For some time there has been a need to encourage and support teachers aspiring to become or recently appointed as ICT co-ordinators. Martyn Wilson and Janet Roberts of Hampshire County Council have worked with Naace and Nottingham Trent University (NTU) to develop a course aimed at new and aspiring ICT coordinators.

These articles provide information about how to apply to run the course and other details.

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.

Becoming an Institutional Member of Naace has both practical and strategic benefits. Every school concerned with using ICT effectively needs access to the developing expertise of the Naace community. Naace Members come from many diverse backgrounds including teachers, school managers, curriculum leaders, lecturers, local authority advisors, independent consultants, software developers and designers, sales personnel, technicians, student teachers, company managers, national partners and colleagues from commerce and industry.

In this article Caroline Atherton describes how she integrated art and design and design technology into a History unit studying the Aztecs, and the particular role ICT played in this work.

The talk lists have provided some really interesting and varied responses regarding VLEs. This week Roger Broadie and Martin Owen share their views ....

Our first 'hot-seat' guest is Phia le Roux. She will be answering your questions from 9 January 2008. Phia has kindly agreed to share an hour per week 'live' at 4-5pm every Wednesday and will pick up and answer any other questions at 8.30am Mondays and Fridays. Please fire all your questions on what podacasting is about, why podcast, how to get started, what you need to get started, potential difficulties, problems encountered etc.

This article will explore the use of blogs and other tools to support student teachers in writing reflective journals. The main context for this is the school (or college) experience of trainee teachers on the one year secondary PGCE. Blogs are also used in the first year professional studies module in the School of Education's BA Joint Honours programme. The approach and lessons learned are equally applicable to students on other programmes, and at other levels.

Students are already coming to school wondering how their cell phones, i-pods, laptops and other PDAs 'dock' with what technology already exists in their classrooms.

NQT Mitch Smith asks a question that comes from the heart: 'I have just started in my new school - and really want to make an impression. I am really keen on using ICT, but the staff do not, the ICT coordinator seems very busy, as does the headteacher. I have one computer in my room that I can't log into and a brand new Interactive Whiteboard - but no laptop. What do I do and where do I start?'