I have been teaching for a decade on a variety of Computing & ICT courses including GCSE, A-level, BTEC & Foundation Degree and have also been head the Head of Computing, ICT & Engineering for a sixth-form college for the past five years. In addition to my teaching experience I have also written for the official BTEC course books & teaching resources both on the First & National courses. I have also contributed to private authoring work for Pearson that is related to the BTEC and have contributed towards the BTEC specifications.
Today I have added six new videos to the Effective Digital Working Practices course on KnowItAllNinja.com. This provides coverage of the following sections of the BTEC Tech Award Digital Information Technology specification:
External threats to digital systems and data security
Data level protection
Defining responsibilities and security parameters
Disaster recovery policy
Actions to take after an attack
Environmental considerations
Be able to present knowledge and understanding of the use of data flow diagrams.
These BTEC DIT Component 3 resources will make a massive difference in your delivery of this unit and really help your students prepare for your exams.
You can check out one of these great new videos below:
If you want to check out all of these videos you can even sign up for a free trial of KnowItAll Ninja’s e-learning courses.
With a subscription to KnowItAll Ninja, you’ll have access to all the videos on the course. Currently, 16 of the lessons have dedicated explainer videos, but soon you’ll find all 27 lessons will have their own explainer video.
In addition to these videos, you’ll find that every single lesson has its own presentation, clear text explanations & interactive quiz. Your students will also have the gamified e-learning features, such as gaining experience, levelling up and achieving awards.
You’ll also be able to track your students progress throughout this course with the student tracker. So you’ll know exactly how your students are progressing through the course.
Subscribing to KnowItAll Ninja
If you want to get started right away with the Component 3 Digital Working Practices course, then you can, of course, subscribe right now. Remember, each subscription doesn’t just give you access to the BTEC DIT Component 3 resources, but all e-learning courses on KnowItAll Ninja.
Prices cost as little as £30 for 10 students access. That’s £2.50 per student for an entire years access. An unbelievably affordable, high-quality resource. To check out the subscription options you should go straight to the pricing page.
These add to the already fantastic resources for these topics which include presentations, text-based explanations and interactive quizzes. So KnowItAllNinja.com really is the best place to study for your Component 3 exam.
If you haven’t subscribed to KnowItAllNinja.com yet, you can still check out the first four videos by visiting the Effective Digital Working Practices course. You could also sign up to a free trial and check out all fof the videos right now.
These six videos are just a taste of what KnowItAll Ninja has to offer. There are 4 additional videos with more coming over the next month that will ensure every BTEC DIT Component 3 lesson has a video.
With the free trial, you’ll be able to check out all of this content yourself for 7 days to see if it’s right for you and your students. You’ll even be able to access the six other courses on KnowItAllNinja.com covering subjects like:
Subscribing to the Effective Digital Working Practices Course
If you want to get started right away with the Component 3 Digital Working Practices course, then you can, of course, subscribe right now. Remember, each subscription doesn’t just give you access to the BTEC DIT Component 3 course, but all e-learning courses on KnowItAll Ninja.
Prices cost as little as £30 for 10 students access. That’s £2.50 per student for an entire years access. An unbelievably affordable, high-quality resource. To check out the subscription options you should go straight to the pricing page.
Today four brand new explainer videos have been added to this course to help your students study this unit on the BTEC Level 2 Tech Award qualification.
These first four videos cover the following topics from the BTEC Level 2 Digital Information Technology Component 3 specification:
Communication Technologies
Changes to Modern Teams
Why Systems are Attacked
User Access Restrictions
I am certain you will find these of great use, but these videos won’t just stop there. Over the next three months new videos will be regularly added until all 27 lessons on the Component 3 Effective Digital Working Practices course has it’s own dedicated explainer videos.
What are these videos like? If you have subscribed to KnowItAllNinja already you and your students can access all four of the videos already at no extra cost. Indeed all 27 videos will be available at no extra cost to subscribers.
If you haven’t subscribed to KnowItAllNinja.com yet, you can still check out the first video by going to the free Communication Technologies lesson. You could also sign up to a free trial and check out all four of the videos right now.
The free trial won’t just give you access to these four videos. You’ll be able to check out every lesson for the BTEC DIT Component 3 course on KnowItAll Ninja. This includes all presentations and quizzes for each lesson.
In fact, you’ll also be able to access the 6 other e-learning courses, covering things like the BTEC Level 3 Computing Unit 1, BTEC Level 3 Information Technology Unit 1, 2 & 11, and BTEC Level 2 ICT Unit 1 & 2.
Finally, this free trial will allow you to experience much of the fantastic extra features KnowItAll Ninja will offer you and your students, like:
The student tracker for monitoring student progress.
Experience points, levelling & achievements to inspire student engagement.
Leaderboards so students can compare their progress with their peers.
You may also want to check out the editable in-class resources for BTEC DIT Component 1 & 2. These include presentations and worksheets covering the entirety of these two units and are available at a fantastic price.
Getting Started with the Component 3 Revision Course
If you want to get started right away with the e-learning course for Component 3 Digital Working Practices, then you can, of course, subscribe right now. Remember, each subscription doesn’t just give you access to the BTEC DIT Component 3 course, but all e-learning courses on KnowItAll Ninja.
Prices cost as little as £30 for 10 students access. That’s £2.50 per student for an entire years access. An unbelievably affordable, high-quality resource. To check out the subscription options you should go straight to the pricing page.
If you’re looking for BTEC Digital Information Technology resources and think KnowItAllNinja.com might be right for you, I have good news. You can claim a free 7-day trial (teachers only).
We’re coming to the end of the first year of delivery for the Level 1/2 Tech Award in DIT. This means that preparations for year 2 and the Component 3 Effective Digital Working Practices unit are in full flow.
This examined unit is being assessed for the first time in 2020 and when preparing our students for this exam it’s always useful to have a way of regularly monitoring students progress.
KnowItAllNinja’s BTEC Digital Information Technology resources for Component 3 includes a complete gamified e-learning revision course that includes clear explanations, summary presentations & quizzes on every topic.
Teachers can easily monitor students progress throughout the course using the sites student tracker. Additionally, the gamified element gives students experience points, badges & levelling to inspire them to be proactive in their studies. There’s even a leaderboard to compare their progress against classmates.
In future, you can even expect explainer videos covering key topics that will be added over the next few months.
Component 3 Effective Digital Working Practices Free Trial
This free trial will last 7-days and will give you total access to the BTEC Digital Information Technology resources for Component 3.You’ll also be able to check our other BTEC Computing & IT courses on the site, including:
There is no obligation to pay and no financial details are taken. It is for teachers only though and requires a school staff email when you sign up in order to claim the free trial.
Once you have completed the sign-up form I will confirm your teacher status and activate your account. You can then just visit the course page you want to check out and press the “Take This Course” button at the top of the page.
If you’re already convinced without taking out the free trial, then you can subscribe your students right now. This way you’ll be ready for delivering the Component 3 Effective Digital Working Practices unit right now.
Subscribing is very affordable for schools. There is a flexible pricing structure that starts from as little as £30 with discounts for larger numbers. So why not get started now?
Are you preparing to deliver the Effective Digital Working Practices component for the BTEC Tech Award in Digital Information Technology? Then you’ll want to check out our e-learning revision course right now.
The BTEC Level 1/2 Tech Award DIT is a great course and is being delivered by schools across the country. With the Component 3 Effective Digital Working Practices unit being examined for the first time in 2020, many schools are now preparing to start delivering this unit.
Obviously, with this unit being externally assessed via an exam, getting your students to regularly revise and being able to monitor their progress is very important, but can be equally difficult. But KnowItAll Ninja can help you with this.
Our Effective Digital Working Practices resource is a gamified e-learning revision course that covers the entire specification for Component 3 of the Digital Information Technology Level 2 Tech Award. It includes written lessons, quizzes and presentations on every single topic.
This is a great way to get the students to take part in self-directed study and to allow you to easily assess their progress through the automatically marked quizzes.
BTEC Tech Award Gamified E-learning
KnowItAll Ninja also makes use of gamified learning principles to help inspire and engage students in their component 3 revision. This includes:
Course Progress Tracking – easily see your progress in your revision with clear marking of completed tutorials and interactive tests to check your understanding.
Experience and Levelling Up – gain experience for successfully completing tutorials, level up and compare your level with friends.
Achievements for Success – receive awards for your successful completion of tests and courses to help drive your revision forward.
Leaderboards for Comparing Progress – easily compare your progress against your friends on leaderboards. Compete to gain the most experience.
Students really love this gamified and competitive edge to the revision and really strive to be number 1 on their leaderboard. Teachers can monitor students progress too in the student tracker so you can be sure of who is keeping on track.
You don’t just have to take my word on it, teachers love KnowItAll Ninja’s e-learning courses.
Students love the instant feedback and the quizzes are the launch pad for many an in-depth discussion of the topics – great coverage of the syllabus too! – Dave Fountain – Astor College
Even students love it. 🙂
Hey guys, your boy here back at it again on KnowItAllNinja! I love this site, it enables me to learn and revise for my BTEC ICT exam! Thanks team, keep up the good work!
BTEC Tech Award DIT Resources
If you’re teaching the BTEC Tech Award in Digital Information Technology in your school, KnowItAll Ninja also has editable classroom resources for Component 1 & 2 of this course.
There will be worksheets for Component 3 Effective Digital Work Practices available soon too.
Additionally, if you deliver any other BTEC IT or Computing courses, you’ll find KnowItAll Ninja useful here too. We have e-learning revision courses for:
So you should definitely check these out now if you’re delivering any of these courses. I am certain you’ll find them a fantastic resource.
Get Revising With Our Effective Digital Working Practices Resource
If you aren’t currently subscribed to KnowItAll Ninja, then why don’t you subscribe your students right now. This way you’ll be ready for delivering the Component 3 Effective Digital Working Practices unit.
Subscribing is very affordable for schools. There is a flexible pricing structure that starts from as little as £30 with discounts for larger numbers.
So if you want the best opportunity to succeed in your BTEC Level 1/2 Tech Award in Digital Information Technology Component 3 revision then you should be using KnowItAllNinja.com.
Brand new editable presentations & worksheets for the BTEC Tech Award in Digital IT are now available on KnowItAll Ninja.
The new BTEC Tech Award DIT resources available on KnowItAllNinja.com are a fantastic new tool for delivering the first two components of this new course:
This brand new specification offers an exciting and interesting course for students to study, but I know as much as anyone how long it takes to build your resources for any new course.
But these BTEC Tech Award DIT resources include editable presentations and worksheets covering every single topic in these two unit specifications. This means you can concentrate on your teaching and not on spending hours and hours building these resources yourself.
All worksheets even come with sample answers to help you assess the students work or even to provide the opportunity for students to peer mark each others work. It can make for some great classroom discussion opportunities too.
If you’d like a preview of what you can expect to receive you can download a free sample of both components below:
You don’t need to wait to purchase these resources, as they’re available for you right now, at a fantastic price.
Right now you can purchase each unit’s resources for just £35, or both sets of resources for a combined cost of £60. However, this pricing won’t last forever though and will increase after the initial few months of release. So buy them now and you’ll save your school money.
Check out the free samples listed above and have a look at the product pages for these two resources and I’m sure you’ll see what a fantastic deal this is.
As always, you won’t find resources of the same quality for anywhere near this price. I’m a teacher like you, just trying to make a difference in supporting Computing & IT teachers.
Future Digital Information Technology Resources
I am far from done with the BTEC Level 2 Tech Award in Digital Information Technology, with more resources in development.
I know everyone is getting prepared for delivering Component 3 Effective Digital Working Practices for first examination in 2020.
As such, a KnowItAllNinja.com e-learning revision course is in development and should be available in the coming months. As always this will include:
Clear, well-presented lessons covering every topic of the specification.
Summary presentations of every lesson’s content.
Automatically assessed quizzes for every lesson to check on students progress.
Gamified principles, such as gaining points, levelling & leaderboards which have shown to raise student engagement.
The ability to track students progress and quiz results to ensure they’re keeping up with their studies.
If you haven’t used any of our e-learning revision courses before, we have them for covering several BTEC units. This includes BTEC Level 3 Computing & IT, as well as BTEC Level 2 Information & Creative Technology.
Check out the free preview of some of these courses. For example, Unit 1 Principles of Computer Science, for the BTEC Level 3 Computing specification.
There are over 10,000 users of KnowItAllNinja.com so you know these resources are much loved and well worth subscribing to. You can give access to your students for, on average, around £2 per student for the years access. You really can’t go wrong!
New presentations and worksheets for learning aim A of Unit 8 / Unit 14 Computer Games Development are now available right here.
Computer Games Development is a popular unit for both the BTEC Level 3 IT and BTEC Level 3 Computing specifications. However, there aren’t too many resources available for its delivery. Particularly the early theory in learning aim A.
Well, I’ve put together 7 presentations and worksheets to help with your classroom delivery of LA-A. The presentations will be a great tool for front of class delivery. The worksheets will be great for either in class activities or as homework.
Thankfully Unit 8 of the BTEC Level 3 IT specification and Unit 14 of the BTEC Level 3 Computing specification are identical. This means these will help you regardless which of these two courses you are running.
Also, while you’re here if you haven’t checked out KnowItAll Ninja’s e-learning revision courses yet, why not have a look at them now. These cover Unit 1, 2 & 11 of the BTEC Level 3 IT specification and have also recently added Unit 1 Principles of Computer Science.
Signing up your students to these revision courses are really affordable for all schools with a scaling pay system so it’s well worth your time. Teachers love them:
The website is amazing! My students love the wording of the resources. Thank-you. – Adam Ricketts – The Wellington Academy
The courses cover every topic in the unit specification and have quizzes for every single lesson. You can monitor your students progress in the student tracker and students gain points and achievements as they succeed in the quizzes to inspire their progress.
Download BTEC Computer Games Development Resources
If you want to download these free resources you can do so by clicking on the download button below. These are free for you to use and share with your students by uploading them to your schools VLE.
The documents are completely editable so you can customise them to your heart’s delight. However please, if you share them with teachers at other schools, do share the versions with the KnowItAll Ninja branding and let them know about this site.
If you like these resources and want some more, don’t worry there are plenty more on the way, both for the Computer Games Development unit and many others. There’s a new classroom resources section of the site in development which will have free and low-cost resources for your classroom. Keep an eye out for it.
Get Revising For Your BTEC Level 3 Course Now!
If you aren’t currently subscribed to KnowItAll Ninja, then why don’t you subscribe your students right now?
KnowItAll Ninja was written by an author for the official BTEC National Information Technology revision guide and workbook.
I’ve also written for the BTEC Level 2 I&CT textbooks and teaching resources and many other official BTEC IT publications. This means you can trust that KnowItAll Ninja’s content is of the highest quality.
If I’ve grabbed your interest over subscribing to KnowItAll Ninja’s e-learning revision resources, remember, we cover all of these units:
You can subscribe 10 students for as little as £25 and get access to every single course on the site. Need more than 10 students? The per student cost gets lower and lower the more you subscribe.
You’ll be able to track their progress throughout their revision by viewing their quiz results and the leaderboard & achievements really helps inspire the students to revise regularly.
The BTEC Level 3 Computing is a fantastic course for students looking to develop a career in fields such as software development, cyber security, systems analysis, web development & games development. In order to achieve on this course, you’ll need to tackle the core principles of computer science. This includes subjects like:
Computational thinking
Standard methods and techniques used to develop algorithms
Programming paradigms
Types of programming and mark-up languages.
This requires you to really get to grips with understanding common programming practices, including pseudocode, and languages like C#, VB.NET and Python.
Preparing for the Unit 1 Principles of Computer Science exam has become much easier now though, thanks to KnowItAllNinja. Our new course will guide you through every topic of the unit specification for the BTEC National Computing course.
There are 42 individual lessons, each containing detailed text explanations of the topic, summary presentations and a dedicated quiz. Check out one of our presentations below:
In addition to this you’ll also have access to the key KnowItAll Ninja features:
Course Progress Tracking – easily see your progress in your revision with clear marking of completed tutorials and interactive tests to check your understanding. Teachers can track their students progress through the course too.
Experience and Levelling Up – gain experience for successfully completing tutorials, level up and compare your level with friends.
Achievements for Success – receive awards for your successful completion of tests and courses to help drive your revision forward.
Leaderboards for Comparing Progress – easily compare your progress against your friends on leaderboards. Compete to gain the most experience.
These e-learning tools have shown to improve student engagement and help students to progress during their own self-directed revision. It’s a key part of what makes KnowItAll Ninja a great tool for schools and colleges across the country. The website is also fantastic to use on mobile so you can revise on the go using your smartphone or tablet.
Unit 1 Principles of Computer Science Revision
This course will offer greater detail in revision than any other revision resource for the Principles of Computer Science exam, than anything else you will see on the market.
You’ll even see code examples in Pseudocode and/or C#. There will also be code examples added throughout in VB.NET and Python very soon.
However, it’s not just for Unit 1 of the BTEC Level 3 Computing specification that this new course will support. Students studying unit 4 Programming of the BTEC Level 3 Information Technology course will also find this new e-learning course of great benefit, covering much of the unit content.
What is especially good news is that, if you’re a current subscriber to KnowItAll Ninja, then this brand new course is available completely for free. Just log in to your existing account and you can visit the course and access it right away.
Get Revising For Your BTEC Level 3 Computing Course Now!
If you aren’t currently subscribed to KnowItAll Ninja, then why don’t you subscribe your students right now, ready for their approaching Unit 1 exams?
Subscribing is very affordable for schools. There is a flexible pricing structure that starts from as little as £25 for 10 students with discounts for larger numbers.
So if you want the best opportunity to succeed in your BTEC Level 3 Computing Unit 1 revision then you should be using KnowItAllNinja.com.
The BTEC National grade statistics from the 2018 BTEC National cohort have been released by Pearson, but what do these results show us?
With the changing of the guard from the 2010 BTEC National to the newer 2016 BTEC National being somewhat stunted, due to concerns over the examinations and the constant extension to the final enrolment date, have schools & college’s been moving to the new qualification?
Also, have the results of BTEC students been significantly affected by the addition of external examinations to the BTEC?
What Can We Learn?
Looking at the BTEC National results, some obvious things stand out:
Nearly 62,000 students studied the 2016 BTEC specification. This is still dwarfed by the 232,414 studying the 2010 specification, but most colleges that did switch would still have had their second years on the old specification. That being said, a lot more college’s have stuck with the old specification than move to the new one.
High grades on the new specification are on average much lower than the old specification. D*-D grades on the Extended Certificate make up 34.3% of the grades achieved. The equivilanton the 2010 spec had 45.4%.
That being said the new specification actually enjoys a greater pass rate and high grade results increased by 7% from last year on this level of the qualification. U results went from 8.4% down to 2.9%. Possibly as a result of the new N grades added to the exams.
The 5 most popular BTEC qualifications are business studies, health & social care, applied science, information technology & sport. This holds true on the new specification as well as the old.
There are still some very severe gender differences within BTEC studies with Information Technology & Sport leaning heavily to male students and Health & Social care towards Female. Applied Science does have a very even split and Business, while having a higher number of male students, is more even than the other subjects mentioned.
The BTEC Level 2 qualification results have also been released. These students were amongst the last cohort we’ll see from key stage 4 students, though the course continues to be run in colleges. There was small fall in both number of students and in the results. It will be interesting to see the effect of the new BTEC Tech Awards that are being taught for the first time this year.
The most popular BTEC First qualifications were the sport, health & social care, business, performing arts and information & creative technology qualifications.
Where From Here?
Obviously a lot of schools and college’s are holding off on the switch to the new specification, I believe many hoping they’ll be able to continue running it until the T-Levels are released (piloted in 2020 with main release in 2021).
That’s probably a little optimistic and we’ll see more and more switch. Generally I think the new qualification brings a lot of benefits to the students and is worth the switch.
There is also a soon to be released course for the BTEC National Computing qualification covering Unit 1 Principles of Computer Science. This will be followed with a course for Unit 2 Fundamentals of Computer Systems later in the academic year.
The Principles of Computer Science course is expected to be released in early December.
I also have courses in development for the BTEC Tech Award in Digital Information Technology and the BTEC Tech Award in Enterprise. So, keep an eye out for these qualifications coming this academic year.
All these courses will enjoy the presentations, well explained content, key topic videos, quizzes and gamified learning you’re used to from KnowItAllNinja.com.
Also, keep an eye out on the Facebook and Twitter pages as more and more free content is being added to them all the time.
We all know there has been a lack of official Cyber Security & Incident Management resources provided by the exam board. That doesn’t mean there aren’t a wealth of great resources out there though.
Obviously, KnowItAll Ninja‘s dedicated Unit 11 Cyber Security & Incident Management course is a fantastic tool in maximising your student’s success. It covers every topic in the BTEC Level 3 Information Technology specification for Unit 11 with clear explanations, presentations & quizzes.
However, there are many other free resources out there that can help to supplement KnowItAllNinja.com along with your excellent teaching. I’ve gone through a huge number of these and identified some of my absolute favourite free cyber security resources.
Pearson Unit 11 Learner Workbook
If you’ve missed it, while there hasn’t been a paid revision study guide or workbook from Pearson, there is a free learner workbook downloadable from the BTEC website.
You can download this by visiting the BTEC 2016 Information Technology page on the qualifications.pearson.com website, or clicking this link which will take you directly to the page to download the workbook. You should see the top link is the BTEC National in Information Technology: Learner Workbook (Unit 11).
While it is a huge shame that we haven’t seen official published materials, such as a student book or revision guide, this is a fantastic resource none-the-less, and completely free. There’s also a similar learner workbook for Unit 14 IT Service Delivery.
Crash Course Computer Science
One of my absolute favourite video series for teaching is the Crash Course Computer Science series on YouTube. These videos are interesting, informative, and a good length for in classroom use.
While not Cyber Security & Incident Management specific, there are a number of videos that cover related topics, including:
If you’re looking for a website to study a wide range of Cyber security topics to a high standard, then there is no better place than Cybrary.
For completely free (though you do need to register with the site) you can study beginner, intermediate & advance cybersecurity topics. They even have many courses that will teach you the content of many professional qualifications in related areas, like Comptia Network+ and Comptia Security+.
These video courses are quite long and are not the best tool for in-class use, but if you’re looking for assigning extra study for outside of class then this could be very useful.
Those are just a few examples though, there are hundreds of relevant courses on the site. It’s a great choice not just for students but for a teachers own personal development.
Microsoft Virtual Academy
Much like Cybrary, the Microsoft Virtual Academy offers a wide range of courses that often cover professional qualifications (in this case Microsoft ones like the MTA). However, Microsoft Virtual Academy covers more than just cybersecurity.
These courses are also free, though if you want to track your progress you’ll need an outlook.com email account (which is free to sign up for).
These are also generally not too much of an in-class tool but are great for outside of class teaching. Some of the best videos include:
Again, there are many more courses that can go into quite advanced topics and are great for either extra study or for teacher personal development.
Stem.org.uk
The stem.org.uk website is one that you may well be aware of already as they are “the UK’s largest provider of education and careers support in science, technology, engineering and mathematics”. Their resources section is a fantastic tool for teachers and you can find a lot of cyber security specific teaching resources on the site.
For example:
GCSE Cyber Security – Obviously a little low in level, but still some great tools.
The stem.org.uk site does take a little digging through to find the best materials, but with a little effort, you’re sure to find some great resources to help your students in their Unit 11 Cyber Security & Incident Management external assessment.
Cyber Security Challenge UK
This website, which is actually linked to in the Cyber Security & Engineered Solutions link above, provides educational games to learn about Cyber Security. These are absolutely fantastic tools for learning a range of threats and prevention mechanisms in a fun and easily digestible way.
We all know the benefit of using games in and outside of the classroom for learning, and these have been created by people with good understanding of Cyber Security issues. Cyber City is a good starting point, but other games cover specific topics in more detail.
Other Links
The suggestions on this page are just a few useful resources for delivering Unit 11 Cyber Security & Incident Management for the BTEC Level 3 IT qualification. There are many more, both free and paid that you can find.
The Complete Cyber Security Course: Hackers Exposed! – a paid course on the Udemy website, and merely the first in four parts, but if you have an especially keen student, or what to do some CPD, I can highly recommend it.
So, with KnowItAll Ninjas Cyber Security & Incident Management course, and a few of these resources, I am sure you’ll have a wealth of tools available to make sure your students succeed. If you have anymore you use that you’d like to share, please contact me and I’ll update this post.
This course will offer greater detail in revision than any other revision resource for the Principles of Computer Science exam, than anything else you will see on the market.
Obviously, 
This website, which is actually linked to in the Cyber Security & Engineered Solutions link above, provides educational games to learn about Cyber Security. These are absolutely fantastic tools for learning a range of threats and prevention mechanisms in a fun and easily digestible way.