Laurie O’Donnell

In my role at LTS I get the chance to meet lots of business people who are interested in finding out more about education in Scotland. These meetings are useful from my point of view as they help us to stay ahead of developments and inform our Learning and Technology strategy. Hopefully they are also useful for the business people and most importantly might lead to schools, teachers and learners getting better designed products.
I recently met with Loiuse McDonough a young entrepreneur from Fife. Louise has set up a company called do it – be it. She has developed a range of products that are designed to help people to ’succeed in all walks of life, to motivate, inspire’ etc. The focus of her work is very much study skills, sport and fitness, health & well being and a healthier working life.
I was impressed by Louise’s enthusiasm and vision and very interested in the ‘Learn It DoBe’ product. This MP4 player sells at £50 and is effectively a 2Gb iPod Nano which comes preloaded with a range of audio files covering everything from study skills to relaxation techniquies. Well worth a look!
My colleague Derek Robertson is going to try a few out in partnership with a Dundee Council school and I am sure he will publish the results on his hotmilkydrink blog and elsewhere.

LTS recently opened up a wiki called ScotEduPedia. LTS staff and a few others have started to populate the wiki and we (you) need to do some more work before we can really launch it properly.

I thought I would use this post to reflect on what I hope we will get out of this resource:

• A collaboratively developed collection of articles covering the full breadth and depth of our knowledge of education
• An exploration of education in Scotland – past, present and future.
• An international perspective on our work
• Space to open up professional and collegiate discussion and debate
• An opportunity to publish, share and develop our knowledge of what works in the classroom and why it works.

ScotEduPedia has been born on the basis of a few articles and will start to crawl, walk and run over the next few months and years. Our hope is that it will, over time, become not only an important source of information and guidance to those who work in education but also a key platform for the transfer of knowledge and expertise.

The Curriculum for Excellence needs every teacher to be an excellent professional and ScotEduPedia is one of the many resources that they will be able to draw on.

The Connected 17 video clips that are about to go out on DVD are now available on YouTube.

Stephen Heppell being interviewed on his boat in London.

Where next? Well maybe we should be taking up some space in Second Life. Stephen suggested that we extend our attempts to run a virtual version of the Scottish Learning Festival? Sounds like a good idea to me, why not run the event live in Glasgow and online in Second Life?

Connected 17, the latest edition of LTS’ ICT in education magazine/e-zine is now on its way to schools and available online.

Connected has come a long way since it started off as the the official voice of the National Grid for Learning in Scotland in the spring of 2000 with Nick Morgan as the editor [some may remember Nick as the editor of the Scottish Virtual Teacher Centre (SVTC)].

Patricia Kemp, editor of the LTS online service, has also been the editor of Connected magazine/e-zine since autumn 2000 and has taken the magazine on a long journey away from the voice of officaldom toward a much stronger focus on interesting and innovative classroom practice.

The latest edition represents a step change in Connected not only is it the best looking edition so far, thanks to White Light Media, it also includes a DVD featuring an interview with Stephen Heppell, a sneak preview of Glow and an interview with Margo Williamson, Curriculum for Excellence programme director at LTS.
We will produce at least two more paper editions of Connected over the next six months or so and the plan is to cover the wider learning and teaching agenda with ICT/technology embedded as an important aspect of professional practice.

At the moment we are considering making Connected 20 an exclusively online edition. Not only will this save a few trees and follow the cultural shift away from print publications, it also reflects a transformation in the way that LTS wants to provide support for schools. The organisation is in the process of shifting the balance – away from being a print publisher, sending out thousands of documents to schools, towards providing an integrated online support service. I think that Connected will continue to play an important role as part of the LTS online service and if anyone really wants a paper copy they will always be able to print the pdf on good quality paper. I would be interested to hear what other think. Is there still a role for a printed magazine edition of Connected?