Head in the Cloud

Back in June 2015 I wrote a post about the announcement from the then Welsh education minister, Huw Lewis, about the introduction of a new Digital Competence Framework  (DCF) for schools in Wales. As many of you will know, that framework has since been written and is beginning to be implemented in schools across Wales. In the post, I provided a list to several digital literacy or competence frameworks already in place across many countries, highlighting to the digital pioneer schools who were writing the framework that they didn't have to start from nothing and that they didn't necessarily have to 'reinvent the wheel'. Therefore it was interesting to see this morning an update to one of the frameworks mentioned. The European Digital Competence Framework for Citizens, also known as DigComp, was first published in 2013 and "consists of detailed descriptions of all competences that are necessary to be proficient in digital environments and describes them in term...

It was interesting to read this on the BBC news website a couple of weeks ago, ' Computing in schools - alarm bells over England's classes .' At the heart of the report is that experts are concerned that since the introduction of the computing curriculum in England, there has only been a modest rise in students taking the new computer science GCSE. By 2020, the British Computer Society warns that the number studying for a computing qualification could halve. The other major concern is that only 20% of the entrants were girls, down from around 40% taking the previous ICT qualification. There were those at the time who were concerned with the change in focus of the curriculum and talked of, 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater'.  As Drew Buddie says in the BBC article, he felt that ICT was unfairly maligned and was far more creative than its critics assumed, and that "it is clear that many 14-to-17-year-old students, particularly girls, are not attracted to ...

Update to my last post Hwb+-Another Nail in the Coffin? As I've said previously, I do like to read through the agenda and minutes of the National Digital Learning Council meetings. These are freely available to the public on the Hwb website. Below you will find a section from the minutes dated 4th April, 2017: 5.7 The Hwb+ / provisioning contract with Learning Possibilities ends on 31 August 2018 and there is no contract extension option. Officials are already exploring exit strategy arrangements to ensure continuity of service specifically around the provisioning service which underpins the user authentication for all Hwb services. 5.8 CO (Chris Owen, Welsh Government) outlined the current thinking around the next phase of the provisioning, authentication and user management for LiDW users. NDLC members stressed the importance of ensuring the replacement service offered high-availability levels as this is such a pivotal element of the programme. CO confirmed that this was fu...