Introduction
The National Grid for Learning ( NGfL) Scotland was launched in August 1998 to ensure that the educational benefits of information and communication technology ( ICT) would be available to schools and the wider education community.
This is the fourth and final NGfL Scotland report, and it records the progress of the NGfL Scotland since the last progress report which was published online in March 2004 ( www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/education/nglr3-00.asp).
It sets out the background to the NGfL Scotland, the contribution of the Scottish Executive Education Department ( SEED) and records the progress with the three key ICT areas with which the NGfL Scotland is concerned: infrastructure, staff development and content development.
In response to the report of the Digital Scotland Task Force in September 2000, SEED undertook to produce annual reports on the progress of the NGfL Scotland. Since then much has changed. Significant progress has been made with the integration of ICT into the education system. Future developments in schools will be shaped by the roll-out of the Scottish Schools Digital Network ( SSDN), which is described later in this report. This report will therefore be the last of the annual progress reports. SEED and Learning and Teaching Scotland ( LTS) will consider how best to report future progress in the use of ICT.