Laurie O’Donnell

Well done to Patricia Kemp and the website team at LTS. Another first for Learning and Teaching Scotland  as we launch a unique resource on Apple’s iTunesU to support the professional development of teachers and other practitioners across Scotland and beyond. LTS is the first schools oriented organisation in Europe to make some of its digital content available in this way as we follow in the footsteps of HE institutions such as the Open University and Oxford and Cambridge Universities.
The LTS press release makes the claim that:

‘Anytime anywhere, teachers can access a free online repository of rich digital content using Apple’s iTunesU technology. Teachers can watch a wide range of videos including case studies showing classroom practice, presentations from leading international education thinkers and video learning materials. This initiative, the first of its kind in Europe for the school and early years sector, puts the power of technology into the hands of practitioners allowing the free dissemination of resources, knowledge and learning. LTS, in partnership with HMIE and the Scottish Government’s ‘Determined to Succeed’ programme, hope that this new resource will engage with all education professionals in the field and will support the next generation of teachers as they implement Curriculum for Excellence.’

This opportunity follows on from a visit to Apple’s HQ in Cupertino California last autumn that I had with my colleague Andy Pendry, Glow Technology Adviser. We were impressed by the way that Apple’s iTunes infrastructure was already being used across the world to support education. At the same time senior education staff at Apple were impressed with the approach we have taken in Scotland to support professional learning and development. Hence the invitation to make the LTS Online Service  the first ‘K-12′ site in Europe for iTunes and our willingness to take up the opportunity to present some wonderful content to a global audience.

I was interviewed for the April edition of Futurelab’s Vision e-zine by the roving educational technology journalist and commentator Merlin John.

The article is published under the heading ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet … Scotland’s ICT Renaissance‘.

Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, launched our new curriculum today.

Have a look at our shiny new home page and Scotland’s new curriculum.

This has been a really big task for everyone involved.

From the point of view of the LTS website it is hard to believe how far we have come over the last few years under the leadership of Patricia Kemp (overall responsibility for LTS Online/editor in chief) and Emma Walsh (responsible for the technology that underpins the site).

Lovely tribute from Merlin John on his great website MJO.

Being described as ‘Scotland’s ICT leader’ made me smile and I am sure will raise a few eyebrows (including my own!).

The latest version of LTS’ Connected eZine is now available:

Bob Stone sent me an email earlier highlighting an article he has published recently on the Governing.com website. Bob worked with Al Gore on the ‘reinventing government programme’ (see his book  ‘Confessions of a Civil Servant’ for this great story).  His latest article draws on his previous work and is entitled the ABC of Leadership.

I like what he  is saying around Authenticity, Buoyancy and Control. We need truthful leaders who have a vision  beyond covering their own backsides. Whilst I agree with Bob that the leader’s role is to set the standards I am not sure if ‘control’ is the best way of capturing the need to have a clear direction (mission) and to secure the right organisational culture. I think leading is more of an enabling than a controlling role. Enable is the default/proactive role so that control is only used on the rare occasion when you need to. Is this a question of personal style?

I have been aware of Twitter for the last couple of years – really since our then New Technologies for Learning national adviser Ewan McIntosh started to play around with it. As an infrequent blogger I decided to keep an eye on it but leave it for now.

Anyway signed up for an account a few weeks ago after watching Stephen Fry on the BBC website and within a couple of days was following (and being followed by) around 50 fellow twitters.

There appears to be a few people who are tweeting all the time and I find this quite facinating. Most of the people I follow seem to be seeking advice,  sharing significant stuff they have found on the web or just letting the rest of know what they are up to. All very interesting and tools such as TweetDeck let you filter out or in whatever you like.

Anyway I am really enjoying it and if you want to follow me I can be found at  http://twitter.com/laurieod

Sitting at home listening to BBC Radio Scotland’s celebration of the 250th anniversary of Burns’ birth – Auld Lang Sang.

We have just published some new Burns resources for schools (and others) to use on the LTS Online Service. The highlight for me is the Burns songs performed by “The Cast” ( one of Scotland’s finest contemporary folk bands – I am told that their version of Auld Lang Syne was featured in the recent ‘Sex and the City’ movie). These 6 songs are unique content, recorded especially for LTS and published on our website only …another LTS exclusive!

Over the last few years we have been using more high quality video to help support the development of professional practice in education. The latest addition to the LTS website is the  Partnership with Employers resource, funded by the Scottish Government’s Determined to Succeed programme.

This project has been managed within LTS by Fiona Andrew and is a great example of successful partnership working, both internally and externally.

This is one of our best rich media CPD resources and supports the highly successful national ”Employer Engagement” training programme which LTS has also managed on behalf of DtS.

If you have a few minutes I would recommend spending some time watching some of the video footage as it is truly inspirational.

Our press officer Lee-Ann has just sent me a pdf of a small news article in today’s  Herald with the above headline.

This is really the Glow section of the LTS website (or what we call the LTS Online Service). It looks pretty good and the new sections ‘Glow in Your Area’, ‘Glow in Action’ and ‘Learning about Glow’ will continue to develop as the programme develops.