Developing Resources for the NCCA
The NCCA is the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment.
The NCCA advises the Minister for Education and Skills on:
- curriculum and assessment for early childhood education, primary and post-primary schools.
- assessment procedures used in schools and examinations on subjects which are part of the curriculum.
This has been such an amazing opportunity for me, especially for whom I got to work with. I worked closely with the inspirational Paul Behan and also with Dr. Jake Byrne, and all I can say is that is has been a roller coaster. Initially I gave my feedback and input into the final stages of the curriculum development process, although I was not on the development group. I still cannot believe that some of my suggestions made it into the final specification.
Following this small contribution to one of the most amazing events to shape Computer Science in Ireland, I was commissioned to develop resources, that may be used in the CPD given to teachers.
The first piece of work I was commissioned to do was develop a set of video tutorials for the micro:bit. These align with the applied learning task 4. The complete specification can be found at: https://www.ncca.ie/media/3369/computer-science-final-specification.pdf
The video resources also aligned with many other learning outcomes from the specification, in particular the coding learning outcomes, which is delivered through Python and JavaScript.
Following this initial commission, I was then commissioned to develop Python resources, and these again followed the video route. My head of department Dr.Barry Feeney was completely behind this, and IT Tallaght will be mentioned in recognition for the development of the Python video resources.
Overall I still can not believe that I have been involved in this. Last year I was a secondary school teacher, and now I am giving my advice to the NCCA, developing resources that secondary school teachers may use some day and lecturing in IT Tallaght. I have gained so much insight between this work for the NCCA, delivering teacher CPD, running computing camps for students, my PhD work and it is now all starting to tie together into my professional identity, which I am so humbled and proud of.
The Computer Science Future is Bright in second level education in Ireland!