Vision is one thing, but getting down to it and doing what’s needed to unite 32 local authorities to create a fully authenticated national learning community is quite another!

The latest podcast from John Connell says it all! In addition to describing the growth of the Scottish Schools Digital Network and its next phase of implementation through GLOW, we are given an execellent overview of social software, purposeful learning, current technology developments and future capabilities of “Web as platform”.

….the time will come sooner or later where all I will need to be fully productive will be a number of browsers, possibily just one, the device interface itself will simply be the browser.

Tracking the seemingly daily developments in web apps it is easy to see this ‘future’ rushing towards us. However, John’s observation that Web as platform will contribute most to closing the digital divide is of particular interest and worth hanging out for.

With bandwidth and infrastructre costs, coupled with problems of distance, Australian school communities will be real winners in this new environment. But for now Australian school systems struggle with delivering standards that match the SSDN and GLOW developments. While individual schools have faced the challenges head on, and systems have done various things in different parts of the county (some very effective), the country as a whole will find it very difficult to match the Scottish initiatives for quite some time.

This podcast is well worth a listen!