agree with every dot and comma of it (although I am doing most of them already), I do intent to make better use of themes and colours.

Remember the contents of external sites can change without warning and can not be constantly content checked.