Highland fling

I'm writing this post on the Inverness to Edinburgh train following a very enjoyable meeting with Bruce Robertson, Highland's Director of Education, Culture and Sport (ESC), and a number of senior people from the service, including some headteachers. Amongst the group were Jim Henderson, Tony McCulloch and Alan Stewart, all of whom I have known and worked with on SSDN/Glow and other ICT matters for a few years now. Highland Council has always, I believe, been at the forefront of the desire to share local developments nationally. The culture of sharing resources, materials, ideas and practice is one we need to encourage across Scottish education. Glow will, I have no doubt, offer a practical landscape within which this will flourish over the next few years - but there has never been any need to persuade our colleagues in Highland of the benefits of this notion. Tony McCulloch, for instance, has long been vociferous about the need to develop a national capacity for distance learning - he knows well the difficulties of delivering a full-breadth curriculum to small and geographically isolated schools and seeks the means to break down these barriers. The national learning platform that Glow will deliver is, I am sure, a critical part of the solution to this over the next few years, but the new possibilities being thrown up almost daily by developments in web technologies must also offer elements that we will be able to bring together with Glow to find solutions that work. It was also great to be able to talk to a bunch of headteachers who are so knowledgeable about the issues around ICT generally, and Glow in particular! With Pathfinder finally coming to fruition, there's a lot of justifiable (though ever-cautious!) optimism around Highland ESC these days. After my own earlier involvement in the first 'version' of Pathfinder when I worked for a time in the Scottish Executive, it is good to see this starting to come good! Technorati Tags: highland council, Glow, SSDN, pathfinder

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© John Connell
The views expressed in this weblog are entirely my own and are not intended to reflect the views of any other individuals or organizations. All sources will be fully acknowledged.