Laurie O’Donnell

My 10 year old daughter’s class had a vist from Careers Scotland advisers yesterday. It is great to see careers input at this early stage. The aspirations of her classmates were very much as expected including footballer, pop star, model etc - and why not!
My daughter said that she couldn’t make up her mind what […]

I spend Wednesday of this week in Cardiff with some of the civil servants who are responsible for the national school ICT agenda in Wales. Kerry, Paul, Keith, Edwin and Debbie were great hosts and I really enjoyed the opportunity to talk around some of the key issues that we are all grappling with.
In educational […]

Yesterday afternoon I was doing some work in the house and listening to the football on Radio Scotland. The featured match was Hibs v Inverness Caley Thistle and as usual at this time of year a two minute silence was observed before kick-off. I always think about my paternal grandfather during these times.
I wear a […]

I spoke to Stephen at a Becta conference on ‘Harnessing Technology’ in Birmingham last week and want to bring him up to Scotland to work with us on our strategy.
Stephen’s blog is well worth reading, not just for the deep insights he offers but also for the important historical perspective that he contributes.
I have copied […]

Travelled down to Birmingham on Monday afternoon to attend the Becta ICT in Excellence Awards. I am not the biggest fan of awards events but know that we need to do better at recognising and rewarding innovative practice that impacts positively on the life chances of our young people.
I had the honour of sitting with […]

I attended and spoke at a conference organised by Children in Scotland this morning in Cumbernauld. The theme of the event was improving the life chances of our children and young people.
I was speaking on education for citizenship and A Curriculum for Excellence and enjoyed covering ground that goes beyond the ICT/Technology area that I […]

Over the next couple of months we will be developing our Learning and Technology Strategy. I am going to use my blog as a way of thinking out loud and seeking comments/contributions from beyond LTS.
So what will the strategy look like? I want to start with three questions:

Where are we now? [Evaluate the Evidence] Will […]

I was very sad to see Tony Mowbray leave Hibs. To my mind he has been the best manager that Hibs have had for a long time, maybe since Eddie Turnbull. Hibs fans want to see great attacking football and for two and a half years that’s exactly what we got. Mowbray will do really […]

Managed to escape to the pictures recently to see The Departed. Warner Bros promote the movie with ‘Cop or criminal? What’s the difference if you’re facing a loaded gun.‘ Really great acting by Nicholson, Damon and Di Caprio. Back to Scorcese at his very best. If you can cope with the extreme violence then […]