Education of our children, young people and adults is key in developing Scotland’s reputation as an innovative and productive nation.  Technology offers tremendous opportunities for education: it promotes social interaction and collaborative working and supports inclusive and innovative approaches to learning. 

Presentations were given by:

Patricia Kemp, Head on Online Services at Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS).
Marie Dougan, Programme Director – GLOW, Learning and Teaching Scotland
Alan Fletcher, Business Development and Lab Manager, Knowledge Media Institute (KMi) of the Open University.

Patrica Kemp outlined the role of Learning and Teaching Scotland in terms of leading and supporting improvement in the delivery of education for children and young people; research and development; and advice/on-line support for teachers.  LTS works closely with stakeholders across the education sector including Scottish Government, HMIE, SQA and Determined to Succeed.   www.ltscotland.org.uk

Marie Dougan outlined the development and roll-out of GLOW – the world’s first national schools intranet for Scottish education and demonstrated its key innovative features including Glow Groups, Glow Meet, Glow Mail, Glow Learn, Glow Messenger and Glow Chat.  http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/glowscotland/index.asp

Alan Fletcher presented key Kmi technologies and research themes, demonstrating the expertise of the Open University in this field.  It was shown how Kmi research areas of 5 years ago are now common currency in the application of e-learning and working by the adoption of such technologies as video conferencing and news aggregation.  Alan also demonstrated the current research in future internet which will influence the e-world in the next 5 to 10 years.  http://kmi.open.ac.uk/index.php