A wide range of Primary classroom activities, reviews and resources has been developed and published over the years originally by MAPE and, more recently since the merger in 2004, by Naace.

The Direct2U service was a weekly email service produced by Becta in partnership with Naace. The service was for primary teachers and offered lesson plans featuring ICT in activities based on six subject strands. The service is discontinued but you can view the lesson plans in this archive.

This short article aims to highlight the background, key features and current vision of the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) project at Ranvilles Infant School. The full version of this research project is available through the University of Winchester library: Aubrey-Smith, F.S., (2007) 'How the implementation of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) can affect the strategic development of a whole school. MA(Ed) Dissertation. University of Winchester.'

In this month's Sharing Success we welcome Paul Springford who is Naace's Professional Officer. Paul will be live in this month's 'hotseat between 8-9pm on Tuesday 11th November. The second live 'hotseat' will be on Wednesday 26th November between 7-8pm.

Paul's profile:

My career in education began in another century when I took a PGCE course and then worked as an English teacher in secondary schools in Southampton and Peterborough. In the early 1980s, schools in England were given half a computer by the DTI to stimulate the UK industry, and I became an enthusiastic adopter. The reasons I believed in English as a subject are not very different from the reasons why I believe in ICT.

Later in the eighties I was seconded to and then permanently employed in local authority work with Cambridgeshire and I've found it hard to get away. I became involved in using communications technology at an early stage with projects using e-mail, Prestel (anyone remember that?) and BT's early internet service for education, CampusWorld. I can't remember when I joined Naace, but I'm certainly not one of the originals.I've really enjoyed the opportunity to work as professional officer for the association this year.

I'm not very technical, and still surprised that at least half of my working life has depended on things with plugs. Never mind the technology, I've been lucky and worked with some outstanding people from my earliest encounters with ICT. And most of them are probably Naace members.

Primary Focus magazine is published termly as an online journal. It contains a wealth of interesting articles from practitioners working in the primary sector. Like other Naace publications, we encourage Members to contribute and interact with Articles, the Editor and other Members, with the idea of stimulating points of view within a continuing professional dialogue.

'Sharing Success' is a monthly e-magazine that focuses on schools' and teachers' use of ICT to contribute to successful achievements. Features freqently focus on recent issues, with the opportunity for Members to post comments directly onto each Article.

An ICT Co-ordinator in an infant school decsribes how she has set up an after-school Internet Café for children and their parents.

Welcome to the first edition of Primary Focus in 2008, published to coincide with the BETT Exhibition at Olympia in London (9-12 January 2008). The major positive change to the Primary Focus journal is that, similar to other Naace publications, we are now encouraging Members to contribute and interact with Articles, myself as editor, and other Members - with the idea of stimulating points of view within a continuing professional dialogue.

In this month's Sharing Sucess Julie Cooper, Chair of Governors at Gloucester Road Primary steps into the Naace 'hot-seat'. Julie will be 'live' on Wednesday 9 and Wednesday 16 April between 7-8pm. Other features include Theo Kuechel's article originating from the Naace talklists regarding e-learning, a progress report on the Oracle funded 'Let's Play Project' and a summary of issues from last month's 'hot-seat'. Jim Fanning provides a fascinating two-day blog from The Tideway School.

When computers first arrived in primary schools in the early 1980s, the BBC ran a series of programmes on their use in schools called 'The Learning Machine'. We were excited then by the huge potential of ICT for learning but the technology of that time was not much good for teaching: the interactivity was too limited and the screen too small.

Things are different today. Twenty-first century ICT is superb for teaching. The interactivity is literally at your fingertips and screens can be as big as you like. (In Las Vegas this January I saw a Celine Dion extravaganza where the whole of the backdrop was an 80ft computer screen.)

But it's not just what you've got - it's how you use it. This publication is about the latest technology in the hands of creative and interactive teachers. Read on and be excited by the new potential of interactive teaching technologies.