Terry Freedman's Educational Technology Podcast

Natalie is the Producer of the Westminster Education Forum, an organisation which organises seminars on issues pertinent to the education profession in the UK.

So what makes the Forum "tick", and how influential is it? We discuss these issues and others, such as the IT skills required by school leavers these days.

And what is the big issue as far as teachers are concerned?

The Westminster Education Forum website is here:
http://www.westminsterforumprojects.co.uk/educationforum/default.aspx
. Other organisations mentioned include:

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority

The AQA Awarding Body

The Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted)

Becta

National Assessment Agency

Natalie also referred to the "Westminster bubble", the general name given to the "movers and shakers" in Westminster.

Any comments or questions? Let us know what you think.

The interview was conducted via Skype.

Please click here to listen to the Interview with Natalie Shukla

The December 2007 edition of Computers in Classrooms contains reports from two recent Westminster Forum seminars. Subscribe now!

As a general point, what is good about these seminars is that you get to hear the views, experiences and, sometimes, research findings of a wide variety of experts in their fields. Apart from one or two keynote talks lasting around 20 minutes or so, the event is usually broken up into sessions involving a small panel addressing a particular theme. The format tends to be that each panel member speaks for around 3 or 4 minutes, and then the panel answers questions from the floor.

Fortunately, so far I have not had the experience of having my time wasted (in my opinion) by people who imagine that the sole purpose of having a 4 minute slot is to run an advertising campaign for their product or service (or, worst of all, themselves).