You can talk to many schools who feel they are bucking the trend by making use of Open Source and free software. They will talk about cost savings and ethics, about flexibility and the large support base of the community ... but occasionally you have to stop, take a step back and think about how and why these applications managed to sneak into our schools in the first place. Let us take a trip to the dark, dank corridor where students fear to tread and teachers only do so when armed with chocolate hob nobs. We are off to see the Techies and the latest marvel they are trying out.

Tony Sheppard

Tony Sheppard is a leading Educational Technologist and presently works as a Harnessing Technology Manager for Northamptonshire County Council. Tony was previously the Director of IT at a large Technology College in Northamptonshire where his team introduced thin clients and virtualisation. He has been involved with many online groups of innovators most noticeably as the Events organiser and one of the senior staff of EduGeek.net from which he retired earlier this year to concentrate on the day job and his consumption of chocolate. He was once accused of being a geek until it was realised he took it as a compliment. Tony does not take seminar Bios seriously.