Be Realistic

Image by Getty Images via DaylifeWhat’s the first thing that Computing practitioners should do? Be realistic.Computing took great advantage of a boom in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This boom was fuelled by many reasons inc…

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Image by Getty Images via DaylifeWhat’s the first thing that Computing practitioners should do? Be realistic.

Computing took great advantage of a boom in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This boom was fuelled by many reasons including the massive uptake of computers in general business, the millennium bug, the dot.com boom etc.

This boom led to a large increase in the number of course offered and the number of computing professionals added to the pool. The pool of professionals has now reached a natural plateau where the requirement, at HNC and HND level, is mainly to refresh the pool of talent rather than expand it.

Computing as a high-end technical subject has less potential for attracting students than IT as a business support subject. Therefore consideration should be given to Computing departments teaching IT subjects that are embedded in other curricular areas such as Business Management programmes to ensure their quality and viability.

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HND Computer Games Development

Image via Wikipedia SQA Computing blog: HND Computer Games Development

Just back and straight in to the swing of things. Tuesday involved a trip to Edinburgh to talk about the proposed HND in Computer Games to supplement the HNC. The day went well and things look positive for the development.

I must be getting old as, instead of pushing for the latest up to date gadgetry to be involved in the new award, my input seemed focussed more on what’s good for the learner and for the centres.

Bottom line I think we need to ensure that we have as much cross award compatibility as possible enabling the students to switch to another award such as Software Development or Technical Support, and to allow the centres to in-fill classes to make them viable.

We’ll see what happens over the next eighteen months or so.

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