Where might eduLAIT fit?

eduLAIT is currently an expression of interest for people working for Local Authorities with a remit for education & technology, to see if there's enough interest in having a meetup & taking something forward. It's focusing at the grass roots level, and looking to make visible and support connections between people working for Local Authorities, who have a common interest in solving problems, sharing information and discussing policy and practice.

Punctuation marks made of puzzle pieces by Horia Varlan used under a Creative Commons license.

It's been conceived as a potential grass roots collection of people who belong to many different organisations & groups and work in lots of different ways across and between these already. This informal, networked approach to organisation will hopefully have a lot of benefits, including flexibility, an open web-based approach to working and sharing, and shaped directly by the interests and needs of people who want to take part. We're avoiding committing ourselves to to much in the way of mission statements or aims since they would be for the people who want to take part to decide - so our first meet up should be an interesting & hopefully productive one.

eduLAIT certainly isn't trying to replicate the excellent work people are already doing and, given its potential membership, would work alongside/with anyone focusing on overlapping areas of interest. Particularly credit needs to be paid to EduGeek for the work they have been doing ("the only place on the internet intended for and aimed at educational IT support staff") and to all the great UK LocalGov Camp, local Social Media Surgeries and Gov2.0 activities going on, as well as those across the country looking at digital inclusion and local community issues.

eduLAIT also doesn't have any aspirations to become a professional association or replicate the great work being done by Naace ("the professional association for those concerned with advancing education through the appropriate use of information and communications technology") or ALT ("a professional and scholarly association which seeks to bring together all those with an interest in the use of learning technology"). Those who work in Local Authorities in education technology operate at the intersection of many shared interests; what we hope to focus on are the particular processes and practices that fall within the remit of LAs - to make the work going on at this level effective and to make best possible use of our available resources and shared knowledge.

We're really looking forward to taking the conversation forward... what do you think?

eduLAIT - a proposal for a grassroots network

So, what's this all about then?

Our proposal is to set up a grass-roots national network of people working in IT or ICT within Local Authorities to support each other in:

• decision making;
• professional development;
• in sharing our experiences of what does and doesn't work;
• where needed, in bringing about meaningful change at local authority level.

We aren't proposing a national representative body or replacement for Becta - we think that a federation of LA employees offers a realistic approach to making best use of resource and capacity. Read more...

Who is this organisation for?
In the first instance, we are inviting everyone with a responsibility for educational technology within a Local Authority to get involved. However, if you are just interested in being kept up to speed, you can sign up for email notification.

How is it going to work?
Our first step is to identify who might be interested in working with the idea and taking it forward. If you are interested - please let us know by completing the Expression of Interest. We'll do some planning via wiki to organise a face to face barcamp as soon as possible.