For anyone starting the new BTEC national in IT practitioners this year, which units are you starting with? Which pathway are you following? Are you offering more than one?

Hi - doing the National Award with the new specification. 

It's going OK so far the Unit 1 is more relevant to the students' needs, but the Unit 2 pretty much loses the binary & hex repesentation which I still feel has a value in explaining how everything else works.  Hex numbers still used in web colours and some error codes etc.  The binary powers explain why 256 colours in some bitmap formats and why there are that many rows in a Excel spreadsheet etc.  Buit it has gained more in terms of practical knowledge.  I feel v lucky that we have a few stand alone machines with Linux to deliver the operating systems stuff as the RM network rightly stops any experimentation and therefore stops learning about Operating Systems.  I would recommend anyone else to get some PCs - could be quite old - or old Apples, and have these available for practical work.

 Hope this useful

We are doing the Systems Support pathway. We are doing communication and employability skills, computer systems, website production and management and had imported spreadsheets and databases form the First Diploma as a gentle introduction. We have now found out that you can only import Vendor units from the First and so will do Advanced spreadsheets and databases instead.

 If you run an RM network and need standalone machines for Computer Systems try your local College or University. They usually replace equipment on a 3 or 4 year basis and often have to pay for disposal.