Monday, July 23, 2007

It should be a quieter time of the year as many of our customers in the College and School sector are on holiday. Yet, between finalising an e-portfolio system with learndirect Scotland , securing funding for some ESOL work from Executive , planning meetings with Social Services Sector Skills Council and attending a Parliamentary Reception while juggling some judging for learndirect and some marking of bids for JISC there has not been a dull moment.


It was nice to get out with some of the team for a glass of wine on Friday.

Sunday, July 08, 2007


Windy Four Days in New Quay
Originally uploaded by joecar80
Spent a windy week in Newquay - I love surfing - but the rain and the cold proved too much for me - but not my four year old who was in the sea every day. Not quite a week. As we had to get back to Glasgow for the dancing display - my first as a dresser. Reminded me a bit of Little Miss Sunshine. Still trying to get glitter spray off my shoes . The fairies were having a great time.

Two of Forty Fairies


IMG_0090
Originally uploaded by joecar80
You don't get the eye stinging hairspray, shrieks of excitement or glitter filled dressing room - a new experience for all

Saturday, July 07, 2007

Back to work with a great meeting of the Partners in Learning Steering Group. Success on all fronts the developments around the local authority challenge funds , individual teacher challenge funds and the game are all progressing at a rate of knots. Vanessa and Jaqueline are really managing this massive project well in addition to all they contribute to the team. Nice to see HMIE, GTC , Learning and Teaching Scotland , Microsoft and SQA among others all working to make these developments work for teachers and learners.

Spent the rest of week doing the tail chasing that is always needed when you get back from leave. Delighted to meet the new Sector Panel for Financial Services, spent some time with e-assessment project board reviewing developments across SQA, some time with Scottish Executive working on delivery of Scottish ESOL strategy and then finally at end of week a 5 hour drive to and from Llandudno to present the first canidates with their ICTL Certificates and Diplomas. North Wales was worth the journey if only for a few hours - sunshine and showers here too.
A week of working around and with Scottish Sector Skills Development Agency. It really is good to see all the sector skills councils beginning to work towards sector skills strategies and sector qualifications strategies. Would be good if they understood Scottish Qualifications Landscape a bit more - I suppose that is our job.

Ended week with a showcase event that reflected all that is good about the team. We have huge range of developments rolling out and underway in computing area. The team took on the task of coordinating an event at Hampden Park. A major undertaking which hit the mark in that it was heavily oversubscribed.

Also provided nice platform for Mike Jannetta to bow out. He has more that earned his new post at Glasgow Metropolitan College . We will miss his get up and go.

Friday, July 06, 2007

#WriteTimes and SQA

Demon has been updating my home page server and this looks like keeping these postings off -line for a week or two.

Spent a week in meetings and in recruiting staff. The organisation is going through that positive flex that any organisation goes through when a new chief executive arrives. We are both planning for next year and reviewing our current processes.

We recruited a new project manager to lead on English as a Second Language developments. A critical area for the Scottish economy currently.We have probably for the first time since the 1940's a large community of migrants who need to develop language skills quickly to work within the Scottish economy.

It was great to meet so many employers and training providers at the SQA Customer Conference on Thursday. It rolled well into SQA's celebration of 10 years with an event for current staff with 10 years service and for some of the staff who worked for SCOTVEC and the Scottish Examinations Board our predecessor bodies .

The organisation launched "Write Times" a celebration of all the great creative writing produced by candidates. The writers were present at the launch some really great and moving stuff in this modest publication.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Wkibooks and Interent Safety

We are already doing a lot around Wiki development to support learners through a number of specfic projects - looking at the tool as a way to collect assessment evidence and support learners. We are also using Wikis to support qualifications development.

A wee while ago we put the Internet Safety Qualification on a Wiki and asked schools and colleges in Scotland to update the award or make comments on it live on a Wiki. After much piloting the qualification finally launches on Wednesday and it is well supported with online resources from a host of agencies. I look forward to seeing it rolling out to Scotland and beyond. This model of development may be the shape of things to come.

It was great too to learn last week that the book supporting the Applications of ICT in Libraries ( The ICTL Diploma) has been recognised as a featured book. Quietly we are doing our bit for global learning and I am going down to Wales in July to present some of the first certificates to candidates. Grateful to the team and specifically Ted Hastings for leading on this.

"Books on featured on Wikibooks are of exceptionally high quality and which may serve as a
good example for other authors to follow may be labeled as a featured bookand advertised prominently. Featured books are listed at Wikibooks:Featured books , they may be listed on the main page, and they may appear in other places as well. Books can be nominated to be featured by making a proper nomination at Wikibooks:Featured books/Nominations , and the community will accept the nomination with a vote.Books on Wikibooks which are exceptionally high quality and which may serve as a good example for other authors to follow
may be labeled as a featured book and advertised prominently. Featured
books are listed at Wikibooks:Featured books , they may be listed on the main page,
and they may appear in other places as well. Books can be nominated to be
featured by making a proper nomination at Wikibooks:Featured books/Nominations , and the community will accept the nomination with a vote."

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Sport Shop Game and Gamification of Learning

The number of schools and teachers registering to play the sports store game is exceeding all expectations. We should have guessed this would be the case given the popularity of the pilot.
The team are working hard to make sure all schools and teachers are registered and that we know which subjects the game is being used to support. This is required to help us review impact of game at the end of next year. It also helps us dissuade pupils from picking inappropriate names when playing the game. Some things never change , we have moved on from aliases like Hugh Jarse but highlights some of the challenges involved.
Still trying to work out a funding package to get Colleges officially involved.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Family Life


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Originally uploaded by joecar80
Alexander's latest "learning to walk exercise" is to push Molly-Jean around on a trolley. MJ likes this too.

Test posting to see if I can still post in with Flickr Images

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

More awards tonight for Student College Journalists at Glasgow City Chambers. Great to hear how much our work in this area has been appreciated - the links between qualifications and the NUJ and the rest of the industry is testament to our great team working in this area and to all the work that Colleges have put in to modernising the qualifications in this area and in working with SQA to build strong industry relations across the sector.

Nice too to meet up with many old and not so old colleagues from Cardonald College and to see the students still doing so well .

Nice to meet another appreciative ex student who is now teaching at Cardonald. Reminds me how much I miss students .

This is just one of many success stories in this area - more work on British Sign Language and ESOL Qualifications at HN will start in earnest in next few weeks when we have recruited our lead consultants . These developments are much needed if we are to have more ESOL and BSL signers and tutors in Scotland

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Started week talking to centres engaged with Partners in Learning good to see enthusiasm at all levels for the communities of practice, innovative teacher programme and the game we are rolling out across Scotland. I hope the sports store game really starts changing perceptions around how we think about assessment. It is great that we have built a partnership with the Small Business Company in New Zealand and the Scottish Premier League to deliver a product in to Scottish Schools. Microsoft have been more than a financial backer in all of this Bob McGonigall of Microsoft has been a star in supporting these projects has have the team in SQA.
There are some great tales to tell but not ones for this blog.


Planning evaluation of DIVA Project . We now have 12 global companies contributing in different ways to Scottish Education. It's been a long and hard journey from convincing policy makers that this was a positive direction to take Scottish Education in to speaking to corporates on other side of world and finally to building local partnerships with Colleges and schools to develop and deliver the programmes. The external evaluation will do the tough bit of seeing if all this effort added tangible benefits to centres and learners. Earlier post links to project web site.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Started week by reading then judging entries for the Herald Scottish Student Journalism Awards. The SQA sponsor these and my team look after Journalism area .The judging took place at Mitchell Library in Glasgow. I have fond memories of sixth year studies in the Reading Room - I can remember some work taking place. Good to see clientele have not changed that much. They were all ages and all looked to be mixing fun and study in appropriate amounts. It is great testament to Glasgow that we have the largest public reference library in Europe. In my dotage I will spend some time in the Glasgow Room and pin down all my antecedent Glaswegians.

Did a presentation today on Leitch Review of Skills and the UK Vocational Reform Programme - lots of food for thought. Important that we don't lose what we already have in Scotland in all of this. Many of the solutions in Leitch and the UK Vocational Reform programme are addressed at problems which are not quite as apparent in Scottish System - large numbers of awarding bodies and lots of qualifications of indeterminate level . But important too that we adopt the best bits of these reforms which will be hugely significant for vocational learning in the future.

It is great to know that all of the Skills for Work courses have been developed in close conjunction with the relevant Sector Skills Councils already.

Ended day with an interesting offer to develop a European ICT qualification and tomorrow working on Scottish ESOL strategy with range of key stakeholders.

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Computing , Publishing and Scottish Social Services Council

I guess it is probably that time of the year. Lots of developments are now reaching their final stages . The computing team are putting the final touches to the mammoth task of renewing both the Higher National and the National Certificate portfolio . It really is an impressive list of new units - and all unveiled at Hampden in June . It is all on the SQA Computing Blog all linked to relevant Sector Skills Councils - vendor awards and the latest technologies.

Then into meetings with Leckie and Leckie who support developments with publications and finally at end of day really positive meeting with the Scottish Social Services Council we are working with them to regulate their sector with a professional development award that will be a practice learning qualfication for all the staff working in this sector.

Looking forward to finally seeing the sun and my family over the weekend.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Today was a good day beginning to see things really coming together. Moodle is up and running and powering what will be the consultation and shaping engine around SQA input to curriculum for excellence and Core Skills for the future. The rest of the site SQA Academy is being used to develop staff skills in assessment.

Assessment can be used as a dirty word until people actually realise how flexible and learner centred it can be. Interesting that school sector both seem to detest and cling on to exams and traditional forms of assessment while vocational sector are happy with portfolios and now e-portfolios. I wonder when the penny will drop and someone will realise that the SQA actually offers a very wide range of assessment strategies and can bring a depth of experience to all of this. It would be good to have more learner voices in all of this.

Please join the debate on Curriculum for Excellence and Core Skills for the Future

enrolment keys are "Excellence" and "Framework" respectively"

I had a meeting with Jane Richardson of Oracle who reported how well the Oracle Academy is rolling out in Scottish Schools and Colleges and how useful the link is between Higher Information Systems and the Oracle Programme - candidates getting dual certification and teachers being flown this year to Brussels for training. Last two cohorts went all the way to California for a week. Hey, the early adopters are the ones with the sun tans.

Marks high water mark on DIVA project we have successes to report like this with all the major vendors. School and College pupils have access to SQA Certification and Vendor Certification if they and the centres want this.

Also spotted a reassuring a reassuring school blog which I hope proves the new national certificate and National Progression awards are hitting the mark for school/college progression .

It feels like three years have passed in a blink of an eye on one level and then I look at my diary and see three years of very solid work quite scary really. The qualifications teams and all the staff from schools and colleges have done a power of work.

Is it a mirage - first time I have had chance to blog in three years too.

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Who contributes and who lurks

Posting in stereo today -
I did this as I discovered that the links in my last post were not working. Especially the important one to Jorum.

I attending the Jorum steering group in York yesterday. It is great to hear that Colleges and Universities across the UK are signing up to the national repository. But we still have a way to go to get them all depositing and downloading the learning resources.

A sobering article was tabled from Thursday's Guardian highlighting that the 1% rule on contributing in online commmnities . Which is low is not holding up in research on web2

User participation often more or less follows a 90-9-1 rule:

* 90% of users are lurkers (i.e., read or observe, but don't contribute).
* 9% of users contribute from time to time, but other priorities dominate their time.
* 1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions:


In fact it looks like YouTube and other Web2 services have contributor rates as low as 0.065%
This is something that may challenge us on the road ahead - it may just be telling us more about people rather than technology.
Worth a look at - I could not find Guardian story but found source here.

Saturday, March 31, 2007

JISC and JORUM

I attended a scenario planning meeting for JORUM today at the HE Academy in York. I am still involved in JISC but no longer on
JIIE where I spent the last five years plotting the information environment for FE and HE in the UK. Today was interesting we now have in JORUM

a learning repository for all of UK HE and FE - the challenge is that we are now in year 5 of a 5 year plan and Web2 has firmly arrived. We need to change our thinking and models if the resource is to stay in step with learner behaviour . It will be interesting to see what comes out of today's discussions in York.

The challenge for organisations like JISC is in the lead time to procure and establish a service like JORUM versus the rate that technology changes and disrupts the process.


Also back on the blog - and playing with Mozilla

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

In the Beginning

I have res-surrected this old blog that sat alongside my website while I was working on some other projects. I will use it from time to time for a few things.

Welcome to Joe's Diner