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.

Naace has introduced a 'hot-seat' where invited colleagues field questions over a four week period. Our guest in the 'hot-seat' will either answer online at specific times, or at pre-arranged regular intervals. We look forward to hearing from you!

Naace will be responding in due course to the Byron Review following consultation with Members. At this stage we are pleased to relay the Association's views in response to questions in Chapter 3 of Staying Safe. While we recognise that vulnerable children and young people need to be protected and need to learn how they can protect themselves, it is our view that good practice in the safe use of communication technologies should apply to all children in all educational settings.

Naace has already responded to questions in Chapter 3 of the DCSF Staying Safe consultation. In that response we stated: While we recognise that vulnerable children and young people need to be protected and need to learn how they can protect themselves, it is our view that good practice in the safe use of communication technologies should apply to all children in all educational settings. In the context of the Byron Review, we would extend this statement to include the home and other places where children use technology. In our submission to the Byron Review we have focussed on specific questions which most closely match the experience and expertise of our members.

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. As we a trialling a new time - we shall confirm the time of the next 'hotseat' on Tuesday 25th November shortly after the first session!

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.

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?

Last term the Council for Subject Associations (CfSA) which was set up in September 2007 and funded for three years (before it has to become a self-financing organisation) produced the first of a series of Primary Subject folders that went into all schools across England for free. Other organisations can purchase a copy for £7.50. I was asked to write the ICT leaflet for the first issue on the theme of 'Every Child Mattters'.

The second Primary Subject's theme is the Gifted and Talented strand of the National Curriculum and was sent into schools in the last week of September 2008. Although I gave a sneak preview of the text in the Summer edition of Primary Focus, I have included the PDF that will be distributed along with leaflets from the other 16 subject associations to all schools in England during the third week in September 2008. The third edition of Primary Subjects will be distributed to schools in January 2009 and it has been confirmed that the theme will be Globalisation.

Your comments (posted underneath the article) on what you think of the leaflet would be very helpful feedback!

Bowes children aged 9-10, in supportive pairs, created short PowerPoint presentations with a focus on the use of ICT, showing what they had learnt from their topic work on Ancient Greece.