Blogging IT

In June this year, East Lothian Council, in partnership with Lothian and Borders Police, will be hosting a series of Internet safety and responsible use training sessions for parents with pupils in P5 - S6 across the county.  This is in response to growing concerns, expressed by individual parents and parent councils, about how to [...]

Photo by mikeleecs
I met with the PTs of the English departments this afternoon to begin to look at the technology requirements of the modern English classroom. The task was to look at current provision, consider current curricular ‘requirements’ for technology and to look towards future developments and to consider the implications. We recently [...]

Photo courtesy of gordonwatts
Good news, the first schools have been signed over to East Lothian from BT as we strive to roll out our upgraded Wide Area Network across the Authority. North Berwick High are to be first with the switch over to be attempted this Friday and tested over the weekend. Gullane [...]

My first visit to the new Edinburgh City Council building today to attend the latest project board meeting for Learning Hubs -121. Much of our discussion involved considering pilot projects amongst the four Local Authorities involved. Pilots can be important for proof of concept, but there have been several already - Maine in [...]

We have just had received new dates for work to commence (again) to upgrade our Wide Area Network.  Five out of our Six Secondary schools have had dates confirmed.  Currently, our network is creaking and I share everyones frustrations with the hold ups we are experiencing.  Here’s hoping this is the sign that things are [...]

I attended a meeting this evening convened to provide feedback on the pilot of the Glow.  East Lothian were one of 8 (it may have grown) Local Authorities to pilot various aspects of Glow - we piloted the use of the portal.  This was a chance for those involved to provide valuable feedback to our [...]

Elizabeth Cowan and I spent a good part of the day looking at self-publishing guidelines for staff and pupils in East Lothian.  Like many Local Authorities, we have generic policies and guidelines in place for online communication but with the advance of technologies such blogs, wikis and podcasts in education, we identified a need to [...]

I attended  the East Lothian Celebrating Success event today.  The event takes place every 2 years and gives schools the opportunity to show the excellent work they have been doing and share ideas. The theme this year was A Curriculum for Excellence and the schools were to demonstrate something for at least one of the [...]

We had a really productive team meeting today to consider how we approach schools and work strategically within the authority to affect change and to support and inspire creative learning opportunities using technology - no pressure then!  We had the idea at our last away day of a roadshow we could take to schools which [...]

We held a meeting of East Lothian Glow Mentors yesterday - an away day at the Gothenburg Hotel - Prestonpans.  The aim of the meeting was to begin to address how we move Glow and other network tools forward in our schools.  We see this as a lever to affect change across the authority - [...]