Welcome to the planning pages for this pre-ITTE conference symposium. We are going to cover three themes:

• Agencies and their role in supporting ICT
• Research into ICT
  
• Defending / Extending ICT in a changing climate

To provide some background to these themes we have included a short piece on government policies and another on research into ICT. Please send any further texts or links and we will include them.

Reminder that the symposium is Monday 4 July 2011 in the multi media centre at the University of Warwick from 10 - 3.00. This the L shaped building opposite car park 14 on the campus map at http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/about/visiting/maps/interactive/

Session 1 Agencies and their role in supporting ICT

In this first session Vanessa Pittard will start us off by offering her thoughts on the achievements / tensions associated with Becta during the period she led its strategy and policy functions from 2004 - 2010. After a flurry of questions we will invite you to discuss in self selected groups and report back on:

• What evidence of Becta achievement is there? What of its functions is it important to preserve?
• How is ICT supported in other counties and / or in other sectors, eg what has been the impact of JISC? Where are the examples of successful policy implementation? What alternative models are there for government support of ICT?

Session 2 Research of ICT

Jean Underwood has led and contributed to many Becta supported projects in recent years. She will discuss with us her take on the research published by Becta and the recurring issues in ICT research. Again in groups we will discuss:

• What stands out as particularly useful / insightful research sponsored by Becta?
• What stands out as particularly useful / insightful research in other sectors / other countries?
  
• What is the 'quality' of academic research into the use of ICT?
  
• Are there useful frameworks for analysing ICT innovations?

policy and practice revisited

We return to the theme of policy and practice by inviting Tony Richardson to comment on the morning from his experience as Executive Director for Strategy and Communications and Director of Online Learning at NCSL.

Session 3 The enduring appeal of ICT

[Before starting this session we invite you to update us on relevant news, projects in short slots. For example we will ask colleagues who work much more in the HE sector to up date us on developments with say JISC and we would like to know more about the engagement or otherwise of subject associations such as ITTE and Naace with policy makers. We would welcome anyone who has insight into coalition thinking about ICT too]

From the morning session we have raised several themes about past policy and past research into ICT, in the afternoon we would like to look for more closely at the present 'landscape' for ICT use. One key issue we are facing is that we may feel that we have to make the case for the use of technology once more in the face of official scepticism:

• What do we want to highlight as central to the case for technology and what kind of evidence do we use to support it?
  
• What are the opportunities in this new structuring of education and how can we support teachers through subject association such ITTE and Naace etc
• Where are the gaps in the research? What is not known?

The event will finish with an overview of key findings and ideas to take forward to the ITTE conference. Outcomes from the symposium will be publicised through ITTE newsletter and we hope through other outlets eg Naace.

Slides for ITTE conference