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Thursday, 23 October 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
The second one is to lead the strategy and direction of the institution, through chairing the Trustee Board and consulting with the council. Moreover, to work with the independent Chair of Council to ensure that members of the institute remain sighted on the key challenges faced and through their elected councillors, have an opportunity to contribute to the institute’s strategic decision-making
Q: Can you tell us about the BCS ‘Women in IT’ campaign?
A: Trying to get more women into IT has really been an important initiative for the BCS. In May this year, we ran a month-long campaign to encourage women of all ages, from young students to women returners, to consider a career in IT and join the profession.
We put them essentially as role models to try and speak about how they got into IT and why they enjoy being in IT, and what’s good about the IT industry. We did blogs and videos as well. That was the key campaign. Now those stories the women had to tell have been published in an e-book which is available on Amazon and it is completely free.
Q: You have authored over a hundred publications. Can you tell us about your favourite areas of research?
A: My primary area of research is the development of software to support learning. In recent times, I have been involved in the development and training of products for crisis managers. The key thing about crisis managers is that when you have a crisis like 9/11, you have to bring together people from different agencies such as fire, police and local authorities.
They have to learn how to work together and they have to be trained in advance. What typically happens is that they sit around a table and are given paper-based exercises where they have to imagine a scenario. That doesn’t really work very well because you need to try and create the stress of a real-life situation. What we have done is get involved in research to develop an augmented reality system with an immersive environment that can manage, profile and generate the stress of a real situation and allow people to interact and feel this stress, plan and come up with solutions.
This is really important because stress can cause people to behave in illogical ways for example not considering all the possibilities before making a decision.
The second area I’ve been involved in is developing educational games for learning. For example, we have been developing a game to train health and social care students in child protection. This is one of the very challenging areas of experience to get in real life. This game provides them with simulations of real situations that they might not be able to experience during their training otherwise. So it’s all about having fun with games and immersive environments for e-learning purposes.
Q: In the BCS website you have mentioned that your theme for the year is transforming education through technology-enhanced learning. Could you comment on that?
A: People these days expect education to transform their educational experience in the same way that it transforms the rest of their lives. People use technology to do so much but traditionally we haven’t really changed the way we teach.
We go to a classroom, listen to our lecturer, listen to their words of wisdom and practice a bit but actually it’s a very old-fashioned way of doing things and it doesn’t work all that well. One of the key things I think is mobile access. If you look at the statistics of mobile access to the internet, it can be seen that many countries have surpassed that fixed line. People want to learn when and where they want to learn, when it is convenient for them. They don’t want to be wasting time going to a lecture now. So we have to embrace that change and take it on board in providing new educational experiences for students.
Education is at the heart of what BCS does and as a professional body for IT, we need to lead the way and be a champion of change.
Q: As the co-director of the e-centre research group, can you tell us how e-learning could transform traditional classroom learning?
A: Traditional classroom teaching where lecturers stands at the front of the classroom and impart their wisdom while students listen passively, is a poor pedagogy. If you put students in a classroom, you’re actually firing them with an awful lot of facts. This way people could go into cognitive overload, it’s difficult to remember and it’s too much to take in at one go and they don’t have time to reflect or digest what is being said.
Research tells us that students can’t concentrate for more than about 20 minutes and that up to about 30% of their time can be spent in irrelevant thought. This means that students will miss a lot of what has been said.
A lot of what people are looking at now is to do the factual learning in advance. It’s called ‘Flipped Classroom Model’ and it could involve watching a video or lecture online to do the factual stuff, instead of waiting for your tutor to give you the words of wisdom, and then they come to class to discuss and debate what they have learned. That is where the real learning occurs and that’s the most important thing when learning, as opposed to just listening to the facts.
You can do things online that you can’t do in a classroom. For instance, you can run simulations and do computer game-based learning. It’s about getting the right mix of the best of online and the best of the classroom.
Q: You have travelled around the world talking about your research. So in which countries in general do you see a shortage of e-skills?
A: The answer is pretty much all of them, I’ve seen a shortage everywhere I have gone. The official statistics say that there is a shortage for IT professionals everywhere. There is a global shortage of IT professionals. However, many countries are suffering worse because their professionals are attracted to high salaries in other countries.
Certainly in Europe there is a massive shortage. By next year we are predicted to have half a million shortage of IT professionals and by 2020 it will be around 900,000. A quarter of the predicted shortage for Europe is in the UK.
Q: What do you think are the reasons for the lack of women in the IT field?
A: I think every country has a shortage of women in the IT field. It is a very male-dominated area.
If I talk about the UK, well we have had problems in schools. We haven’t had an inspiring curriculum or well qualified teachers. Also, IT has been given a ‘nerdy’ image where people think that IT is only about sitting in a corner and talking to a computer.
Sometimes you find one woman sitting around many men and they often felt uncomfortable being in a male culture where there are no female-friendly work initiatives. There is a lack of support for women to take time out for their family and then get back into the industry because technology moves so fast. Inflexible working patterns that do not help support women with families is another issue.
Q: What do you think the industry needs to do to attract more women for IT-related jobs?
A: This starts at school. It is important to have an inspiring curriculum so students are well informed about the subject and the careers available. One of the things the BCS has done in the UK working along with the industry and academia is campaign to change the curriculum in schools. From this September, everybody from the age of five will be taught computer programming, obviously starting from a simple level.
In today’s society, having a basic understanding of computing is akin to being able to read, write and do arithmetic. It’s a core part of being able to associate with others in society. When people don’t have that understanding, they can have some very strange ideas of it, like accusing a computer of having some green alien in it when obviously it doesn’t.
This is the key thing. But we need to do it right throughout the whole cycle. We need to cover the whole spectrum. This involves inspiring students at school, making sure they have opportunities to understand enough about the subject to decide if they want to take it a career and making sure we support them for their lifelong learning and while they are in the workplace.
Q: How important do you think it is to get more women involved in technology research?
A: Of course it’s really important. It’s not only about getting women into technology research but getting them across the border. Research tells us that companies with a mix of women and men at board level generally do much better than boards with only men. I think it’s not just about getting women into the industry but getting women into senior positions as well, so they can actually have influence. Whether in academia or the industry side, we have to get that mix.
Women have a lot to bring. Research tells you that social intelligence of women is generally at a higher scale than of men, so a good mix of people and skills is important throughout industry and research.
In general it’s good to have a good mix of people. It’s not only about gender alone but ethnicity and the whole diversity. We need to make sure we have that in all areas of the computing industry.
Q: Any advice you would like to offer to the young IT graduates in Sri Lanka who will be soon moving into the industry?
A: Firstly, I’d like to say congratulations to all the IT graduates. Throughout their careers they need to look at networking, getting to know people and making sure they have a good mentor. That’s something BCS can help with because we have many networking opportunities. I think the key thing is to find out what you really like and have a passion for and go into that area. We all spend a long time at work, and it’s very important that you find something that you really enjoy doing.
Above all, work hard, enjoy yourselves and good luck for your future careers.
