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As I mentioned I attended a number of Seminars at the BETT show. Here is my summary of the best ones (I apologise if they are not entirely accurate, but I am reading my scribbled shorthand)

Day 1.

Derek Robertson was there spreading the word about the hand held learning trials that he is currently leading throughout Scotland. As we are involved with the Sony PSP trials at Campie Primary School I was interested to hear what Derek had to say. And of course East Lothian had a number of mentions. (Next week I will be visiting Campie Primary School to find out how they are getting on- so far so good I was pleased to hear today!).

Day 2.

David Anstead presented a Seminar based on OFSTED’s findings of ICT inspections in schools throughout England. Although this was not entirely applicable to the Scottish Education System, there were most certainly some points to note.

In a school whose ICT is catagorised as ‘Good’ the following will be evident:

• Evidence of monitoring and evaluation in ICT
• Subject based ICT: Recorded strengths, weaknesses and actions.
• Cross-curricular evidence of ICT use in vision and strategies.
• Evidence of Leadership and Management’s commitment to improvement in ICT.
• An evident time allocation is given to ICT Coordinators.
• Assessment informs planning.
• Pupils ICT capability is tracked.

Day 3.

Ewan McIntosh, as always, gave and informative and lively seminar on the work that he is currently doing with Learning and Teaching Scotland. He talked about the use of Social Media and Web 2.0 technologies and how they can be used to enhance learning. He mentioned sites such as Flickr and twitter (tweeting live from the seminar!). He also talked through the building of our EduBuzz Word press Platform  and how it has developed from a mere twenty Weblogs into a growing empire over eighteen months.

On the whole (disregarding the above) I felt some of the Seminars were not quite as applicable to us as are the ones you can see at the Scottish Learning Festival- but then again BETT is not primarily aimed at those involved in Scottish Education.