The Naace Annual Strategic Conference and Exhibition opened in Torquay in early March 2008. This is the definitive ICT Conference in the UK for all those involved in advancing education through the use of modern technologies in learning and teaching.

The Classroom Quality Standards (CQS) provide a universal, classroom level, self-evaluation tool to support schools in improving provision for their more able, gifted and talented pupils. http://ygt.dcsf.gov.uk/LibraryResources.aspx?libraryId=12
Following this consultation, revised versions will be provided on CD-ROMs and made available free to all schools. Here is Naace's response.

This consultation seeks views on the proposed Home Access programme that aims to ensure that every family with 5-19 year old learners in England has access to learning where and when they need it through access to ICT resources and support at home.

Welcome to the Spring 2008 issue of Computer Education. In this issue we bring you a further perspective on the use of data, this time from Mike Bostock, while Helen Boulton and Pete Bradshaw explore the use of weblogs in supporting student teachers' use of reflective journals, a technique that readily transfers to younger learners. Jason Ohler offers further reflections on the philosophy of ICT in the classroom while Alex Savage provides a personal insight into BETT'08 and Jim Merret updates us on funding sources. A report on MOSEP is given by Ray Tolley while a series of articles from Christina Preston explores braided learning and social networking between professionals. Your Editor meanwhile considers 'interesting times' and how we are so close to transformational change but might never get there.

Members are invited to comment on the strategic objectives proposed for this influential body.

In 2006 Naace and QCA held a joint Think tank to try to get to grips with what we really mean by the term 'e-learning'. Like quite a few other e-words that have sprung up in the last year or so, we cannot assume that everyone will use the term in the same way. Does the 'e' just mean electronic, as in 'email', or something more profound?

Arnaud Mandan livens up MFL by inviting famous French and German guests from the past onto their VLE forums. Dave Calver came up with the idea of getting his students to write questions to a virtual World War I veteran in order to get an idea of what life was like living in the trenches before writing their own assignment on what life was like.

As part of a longer article to published in the next edition of Primary Focus, Jim Fanning provides his blog of a two-day flexible learning course. Is this the way of the future?

Going to BETT is always an exciting prospect. Will there be new interesting technologies that can enhance the teaching learning process? It is impossible to see everything at BETT, in fact sometimes I think it is impossible to find anything at BETT, it's so huge but I always hope to make new discoveries.

Waiting outside in the weak winter sun I talked to the people around me to understand who was coming to the exhibition. I talked to South Africans, Australians and I could see from the badges that this was a truly international exhibition. We should be proud and realise how lucky we are this event has such a draw.

This article is a personal view of some of the things that caught my eye and it is not meant to be representative of the whole exhibition.

We continue to look at colleagues ideas on how to use VLEs effectively and this week have Roger Broadie and Gill Deadman sharing their ideas ...