This agreement details the requirements for the Intermediary Model of Support and Assessment for the ICT Mark. It enables an organisation to provide support and assessment as part of a buy-back or service-level agreement, reducing the cost to its schools.

The streamlined approach is designed for schools with 'good' ICT. In such a school, there is likely to be less need to use the self-review framework as a development tool so the focus for them might be to have their self-review validated by an external assessor through a more streamlined approach. The assessment process is exactly the same for all schools; it is simply the preparation/approach that is streamlined.

If you are working through the Becta self-review framework then you share our belief that ICT is a tool for school improvement. If you have reached the ICT Mark standard in all aspects of the framework then you have achieved a standard of e-maturity that is worth celebrating!

Philip Griffin maps out his school's step by step progress towards the ICT Mark.

Philip continues his account of how his school made progress towards an ICT Mark.

Regular contributor Philip Griffin narrates the next step in his school's progress towards the ICT Mark.

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.

Virtual classrooms are computer applications that attempt to replicate as closely as possible the experience of learning in an actual classroom, but use the Internet as the vehicle for delivery. Andy Brookes describes a number of ways that online learning technologies can be used to enhance learning.