Posted by admin on September 8, 2014 ·
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Despite many other ‘distractions’ expected to keep learning & skills further down the agenda over the summer, there was no shortage of activity to report. Informed Scotland is packed with research studies, surveys, statistics, new courses, new partnerships and of course exam results.
There are some particularly rich reports to delve into, including those in a section headed ‘Skills and the Workforce’. Look out for Skills Development Scotland’s engineering & advanced manufacturing Skills Investment Plan; UKCES’s skills for sustainable recovery report; The Prince’s Trust’s Skills Crunch survey; CBI/Pearson’s Gateway to Growth report; and SCDI & SDS’s Summer Skills Pulse Survey. Not forgetting the UKCES Scottish Employer Skills Survey, and items from the Youth Skills Commission and Skills for Health.
With the Independence Referendum imminent, a selection of impartial resources and references relevant to learning & skills is provided in an annex to this month’s issue, including those from Education Scotland, FutureLearn, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, YouthLink Scotland and CREID at Edinburgh University.
Email [email protected] to request a sample copy. New subscribers will also receive a copy of our Organisations & People Special issued last month. Once again it has been well received, described as ‘a useful reference point‘, ‘Good to have info in one place’, ‘such a useful directory’, ‘Excellent… packed full of really interesting info.’
Posted by admin on August 22, 2014 ·
Organisations & People Special 2014
We’ve just published the new Informed Scotland Organisations & People Special ready for the 2014–15 academic session.
It’s a snapshot of the learning & skills landscape, a directory of the key national and local organisations operating across business, education, community & adult learning, government and wider society, including:
- Sector-specific skills bodies
- The eight new Innovation Centres
- Local authority education departments
- Teacher education institutions
- Colleges
- Universities
There have been many changes since the 2013 edition – new organisations, appointments, mergers and movements.
Subscribers received the Special as a bonus, in addition to their regular monthly digests. Last year’s issue was described as ‘extremely useful’, ‘easy to follow’, ‘yet another one stop shop’ and ‘worth the subscription itself’!
All new subscribers will receive a copy – find out how to join the growing list and stay well informed.
Posted by admin on July 6, 2014 ·
UKCES ESS13 Scotland infographic
On Monday 7th July the UK Commission for Employment & Skills will present its Employer Skills Survey 2013 Scotland findings to an audience in Glasgow. We’ve been waiting to see the detailed picture for Scotland since the UK-wide report of skills gaps and shortages, training investment and recruitment trends was published earlier this year. It was worth the wait!
UKCES senior research manager Genna Kik commented: “It’s great news that job vacancies are up in Scotland, and that employers have the confidence to take on new staff. It is also positive to see that more employees are being trained than two years ago. However rising skills shortages should not be ignored – employers are struggling to fill vacancies in key sectors such as Manufacturing and Business Services and are unable to find suitably skilled staff for Skilled Trades and Professional occupations.
“Employers with skills shortages report substantial challenges, so left unchecked these shortages may have a significant impact on future growth prospects. From today there is a wealth of new data available on employers demand for skills in Scotland just waiting to be explored, it can be used to identify key challenges, opportunities and areas for action – and hopefully avert any future barriers to growth in the process.”
You can read Genna’s blog in full and download an infographic of key findings. The full report is available here. Follow the event and join the debate on Twitter using #ESS13.
Posted by admin on July 4, 2014 ·
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As always, June has been a very busy month, full of statistical releases and major research reports published before the holiday season begins.
This year, however, the Wood Commission report has been the main talking point. The final Young Workforce Commission report has received widespread backing and recognition and appears to have generated a momentum for change. As well as the Scottish Government’s ‘full welcome‘, many learning & skills organisations, teacher, business and third sector bodies have issued statements supporting the recommendations. Some have already begun to take action. It’s an accessible, well-written report with a real sense of urgency.
But we don’t begin with a clean sheet of paper… Determined to Succeed, Enterprise in Education, Education for Work & Enterprise, Education Business Partnerships, Teacher Placements, Education Industry Liaison and TVEI – and that’s not all. To make progress, it will be important to reflect and build on the legacy of these and other previous developments.
The next regular issue will be the July/August edition out early in September. However, subscribers will also receive an Organisations & People Special 2014 in August, ready for the new session. Last year’s issue was described as “worth the subscription itself!” by Bright Writing’s Sue Moody.
Become an Informed Scotland subscriber to keep on top of all the developments – and see who’s where in learning & skills in the next Special! Email [email protected] to request a sample copy.
Posted by admin on June 26, 2014 ·
by Laurie O’Donnell, learning, technology and innovation adviser, consultant and visiting professor. Continuing our guest blog series featuring Informed Scotland subscribers writing on the theme Making connections across the learning & skills landscape.
In the last century I was a secondary computing teacher and saw my role as helping young people to better understand their digital world, supporting them to take the first few steps towards becoming active creators rather than merely passive consumers of other people’s digital products and services.
Over the last six months I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to evaluate a Nesta digital creativity project funded by the Scottish Government to explore models of teacher professional development in schools. For the purposes of the project digital creativity was taken to include computer programming, animation, video production and other activities that involve making rather than consuming digital products.
This project got me back into classrooms and I was really impressed by the enthusiasm of the teachers and the way their students were engaged with a diverse range of digital creativity activities. It was great to see young people develop their computational thinking and begin to understand the decision-making processes behind making a movie; to recognise the painstaking approach to detail required to animate a character; and to understand the precision of instruction necessary to successfully program a webpage.
I was left in no doubt that well designed digital creativity activities in the classroom can provide rich contexts for the development of higher-order skills and help young people to engage as active makers of their increasingly digital world.
All of this got me thinking about the importance, and arguably unique, contribution that computing can make to the school curriculum. After a long period of neglect and decline the last few years has seen the profile of computing in schools being raised. This is at least in part due to the IT and creative industries raising concerns around the difficulties they face in recruiting suitably experienced staff and, quite rightly in my view, lamenting the absence of computing in the curriculum at all levels across the UK (see Nesta’s Next Gen report and Eric Schmidt’s MacTaggart Lecture for example).
The response in England has been prompt with computing now replacing ICT as part of the National Curriculum and the expectation is that programming will be taught to five year-olds – albeit this is likely to be in the form of understanding simple algorithms rather than necessarily coding for all.
In Scotland there are also some very promising developments that have the potential to raise the profile of computing in schools back to its high-point in the early 1990s, and with a bit of luck even higher. These include: PLAN C, a highly innovative approach to developing the pedagogical content knowledge of secondary computing teachers; the beginnings of more relevant computing qualifications from the SQA; the Skills Investment Plan for the ICT & Digital Technologies Sector; and of course the recent publication of the Wood Commission Report on Developing Scotland’s Young Workforce.
Not everyone in school is going to become a computer scientist, but there is something in computing that is fundamental to understanding our world. Something that is not covered anywhere else on the curriculum.
Although much of the current discussion around Curriculum for Excellence is focused on issues of implementation, assessment, resourcing and support it is worth noting the radical change that a 3–18 curriculum was supposed to herald. The formal principles of ‘breadth’, ‘depth’, coherence’ and ‘progression’ that underpinned previous Scottish curricula were extended. The new principles of ‘challenge and enjoyment’, ‘personalisation and choice’ and ‘relevance’ focus on engaging pupils where they are now and where they are going beyond school.
Engaging with the world of the learner is no longer an added extra but an expectation of every teacher’s daily classroom practice. In this respect computing and digital creativity have the potential to provide a rich seam of skills and attributes to help teachers deliver the outcomes and experiences at the heart of Curriculum for Excellence and give all of our young people the best preparation for life in the digital age.
For further information contact [email protected] or follow @laurieod
Read our previous guest blogs: SQA’s So what is open education? and UKCES makes connections between disparate ideas.
Posted by admin on June 9, 2014 ·
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The publication of the May 2014 issue of Informed Scotland marks its 2nd birthday.
So what have been some of the biggest changes noted since the first issue?
Two years ago we still had Standard Grade – now the new National Qualifications are a reality for young people, teachers, parents – and employers! In 2012 there were around 40 colleges – now there are 13 college regions, with mergers complete and many new names to grapple with. Two years ago many were only just waking up to the need to develop digital skills for all – now it is a key issue, with business, education, government and the wider community urgently trying to understand and tackle the problem.
Turning to May 2014, the main focus at a national level was on Modern Apprenticeships, highlighted during Scottish Apprenticeship Week. Adult Learners’ Week was at the same time, which was unfortunate as the launch of Adult Learning in Scotland: Statement of Ambition was probably missed by many as apprentices grabbed most of the attention.
The main challenging issue highlighted this month was widening access, with the Scottish Funding Council’s outcome agreements published, and research papers including Eurydice’s Modernisation of Higher Education in Europe.
Also worth looking out for Mondelez International’s snapshot of young people’s attitudes to STEM, with some interesting comparisons between Scotland and the UK as a whole.
This is a great opportunity to publicly thank our subscribers – those who have been with us from the beginning, as well as those more recently signed up. One who just renewed for a further 12 months commented, ‘It was a no brainer renewing our subscription. Informed Scotland is a really useful resource to a good number of us… Keep up the good work!‘
Become an Informed Scotland subscriber to keep on top of all the developments. Email [email protected] to request a sample copy.
Posted by admin on May 12, 2014 ·
On 5th June Informed Scotland will take part in the inaugural Crossover Edinburgh 2014 conference at Our Dynamic Earth. The workforce learning technology summit is a fantastic opportunity to engage with business and academics face-to-face on a topic that is a priority for organisations across the landscape.
The conference brings together HR, learning & development and training professionals plus educationalists and academics specialising in learning technology. Speakers will tackle the issues from a range of expert perspectives in public, private and third sectors – from Tree of Knowledge, PlanB Learning, Five by Five, SCVO, CETIS, Investors in People Scotland, University of Greenwich and Sky.
Edinburgh Napier University is sponsoring the event, with exhibitors including SQA and ourselves.
An Informed Scotland Learning Technology Special is also being produced for Crossover delegates and our subscribers, highlighting the breadth of relevant learning and skills activity.
Crossover Edinburgh is the brainchild of Insight Arcade, a digital studio focused on creating innovative learning & development products. Managing Director Allan Lloyds commented: ‘We see a community of start-ups in Edinburgh driving a wave of innovation in learning and technology and we want to provide a platform for these companies.’
We’re delighted that Informed Scotland subscribers – existing and new – can buy tickets to attend at a discount rate of £95 (a £50 saving on the standard fee).
Contact [email protected] to obtain the promotional code, or for information about becoming a subscriber. Click here to register.
Follow Crossover Edinburgh 2014 on Twitter @cedsummit and #ced14
Posted by admin on May 8, 2014 ·
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April saw a good spread of learning and skills activity across subjects and sectors; but there was one dominating topic: digital participation.
Major reports were published: the Scottish Government’s National Framework for Local Action; the UK Government’s Digital Inclusion Strategy and Charter; the final report of the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s spreading the benefits inquiry; and Carnegie UK Trust’s Making Digital Real case studies. Plus many innovative projects aiming to improve and make better use of digital skills, such as the Inspiring Digital Enterprise Award, IDEA and EE’s National Techy Tea Party Day.
Don’t forget to have a look at our new guest blog series featuring Informed Scotland subscribers writing on the theme Making connections across the learning & skills landscape. Many thanks to Joe Wilson of the SQA for providing the second article unravelling the mysteries of open education.
A subscriber commented: ‘This is such a useful document for my team – we have a development planning day coming up and the document provides some really useful information for the kind of partnership work we want to focus on.’
Find out how you and your team could benefit. Become an Informed Scotland subscriber to keep on top of all the developments. Email [email protected] to request a sample copy.
Posted by admin on May 6, 2014 ·
by Joe Wilson, Head of New Ventures at the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA). This is the second guest blog in our series featuring Informed Scotland subscribers writing on the theme Making connections across the learning & skills landscape.
There is a dramatic change happening in learning, assessment and certification around the world. In some countries this is being driven by the high cost of formal learning, in others by beliefs in greater access and equity and anchored by an understanding of education as a social good.
Loosely, many of these developments can be grouped under the banner of open education.
Open learning opportunities have been available since the advent of the internet; in the UK with Open University programmes on TV and radio you could argue before the internet. But Khan Academy and ALISON began structuring learning into recognisable, outcome based chunks for people who want to learn maths or workplace based skills respectively about six years ago, and they make the whole programme free.
In more unstructured ways, YouTube, SlideShare and other social platforms increasingly contain learner ready learning materials, while iTunes U has built up an amazing collection of lessons from institutions around the world that learners can dip into.
These materials are available to be included in both informal and formal learning.
The new wave of ‘open’ takes things on further. In some countries these developments manifest themselves as open textbook initiatives: teachers getting together, their efforts funded by charitable endowments, to create freely available textbooks meaning that learners no longer have to pay the high prices for standard academic textbooks. This to support learners studying with an institution.
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been the headline grabbers for open education – though it can be argued, at least in terms of their content, that they are not really that open. Have a look at the offerings from Coursera, MITx and the edX platform and from the UK’s own FutureLearn. Suddenly it is possible to access chunks of university courses free from anywhere in the world. The numbers engaging with some of these programmes run into hundreds of thousands from all around the world. These developments are part funded by charitable endowments and host institutions, and in some cases by venture capitalists intent on disrupting traditional programme delivery.
At the heart of a lot of this is simply a move to open up learning materials to a wider audience and to encourage a sharing culture among institutions and teachers. This has been driven by UNESCO since 2002 and the UNESCO Open Learning Declaration.
The Declaration encourages countries to change their practices around publically created Open Educational Resources (OERs). This includes any type of educational materials in the public domain or introduced with an open license. The nature of these open materials means that anyone can legally and freely copy, use, adapt and re-share them. OERs range from textbooks to curricula, syllabi, lecture notes, assignments, tests, projects, audio, video and animation.
In Wales the university system has already signed up to a Wales Open Education Declaration which will mean, as with publically funded research, universities will share publically funded learning materials. There are a number of countries around the world making similar commitments to open up learning materials from their schools, further (FE) and higher education (HE) sectors with appropriate licensing, normally creative commons, which will allow a global sharing culture to develop.
In the UK many of the platforms needed for a more open system are in place already. Jorum provides UK HE and FE institutions with an open sharing platform for learning content, and in Scotland, College Development Network’s Re:Source is the open sharing platform for college learning materials. SQA has committed to moving any learning materials we have out from the secure area which was accessible only to SQA centres and onto Re:Source with an appropriate creative commons license.
There are also grassroots organisations showcasing open initiatives in Scotland, encouraging institutions to think about moving towards a national open policy along the lines of the UNESCO declaration. The Open Scotland initiative picks up a range of open practice.
On another front, Mozilla has developed Open Badges. It is free software and an open technical standard that allows any organisation to create, issue and verify digital badges – so in effect a new way of credentialing learning.
Greater openness can only be good for formal and informal learners. While some may see open educational resources as being part of the education sector’s fetish with content, or open badges as a challenge to more formal forms of certification, in fact both are complementary to lifelong learning.
The SQA is continually looking at ways to embed the best of open educational practice in Scottish education for the benefit of our learners.
For further information contact Joe Wilson at the SQA on [email protected]
Also read our first guest blog: UKCES makes connections between disparate ideas
Posted by admin on April 28, 2014 ·
Informing SMEs & family businesses
We were delighted to support Sustainability: The challenge facing Scotland’s SMEs & family businesses, a seminar in Edinburgh on Friday 25 April organised by the Goodison Group in Scotland (GGiS) and Scotland’s Futures Forum (SFF). Each of the 70 delegates took away a copy of Informed Scotland, giving them information about the wealth of learning and skills activity taking place right across the landscape which can be used to enlighten and develop businesses and their employees.
According to conference papers, 99.3% of all private sector enterprises in Scotland are SMEs and 63% of these are family businesses. New business birth rate is extremely healthy, but sustainability and growth ‘could be much better’.
Donald Jarvie of SFF commented that SMEs ‘can better utilise education’ for sustainability. It’s a win-win situation: learning and skills development is crucial for business survival and vital if society is to retain the knowledge and expertise each business contains.
Graham Smith of the University of Strathclyde explained that an underestimated social cost of business failure is the often ‘completely wasted’ knowledge and know-how it has accumulated. Strathclyde is involved in a European Transfer of Knowledge-Transfer of Human Capital project, tackling the EU-wide SME issue of business transferability.
The unique challenges and rewards of running a family business were vividly brought to life by Creative Training Unlimited actors, followed by a rousing plea from Martin Stepek, Scottish Family Business Association, for a concerted campaign to highlight their role and needs. He wants to see ‘every university in Scotland providing education for family business’.
Universities already involved include:
A Success through Succession project was run by Glasgow Caledonian University, and in other parts of the UK, Lancaster University runs The Centre for Family Business, and Regent’s University, London offers a Family Business pathway in its Global Management MA, recognised by the Chartered Management Institute. However, as GGiS/SFF suggest, ‘we appear to be lagging behind America and parts of Europe’ where much more learning support is available.
The seminar is to be repeated on 9 May at University of the Highlands & Islands in Inverness.
Delegates who picked up a hard copy of Informed Scotland at the event can email [email protected] to request a pdf version with links enabled.
