C@SS Conference - Keynote 2

Professional Learning And Networking for Computing- Scotland’s PLAN C

Dr Quintin Cutts (Senior Lecturer at Glasgow University)

There is a problem with many new school buildings where there is no staffroom - no place to meet together and share practice. Many teachers are as a result increasingly isolated.

Quintin Cutts Photo by
David Muir

Proposal for CPD that came from grassroots. The ADiCOST group was given as an example of teachers working together and supporting… and sharing. (Can’t find web presence another than this Scratch page)

One of the key aims of PLAN C is therefore Community Building. Lead teachers have already been identified and local groups are being formed. Sharing between the groups can also take place. Some sharing can already take place. For example, between people with Information Systems experience and people with Computing experience coming together to build expertise for Nat 5. CPD does not have to come from the expert at the front - there are many people in the classroom with knowledge and experience.

Hope is that local hubs will start in March/April 2014. There will be local sharing and community, but there will be more formal sessions too.

Important questions have to be addressed. For example, why teach Computing Science in schools? Our subject is under threat, we have to be able to articulate what we do and why. One reason is connected to problem solving. Often our approach to problem solving is to use intuition. The problem with that is that the real world has hidden mechanisms and is not always very intuitive. If the way things work is so hidden, we need a method of creation and testing of hypotheses - Computational Thinking gives us a model for doing this. Computing can deliver a skill set that is useful across the curriculum.

Retired Colleagues

Large changes have taken place at Jordanhill, with new courses being launched, and many long serving members of staff leaving/left.

David Stow 2 Originally uploaded by DavidDMuir

So many people left that the normal retirement conventions broke down. For example, at a departmental meeting held just before the summer break, a speech was made by an ex-head of department which gave a general thanks to five people who were retiring but no collection was taken to buy them a gift and no opportunity was given for them to say anything in reply. Which is a bit of a shame I think. With so many leaving, I can understand it is difficult to do things the way they were done in the past... but it doesn't feel right. The large number retiring may make it feel commonplace but to each individual, it is surely still important. 

I'd like therefore to mention two people in particular, David Hart and Jack Winch, who have recently retired. I'd like to talk about them for at least two reasons: one is selfish as I'd like to record my panic at the fact that their retirement leaves me as the sole Computing specialist at Jordanhill; the second though is more important because I believe the huge contribution they have both made to computer education in Scotland and beyond should be noted. I was taught by them back in the mid-eighties as part of my preparation to become a Computing teacher and I suspect that between them they have had a bigger impact on the development of schools Computing than any government initiative or curriculum document. 

David retired earlier than Jack and had the benefit of a "proper" retirement event. I don't think anyone who was there will ever forget David's demonstration of how to evacuate a chipmunk. (Don't ask!) However, what I remember most about David is his enthusiasm and the quantity (and quality) of resources that he produced. As a student teacher I found his copious notes on BBC BASIC (printed on a dot-matrix printer if I remember correctly) extraordinarily valuable. Also, I am not a well-organised person, and so I greatly appreciated his quiet and effective administration of the courses he was involved with. I don't know how many times last year we arrived at a point in the course and discovered that we'd forgotten to do something that in the past David had just got on with and organised behind the scenes. (For example, we only realised at the first meeting after Christmas that none of us had produced an attendance sheet for the new term. We'd always just had a list when we needed it because David produced it for us.) 

Jack retired just before the summer break and I think what I'll remember most about him is his sartorial elegance. His three-piece suits are legendary. (Although standards began to slip latterly when he appeared with the ten bob suit from Matalan!). I also remember as a student, coming out of a tutorial to find Jack sitting playing a grand piano that for some reason was in a hallway of the David Stow building. (I can't remember if he was singing too. I must have expunged that memory from my brain!) Perhaps more importantly though, I remember his patience and his skill at questioning. He had the ability to ask the right questions and prompt you to reflect on your own performance so that you would realise yourself where things hadn't gone as well as they might. And perhaps more importantly, he could lead you to see how things could be improved without brow-beating you or resorting to the "I telt ye, I telt ye!" method that I find it all to easy to slip into!

I am sure there are readers of this blog who remember David and Jack. Please leave your own comments and memories about them here. I'll be happy to pass your messages on.

Computing: The Science of the Digital World

What is Computing? What is at the heart of the subject? What distinguishes Computing from ICT and what is the place of Computing in the Curriculum for Excellence developments?

break SPACE
Originally uploaded by diebmx

I have referred to these issues before (for example Computing Science and Games Programming and Computing is... again!) but, although I haven't blogged about them in a while, they have continued to niggle away at me. Discussion about a subject's place in the inter-disciplinary world of Curriculum for Excellence is of course not unique to Computing (see for example Curriculum for Excellence: the end of Integrated Science? and something from Fergal Kelly I think but I can't find just now! Curriculum for Excellence: the end of Separate Sciences? Thanks Mr Hood for this link and for correcting my spelling of Fearghal!) but I think it is worse in Computing because people do not have a clear view of what our subject is about.

I was talking to a chap today, who has been out of the classroom studying and is going back to teach Computing next week after a year's absence. I stated again that I like the definition proposed after the Schools Computing Workshop (which took place over two years ago!):

Computing: The Science of Our Digital World

This seems to me a good balance between being simple enough to be grasped quickly while still leaving enough room to be expanded in complex ways. The chap I was speaking to seemed to think this was a useful focus for our subject, however, he asked how we expand this definition to define the core of the subject in a bit more detail. For example, in CfE speak, Chemistry was defined as: Our Material World including uses and properties of materials, sustainability, the chemistry of life processes and the applications of chemistry in society.

Of the top of my head I suggested:

Our Digital World including programming as an exploration of formal defined languages, digital communications, computer systems and hardware, and the implications of Computing and ICT in society.

Programming is about problem solving and the control of computers using a formally defined language. I would therefore take a very broad definition of programming which would allow the study of application software to take place under this umbrella. By including applications in the programming topic we would hopefully avoid the danger of merely learning button pushing skills and be able to focus instead on computer applications as powerful problem solving tools.

Digital communications would allow the study of networks and communications - including the the mechanics of data transmission as well as the practical application in aspects such as Web 2.0 technologies.

Systems and hardware would include the physics and electronics side of things for example in the consideration of microchips and binary as well as peripheral devices, interfacing and operating systems.

My final social implications section was questioned and it was suggested that this aspect might be subsumed in the other three areas.

So that's my definition of Computing. What do other Computing specialists think? Perhaps more importantly, what do non-computing specialist think? Does this sound like a reasonable starting point or does it sound like someone trying to justify their existence?