•  Are there any text books being written for GCE Applied ICT?

• I've bought the E-Tutors GCE E-Book - do you have any advice about students following their workbook and could you recommend E-textbook resources?

• At the launch you mentioned a magazine that the schools can get for free that is good for Applied ICT.  Which one is it?  Would you recommend another one?

• Are there any electronic resources either online or for sale in a DVD to check out?

• You mentioned the e-skills website.  I have looked on this and can't find anything about what skills year 12/13 should have at this stage.  Is there such a list?

• Can you recommend a PDF writer?

• Do you know of any free screen-recording software?

 Are there any text books being written for GCE Applied ICT?

A number of drafts have already passed over my desk on their way to reviewers. All the major publishers are planning to support the qualification.

Edexcel is producing its own resources written by Trevor Heathcote (Chief Examiner VCE) and Steve Farrell. The series is called Edexcel GCE in Applied ICT and the first resource to publish in this series is the AS Student's Book and ActiveBook (1405806524). This will be accompanied by a site licence of the ActiveBook and a Teacher's CD-ROM. FREE advance copies of Unit 1 can be requested from problemsolved@pearson.com (ISBN 1 903 13384 X).

The Hodder Murray text is also due out shortly. The authors are Chris Guy (one of our Principal Moderators) and Sean O'Byrne and the ISBN is 0340907282. There's a CD of resources to accompany the book. For futher information go to: http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/. The publishers are happy to send out a photocopy of a sample chapter on request.

I've bought the E-Tutors GCE E-Book - do you have any advice about students following their workbook and could you recommend E-textbook resources?

According to the publishers they have been receiving excellent feedback from schools. You can find out more at www.elearningtutors.co.uk.

Judith Peterson at Djanogly CTC says they are producing an elearning course to support the Edexcel GCE A Level Applied ICT. There's a demo site set up at: http://www.elearningweb.net.

At the launch you mentioned a magazine that the schools can get for free that is good for Applied ICT.  Which one is it?  Would you recommend another one?

Not sure which magazines I referred to, but Computing and Computer Weekly are ones I get for free and have lots of useful snippets in especially for the Practitioner units

Are there any electronic resources either online or for sale in a DVD to check out?

Thomas Telford has produced an e-learning course and I think Brooke Weston may have done so as well. There may be more that I don't know about.

You mentioned the e-skills website.  I have looked on this and can't find anything about what skills year 12/13 should have at this stage.  Is there such a list?

I was referring to the e-skills National Occupational Standards for IT Users which set out what learners are expected to be able to do at Level 1, 2 and 3 of the National Qualifications Framework (GCE Applied ICT in a Level 3 qualification).  There is a mapping at the end of each unit to the relevant section of the standards. The e-skills standards for IT Users are at: http://nos.e-skills.com/

Can you recommend a PDF writer?

Numerous PDF writers are available to download from the web; most are printer drivers.  The one I use is Pdf995 which is pretty basic but does what I want (I actually bought it for $9.95) but you can download it for free is you don't mind the advertising.  PDFCreator is supposed to be good as is FlashPaper (priced at around £50).  For more info go to www.pdfzone.com.

Do you know of any free screen-recording software?

Try Wink.