Island Saver from NatWest
Author: George Milliken
Glasgow Independent Games Festival 2025 Event, 9th August
The Glasgow Independent Games Festival is officially set to take place on 9th August 2025 at the community revered Barras Art and Design (BAaD) Building. This year’s festival promises to be a vibrant celebration of independent game development, featuring new game showcases, industry discussions, and games-related art performances even larger than last year’s historic appearance.
Organised by the Glasgow Independent Games Group CIC (GIGG), the festival aims to highlight the creativity and innovation of independent game developers while fostering meaningful conversations about the future of the games industry. Attendees can expect a diverse lineup of activities, including:
- Game Showcases: Discover groundbreaking projects from emerging and established indie developers.
- Industry Panels: Engage in thought-provoking discussions with leading voices in the UK games industry.
- Art Performances: Experience unique, games-inspired artistic performances that combine the familiar with the idiosyncratic.
Joe Bain, Director of GIGG, said, “The Glasgow Independent Games Festival is a platform for indie developers to shine and for the industry to come together to celebrate the artistry and innovation of games. We’re excited to welcome everyone to the Barras Art and Design Building for a day of creativity, collaboration, and inspiration.”
Ryan Caulfield, Director of GIGG, added, “This festival is about more than just games—it’s about building a community that values inclusivity and creativity. We’re proud to support indie developers and provide a space where their work can be celebrated and appreciated.”
Since its inception, GIGG has supported over 200 developers, sponsors, and patrons from across the UK and beyond, earning recognition for its commitment to fostering an open and inclusive environment for games and their cultural impact.
Find out more:
visit https://glasgowindiegamesfest.org/ or
follow GIGG on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/glasgow-independent-games-festival/
Tickets available at https://glasgowindiegamesfest.org/Find out more:
Event Details:
Date: 9th August 2025
Time: 12:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Location: Barras Art and Design Building, 54 Calton Entry, Glasgow
PHASE25 Esports Conference, 26th September Edinburgh
Are you running, or interested in running, esports in your setting?
Join Phase25 at Murrayfield stadium, and explore the dynamic intersection of academia and esports, emphasising the profound impact of integrating esports into educational curricula. This conference will highlight how esports can be leveraged as a powerful tool for cultivating essential transferable skills that are highly valued across various industries.
There will be a range of talks from people including: Nik Turner, Shoubna Naika-Taylor, Euan Jardine, Gavin Ferry, Bubba Gaeddert, and Alex Hirbe
Find out more and sign up using this link: PHASE Esports Conference tickets
Minecraft Build Battle in North Lanarkshire Council
The digital team at North Lanarkshire Council have shared this summary of their recent work using Minecraft with primary school learners. To find out more get in touch with X at North Lanarkshire Council.
Learning about games
Pan European Game Information (PEGI) provide age ratings for games based on the suitability of a game, not the level of difficulty. These can be useful to help educators check whether they might use a game in with their learners.
Into Film have developed resources for teaching about games in partnership with Northern Ireland Screen. The resources are free and cover concepts, such as genres, controls , characters and goals.
Find out more by visiting the Into Film games hub with this link
The results are in! Teachers in Scotland are digitally skilled
Our Teacher Digital Skills Toolkit has been available for over a year now. It contains guidance on what skills and knowledge teachers in Scotland should have to meet the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) standard for registration, which requires teachers to be ‘digitally literate’. There is also short videos to support some of these skills and knowledge, as well as links to the Barclays Digital Wings free learning pathway, which covers all of these.
Beside the guidance, there is a Form for teachers to evaluate their essential skills, knowledge and confidence. We’ve now had almost 200 responses from 25 local authorities and the results are positive:
- 96% Use a device’s main features, such as keyboard, mouse, touchscreen or camera
- 96% Access and log in to platforms, such as Glow
- 93% Connect, or reconnect, a device to a Wi-Fi network
- 99% Search the web for information and evaluate the search results
- 77% Access and use common accessibility features, such as text size, text-to-speech, or speech-input
- 82% Consider copyright of any content or media included in created content
- 98% Access email and send a message
- 96% Access and join a Class, Team or group
- 84% Access cloud storage, create a file there and share it
- 78% Create a class and show learners how to join
- 81% Create files or share files from drive storage to the class
- 88% somewhat confident (44%) and extremely confident (44%)
Have you evaluated your digital skills recently? Take the survey and let us know how you get on!
essential skills checklist evaluation
Additional educator digital skills professional learning and certifications
Overview Adobe Express for Education offers teachers and pupils the tools they need to confidently create a number of graphics, posters, image, presentations, and more. Putting creativity into learning, with features and tools that can integrated into any curricular area. The links below give you access to a large bank of… Read more
Upcoming RTC webinars and events Creative Activities to try in your classroom Resources Latest News Read more
Back to teacher digital literacy page This section aims to support teachers to develop their skills and knowledge required to use the Microsoft 365 platforms that are common in schools across Scotland. The Digital Teacher Toolkit is the associated CLPL. The Educator Digital Literacy framework is the associated evaluation document.… Read more
Back to teacher digital literacy page This section aims to support teachers to develop their skills and knowledge required to use the Google Workspace platforms that are common in schools across Scotland. The Digital Teacher Toolkit is the associated CLPL. The Educator Digital Literacy framework is the associated evaluation document.… Read more
Live lesson catchup: Close reading not required – how search engines work
Ted Palenski from the University of Glasgow delivered this live lesson aimed at children and young people of all ages.
Artificial intelligence has long been a component of search engines: how results are surfaced, ranked, and presented. This session breaks down how search engines work, and how they increasingly leverage generative AI, possibly to the detriment of close reading.
The aim of the session is to foster critical information literacy, offering several examples of how search engines might not give you the most relevant information, with some suggested strategies for navigating digital spaces overloaded with information.
Teaching for Digital Citizenship
David Lundie from the University of Glasgow delivered this webinar during Scottish Digital Literacy Week 2025.
The Teaching for Digital Citizenship project has been working with teachers, young people, ethicists and the EdTech sector across the 4 nations of the UK, to understand the aims, practices and challenges in recovering a space for moral agency in a post-digital world.
Citizenship, ethics and justice will be central to our new digital literacy curriculum updates.
The aim of this session is to set out a data justice approach, in which all young people have a right to information integrity – to understand that our current information ecosystem is not inevitable, it is a product of technical and social conditions which can be acted upon and changed.
We are looking to engage teachers in processes of reflection on their own practice, drawing on examples of leading practice across the curriculum from our project so far, and introducing a self-evaluation tool which has been co-designed with teachers in our community of practice.
Find out more about the project with this link: Teaching for Digital Citizenship: Digital ethics in the classroom and beyond
Digital Schools Award Scotland: How Carnwath Primary Became Scotland’s Digital Learning Trailblazer
This video was recorded during Scottish Digital Literacy Week 2025. It features Sharon Alexander, who is Principal Teacher at Carnwath Primary School – that was the first school in Scotland to achieve all four digital awards:
- Digital Schools Award Primary
- Digital Schools Award Europe
- Digital Wellbeing
- Equitable Creative Coding Award
Discover the innovative strategies and practical approaches that have made Carnwath Primary a leader in digital learning and teaching. Sharon will share real insights, challenges, and success stories to help you elevate digital education in your own school.
Find out more about Digital Schools Award Scotland with this link: Digital Schools Awards
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