NCCE Digital Skills Forum - Digital Skills and Ethics

About this event

What skills will young people need to be ethical users and creators in the digital world? How can our schools and educators deliver the knowledge and skills to enable them to navigate ethical challenges? And what can we learn from industry and cyber experts about coping with the ethical challenges of the future?

We’re all users, creators and consumers of digital technology, experiencing an increasing need to understand our rights and responsibilities in digital spaces. Schools are attempting to embed these skills across the curriculum, but how do institutions ensure teaching staff have the knowledge and understanding to make this possible? The new online safety bill currently being considered by Parliament aims to set out some parameters of digital ethics, but is it robust enough for the challenges of the future? We’ll be looking at these, and other issues, in this lively discussion on ethics in the digital world.

Chair

Julia Adamson, Director of Education, BCS

Once a teacher herself, Julia has a track record of successfully managing education technology programmes and was involved in establishing Barefoot Computing across the UK. Julia leads the work of the BCS Academy of Computing including Computing at School and is part of the team implementing the National Centre for Computing Education. Julia lives and has worked extensively in the SW, leading SWGfL Merlin, and is a Director at Uffculme Multi Academy Trust.

Speakers

Prof Andy Phippen, Professor of digital rights and IT ethics

Andy Phippen is a professor of digital rights at Bournemouth University and a visiting professor at the University of Suffolk. He has worked with the IT sector for over 15 years in a consultative capacity on issues of ethical and social responsibility, with companies such as British Telecom, Google and Facebook. He has presented written and oral evidence to parliamentary enquiries related to the public use of ICT and is widely published in the area. In recent years he has specialised in the use of ICTs by children and young people, carrying out a large amount of grass roots research on issues such as their attitudes toward privacy and data protection, file sharing and internet safety. He is a research partner with the UK Safer Internet Centre and is a frequent media commentator on children and the Internet.

Kate Arthur, MBA, Founder & CEO, Kids Code Jeunesse

Kate Arthur is the founder & CEO of Kids Code Jeunesse, a bilingual charity determined to give every Canadian child access to digital skills education. She speaks at international conferences & policy roundtables to ensure youth are included in decisions on AI. She has won many leadership awards for innovation and empowerment. KCJ’s #kids2030 initiative will educate 1,000,000 kids and 50,000 educators on artificial intelligence, ethics, and on using technology to achieve the UN's Sustainable Development Global Goals by 2030.

Sharon Cromie, Headteacher, Wycombe High School

Sharon Cromie was appointed as the Headteacher of Wycombe High School in 2009, and as a National Leader of Education in 2013. Alongside her headship role, Sharon is currently employed as an Ofsted Inspector, is a member of the Buckinghamshire Schools Forum and Children’s Partnership Board and sits on the National Centre for Computing Education (NCCE) Advisory Board. Over the last two years Sharon has led the setup & growth of the National Mathematics and Physics Teacher Training Centre (NMAPs). Starting at Wycombe High School it now operates nine Hubs across England involving the very best state and independent schools.

About the NCCE

The National Centre for Computing Education, funded by the Department for Education delivers teacher training and resources for computer science to enable every child in England to have a world-leading computing education.

The NCCE was launched in 2018 and is a consortium of STEM Learning, Raspberry Pi Foundation and BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT.

Improving the quality of teaching computing in schools:

• 29,500+ teachers engaged across more than 14,000 schools in England

• 4,500+ teachers have received training through the Computer Science Accelerator

• 394,000+ lessons downloaded from the Teach Computing Curriculum since launch