In my earliest days at primary school an essential tool for writing and drawing was a slate. These were much in evidence when on Friday I visited Scotland Street school, one of Rennie Mackintosh's fine buildings that is now a museum showing the school life of yesteryear.

I went round the museum with an object in my hands that was extraordinarily like a slate and which had writing and drawings on it. But this was an Ipad and I was participating in a site specific theatrical presentation called Alma Mater developed by Fish and Game and presented as part of a get together of the International network for contemporary performing arts.

The drawings were technically speaking a video, and I was led around the building by a series of children who appeared on the screen. It was a bit weird to walk along a corridor following a child who was in the video image of the corridor but wasn't in the real corridor and to encounter other members of the virtual school community in various situations.

It was entertaining and enjoyable, but keeping an eye on the screen and on the real world at the same time (to avoid tripping on the stairs for example) meant that I didn't think much about what it was all in aid of, i.e. its artistic purpose!

Fortunately I had a handout that I read afterwards that spelt it all out. It's quite long so I'll just quote wee bits of it:

"....Alma Mater follows children learning how to behave, resisting their own playful, carnal desires and submitting to the world of adults. ......Mackintosh employed images of growth up through the vertical levels of the school......the film echoes this growth both in the size of the children's bodies and in the accumulation of knowledge gained on the journey through the school...."

At the Traverse earlier in the week Wedekind's Spring Awakening also put slates to good use but here the children were not resisting their playful, carnal desires and the poor dears paid the price.

The Guardian review gave it four stars and I will admit to having admired the staging (apart from the tedious back and fro of the big blackboard) and the capabilities of the actors but I just didn't engage with the piece at all, probably because whatever adolescent angst I experienced has vanished into the mists of time and the shock value of the play along with it.

Maybe the rock musical version would have got me scribbling on my slate with more enthusiasm.