Vital is the £5.6 million scheme to help practitioners bring technology even more effectively into the learning environment; it is underway ahead of the programme’s much-anticipated official launch in January 2010.

Vital (Transforming Lessons, Inspiring Learning) is to be the overarching title for the collaboration between the Open University (OU) and e-skills UK. First announced in July, Vital’s goal is to foster and develop top-class continuing professional development (CPD) for practitioners in England who face the dual challenge of...

• stimulating increasingly technology-confident learners, and
• preparing learners for the ‘knowledge economy’ beyond education.

The Vital Programme will be making good use of opportunities, to set out the ambitions of Vital and explain the progress made to date, ahead of the scheme’s ‘hard’ launch at BETT 2010; the focus is to work alongside existing training providers and practitioners to build on best practice in this area, and with employers to identify ways for them to support the development of practitioners. The Vital Programme also wants to encourage practitioners to pre-register at http://www.vital.ac.uk/ in advance of the roll-out of courses from the start 2010.

Vital responds to the needs of two types of practitioners –

• those seeking to exploit ICT across the curriculum, and
• the specialists teaching technology subjects (Computing, IT and ICT) as disciplines in their own right.

From January, Vital will be offering six new face-to-face courses and at least three online courses; a network of nine regional Vital co-ordinators will be in place working with local training providers, schools, local authorities and employers to ensure provision is appropriate and tailored to each region’s needs.

Find out more and/or pre-register at http://www.vital.ac.uk/ or Watch the Vital keynote at Naace at http://advisorymatters.naaceblogs.org/2009/10/11/ict-cpd-becomes-vital/.