THe Maine Department of Education has released a series of very useful Studywiz tutorials which can be viewed, downloaded and subscribed to, from iTunes. Here’s the link.
The videos cover the Studywiz learning environment interface.
It is also worth taking the time to check out some of the other podcasts that are published by the DOE - you’ll find some fantastic gems in there.
Fulton County Schools (Georgia, USA) is piloting handheld computing using iPod Touch devices equipped with Studywiz Spark Mobile.
The interim findings of the pilot indicate that the use of Studywiz Spark Mobile has increased student engagement and motivation. The early success of this project, along with Studywiz Spark Mobile being selected as a finalist for a CODiE Award in the US for the second year running, confirm that mobile learning is the hottest space in online education!
Read the Article >>
We have a GTP student in school who when she saw Studywiz said how easy it was to use. She has come from a Moodle school and although she said it has some nice features it was not easy to navigate and took ages to put resources up for the children. The comment went on to look at other platforms such as uniservity which looks a bit like moodle and it was twice as many clicks of a mouse to get a homework resource up.
It is interesting that LPs these days have developed considerably but with flashy front end graphics but the core functionality and easy of use must out way the glossy cover. If it is not totally user friendly teachers will not use it. One example of a LP I came across recently was they had a nice testing feature where you could add multiple choice, multiple answers and compare words type questions but there was no facility to let the children know what questions they got right or wrong. They only got a mark! Where is the learning power behind that - pah!
LPs are all about extending, enhancing, enabling learning 24/7 in a flexible way. The hint is in the title.
Still continuing to develop our use of this and embed in best practice. We still need a generation of teachers who think learning and enable technology to assist. Not sure what others think?
Mill Rythe Junior School using Wizkid collaboratively for homework
We have been focusing on improving children’s collaborative skills in class, so I decided to create an activity on Wizkid that could be done as homework, and included collaborative working.
I put the children into history groups of mixed ability, and gave each group a significant Tudor person to research. Their project was to create a fact file for their person over three weeks. Each week the focus of the task was slightly different, and the children had to research the information individually, then compile their research in history lessons back in class.
I set up a separate subfolder for each group, which included their worksheet that they could save to their eLocker, download and work on at home as well as in school; a selection of websites from which they could begin their research; and a discussion board that they could use to ask each other for help and suggest additional web resources for others in the group to use.
The children responded very positively to the homework tasks, with many going above and beyond the recommended 40 minutes for the homework. Some even went onto the discussion boards of other groups to assist them, because they found the task so interesting and enjoyable!
Here are a few comments posted on the discussion boards at the end of the task:
“I really enjoyed doing the homework as a group
because we got to help each other.”
“I really enjoyed this homework mainly because it is different and because if you get stuck you can ask your friends. I hope we get more.”
“I think the discussion board was a good idea for group working because everyone can help people when they’re not in your house!”
This post has come courtesy of Lisa Rae.
Read all about Southampton City Council’s implementation of Studywiz which was chosen as their VLE early in 2009. Training began for staff in schools during September 2009 and this is their story so far…
