Profile of Ewan McIntosh

A photo of Ewan McIntosh, National Adviser: Learning and Technology Futures at Learning and Teaching Scotland

I'm the National Adviser: Learning and Technology Futures at Learning and Teaching Scotland.

On my own blog I enjoy writing about how learning and teaching is evolving as new tools and practices lend us, hopefully, better ways of doing things. The blog includes links to a lot of research done by others, some hefty posts on where I see things going, and more often than not, lots of smaller posts on amazing, cool, fun things I find in classrooms I visit in the real world or online.

I'd hope that within the next five years we can begin to peer into many more classrooms, at least into every school in Scotland, through the sharing of teaching and learning on blogs, videos, mobile messages on the web, podcasts...

All these things are being done now by hundreds, if not thousands, of Scottish learners and teachers. It's time for education leaders to inspire all teachers and learners to have a go and see what improvements they can experience.

Sunday, 20 July

Latest posts by Ewan McIntosh on the Connected Live blog.

Inspiration Sessions @ LTS: Malcolm Gladwell on spaghetti sauce
Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:47:12 +0000
It’s not as odd as it sounds, but innovations in spaghetti sauce (and Pepsi, and mustard) might hold clues as to how Glow, the Curriculum for Excellence and other ‘national’ initiatives can prove successful on the most niche of local levels. At Learning and Teaching Scotland I’ve been leading some monthly Inspiration Sessions, today being the second one. Last month’s debates were based on Sir Ken Robinson’s Do Schools Kill Creativity?, and from it came some key points for development in the way staff might approach certain challenges. More on those later, I hope, but for the first session we kept the results on our staff forum to see what would happen. 10 times the number of views than normal is what happened; people have seen where they can move things forward for themselves. You can see some of the links we...
Islay High’s skyhigh ambition
Mon, 16 Jun 2008 05:57:48 +0000
A child starts planning the storyboard, while another begins cutting some archived film. Two other classmates seek out some images on the net. Each student in this group, like all those students who attend Islay High School, are using their own Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC), which they bring to and from school to provide a continuous portable base for their work. But this is not just a story about cool gadgetry - this is a school which has changed itself entirely in the past five years. I was taking in all of this on Friday, the same day the school won Learning and Teaching Scotland’s Ambition Awards at the Scottish Education Awards. I was joined by John Johnston, primary school teacher and blogger from Glasgow’s Sandaig Primary School, whose account shows how visits like these can lead to new...
What is We Think? Scottish Learning Festival keynote preps
Wed, 11 Jun 2008 08:38:53 +0000
Get ready for Charlie Leadbeater’s keynote at this year’s Scottish Learning Festival by taking a look at this little video, which explains the complexity of the new connected world in which we live, and how we might be able to navigate around it. You can read more about these ideas from Nesta’s launch event of the book that accompanies the keynote.
Join an international poetry class
Sat, 07 Jun 2008 07:38:23 +0000
Between June 9-13 you have the opportunity to help young poets from Georgia and Glasgow’s East End with their poetry. In On The Street Where You Live, young poets will write about their neighbourhoods (or should that be neighborhoods?), and you are invited to leave your two stars and a wish comments to help them on their way.
Scotland’s Global Teachers prepare for Malawi
Mon, 02 Jun 2008 07:31:39 +0000
Caroline Gibson is sharing her preparations before departing in three weeks for a summer of teaching in Malawi, from how to communicate in the native tongue to working out the kind of classroom equipment you need to play Scottish music cassettes when there is very little or no electricity. Living with a host family, Caroline is one of several teachers who will continue to bind strong links between Malawi and Scotland. See her educator’s kit list and follow her blog over the coming months to see how things go. You can find out more about International Education possibilities through Learning and Teaching Scotland’s site.