Well, it’s been a while. If I was a cynic I’d use a line like “I’ve been too busy teaching” - which is a half truth, but it’s more down to not remembering about Google Reader and thus not reading blogs enough. I have, however, been very busy teaching. Computing Studies Standard Grade is really not the most enjoyable of courses. The Intermediate 2 is slightly better, the 5-14 is OK as there’s some flexibility, and doing games design with S1 usually provides the highlight of the week (though the new group of 14 girls and 2 boys hasn’t taken to the world of creating mythical landscapes as much (the secret turns out to be about getting them to place furniture in the levels though)).

I’d love to be in a position of power, regarding the SG Computing curriculum. While there are great uses of technology in my subject (podcasting, blogging, moodly stuff, etc) , at the end of the day the course is a 2 year concept assault only punctuated by monotonous assessments on the most exciting of packages such as spreadsheets and databases. The cool guys at the SQA have thrown some presentation/graphics assessments in there for street cred, but they all begin with such sentences as “Maryvale High School publishes a bi-monthly newsletter. Jake has been asked to design a new logo.”.

What often strikes me about these assessments in the exactness of the requirements - like somehow, by mentioning that the school has the made-up name of Maryvale, students are instantly going to identify with the problem. Why can’t we have an assessment that is simply put, such as:

• Find out how to create a website that lets you and your friends write pages about your hobbies.
• Create the website so that the pages link together and so that it can be updated easily.
• Write instructions for someone that wants to edit the website.
• Send news of this website to twenty people, electronically.

Maybe I’m missing something?

I suppose such things are a mini version of one of education’s enduring problems - I’ll teach you how to create something, but you’ll need to do it my way, and create what I say. Otherwise you won’t pass.