As a group we will need to be proactive to ensure we put across a coherent message. We will have to work quickly to re-establish Computing as an acceptable alternative to the typical academic pathway while offering the correct balance of more vocational courses.
I think computing teachers still have an important role to play at a whole school level in raising the quality of computing across the curriculum. Google’s Computational Thinking and Conrad Wolfram’s TED talk are important here. Teaching kids to solve real world problems using computers applies to all subjects in the curriculum. Wolfram starts his talk by asking “who does maths?”. The answer is of course everyone. My question is “who does computing?” Guess what my answer is? Wolfram’s TED talk can be seen here
I think the lack of choice at Nat 4/5 is very worrying. So here’s a controversial proposal. I have no idea how realistic it would be. If we see the SQA as a blockage to us doing what we think we should be doing should we not act like the internet and route around the blockage? Do we need to rely on the SQA? Is there an alternative way?
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