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The refreshed E’s & O’s along with Benchmarks have been published today. https://digilearn.scot/2017/03/23/refresh-of-technologies-experiences-outcomes/
What do folks think of these? Would be great to hear your feedback.
I’ve had a look and I’m concerned about a number of issues relating to the level which certain content appears.
As I understand it, Level 4 is broadly equivalent to N4 but there appears to be content that we teach at N5 appearing at Level 3!!
Examples:
• Designs and builds web pages using appropriate mark-up languages.
• Represents and manipulates structured information in programs, or databases
for example, works with a list data structure in a visual language….
• Understands simple compression and encryption techniques used in computing technology
• Demonstrate an understanding of how computers communicate and share information over networks including the concepts of sender, receiver, address and packets. (old Higher!!)
• Describes the effect of mark-up language on the appearance of a webpage, and understand that this may be different on different devicesNo matter what, I can see yet another year of creating and teaching a series of new units. All of which will occur at the same time as trying to get my head around the latest and greatest changes to assessment for N5 and Higher.
not much notice taken of the responses sent in about the benchmarks in January – as noted already content in level 3 from national 5 and the old higher – are our S1 and S2 pupils really needing to know about data packets etc – more work redesigning courses when we should be looking at making our national and higher course more attractive to pupils instead of driving them away.
Generally speaking, I like the clarity in the statements, it gives me a clearer sense of what pupils should be aspiring to. However, I have some concerns about how appropriate some of the statements in the new content are, for their respective levels.
For example-
“Demonstrate an understanding of how computers communicate and share information
over networks including the concepts of sender, receiver, address and packets”, at level 3….isn’t this a bit much? I think it is important not to lose sight of the age groups we are talking about.Just to be clear, I don’t have massive concerns, generally I am positive about the revised benchmarks, and welcome the increased clarity they introduce.
While it IS good to get some clear statements of what we should cover compared to the woolly and ambiguous statements that went before in the previous CfE spec, it has now gone the opposite way and has far too wide ranging statements and content. It is overkill and some very specific and high level outcomes for the junior phase as already stated in the comments above. We only see our classes in S1 to S3 for 1 period a week and it is just not feasible to cover all the content for Computer Science and the Digital Literacy E&Os.
Having been involved in the CS process there was a lot of talk about “aspirational vs accessible” CS, it is difficult as there is supposed to be a CS curriculum taught from Nursery to S3 and the framework has to set that out. In reality we know only too well the majority of pupils are not getting any CS and very few are getting anywhere near enough CS time in the BGE.
I personally was happy more theory came in S1-3 to give our subject the proper weight and not just “kids on computers” but I did want N5 to continue this same theory in a bit more depth as colleagues in other subjects get to do so it is not all brand new when hit S4.
Obviously the issue is the N5 has built on top of what is outlined in the BGE meaning the current generation of kids in BGE are really going to struggle to access the course and I’m not seeing CS getting more time in the majority of schools I communicate with. Unless the government properly push CS and fund it as a main priority across BGE I worry numbers at SQA will drop even further.
And of course Digital Literacy should be taught be all across a school 😉
I am currently looking at the revised benchmarks and working out how they can be aligned to our Nat 4/5/Higher courses to better prepare the pupils. However, I am struggling with interpretation of some of the benchmarks. This one in particular has got me perplexed. Can anyone explain what it means and give an example of how it might be applied in S1-S3?
“TCH 3-13a/b: Explains the difference between parallel processes and those that communicate with each other”
Would there be any value in starting a BGE group? I assume there isn’t one already?
Hi Susan, I see that benchmark as Scratch blocks of code that run at the same time parallel and blocks that send messages to make other blocks run like broadcast/when I receive like changing levels.
That makes sense. Thanks very much for that Darren.
Can anyone explain this benchmark for me. Many thanks in advance…
“TCH 4-14a/b/c: Demonstrates an understanding that computers translate information processes between different levels of abstraction”
Hi Susan,
I think we’ve been using this group to cover BGE?
https://www.compednet.com/groups/curriculum-for-excellence/
Charlie
My apologies. I think I am not understanding the difference between the groups and the forums!
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