Any festival worth its salt has a lively fringe programme. The Scottish Executive’s drive to make this a national event for networking has paid off with various organisations meeting at the show.
The Educational Institute of Scotland’s learning representatives, Glasgow City Council’s information technology co-ordinators, and the Glow (Scottish schools digital network) mentors will meet for their first masterclass. But one of the main events will be the Gaelic Festival.
The Gaelic Festival has five seminars exploring developments at all stages of Gaelic education. ICT in the secondary school features first, with a seminar from the Gaelic ICT implementation group.
“We’ll be talking about a range of material we’ve been commissioning,” says Jim Henderson, Highland’s virtual learning co-ordinator. “This includes online resources for history, modern studies and personal and social education. We are also working on an important science resource.”
Outside the conference arena, adding a festival flavour to the event, will be two buses with schoolchildren on board. The Determined to Broadcast bus usually goes around schools, giving pupils a chance to record and broadcast resources, while the Reading Bus halts at school stops around Aberdeen.
Next week they will both be parked outside the SECC.
Inside the arena, a jazz band and a ceilidh band - both from Paisley Grammar - will entertain the crowds, and pupils from Musselburgh and Knox academies will be filming around the exhibition.
