Thirty-five schools across the Edinburgh and South East Scotland city region have begun their data skills journey with the set up of an Internet of Things network in their school.
Throughout 2022-23, we are establishing a knowledge sharing community (KSC) programme around these first phase schools to support teachers and learners in their use of sensors and data skills. The KSC will initially offer teachers the opportunity to share their knowledge, learning, challenges and successes with colleagues from other schools.
Through co-development of sensor and data skills activities and sharing across schools and clusters we aim to build a scaffolded knowledge sharing community to support schools in subsequent phases of the programme to build knowledge, skills and confidence with using data in the classroom.
For background information, the ambition of the city region deal is that all citizens of the Edinburgh city region have the opportunity to gain skills needed for a data-rich economy. This skills development begins at schools and continues through all routes for learning through to adulthood. A key part of this initiative is to develop learning and teaching around data and related qualifications across the 3-18 curriculum.
This work began in 2019 with our staff supporting the development of a new National Progression Award in Data Science. A professional development network is being developed and materials written to support this part of the curriculum with the aim of developing data skills in all curriculum subject areas and at all SCQF levels.
