Online Learning rises above the ashes

It is always interesting to see how teachers and students unable to get to school have found ways to continue learning. There was an interesting story on the BBC Website about a teacher who used an Internet Cafe and Skype to continue his A Level revision lessons whilst stranded in Spain due to the ash crisis.

Here is a link to that story.

I couldn’t help thinking that with access to Studywiz, he could have done even more: work could have been set up and marked with feedback given, forums could have been set up to discuss revision topics when  access to the Internet was available and tests could have been created and marked with the teacher being able to check the results. Add this to the ability to access Studywiz from a mobile device and you can see the true benefits of a Learning Platform for all situations that have students and teachers away from School.

A number of schools have been using Studywiz during this crisis. One school had over 100 students stuck in the Far East and Studywiz was being used to communicate and provide work for the students stranded.

As with the snow earlier in the year in the UK, this ash incident has highlighted how important it is to have a Learning Platform that allows access to learning from anywhere. At this time of year, when students are preparing for exams, finishing coursework and maybe going on Study Leave, Studywiz can provide another tool for revision. From setting up a Gallery of past papers that students can download to discussion forums on revision topics, Studywiz enables teachers to keep in contact and provide support for all those preparing for exams.

Studywiz Tutorials from the Maine DOE

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.

Go Compare …

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?

Add a little more to your Studywiz Pages

Recently in training I have been using the web site www.magicwidgets.com for examples of how to embed code using the HTML icon in the text box of Studywiz. It is an easy way to make activities and information panels look a little bit special and a lot of teachers were very interested in using it.

On this web site, you can create customised scrolling banners, clocks,  add text to images and create image cubes. Once you have finished creating your banner etc, you will see a code prepared for you that you simply copy, then open up the RTE box you want to put it in, click on HTML, paste in the code, click Update and then Save.

Click on the thumbnails below to see a couple of examples.

Studywiz speaks Widgit

As of version 9.4.3 Studywiz now supports Widgit Insite and Point integration. We’re very happy to have worked with Widgit on this integration, they are a great company and a fantastic group of people.

You can read more about Widgit and their products at www.widgit.com. You may also be interested to read about their Symbol Inclusion Project which was a collaboration between Widgit and Warwickshire County Council.

Although Widgit tools are sometimes traditionally associated with specific learning needs, the Widgit symbols can help all learners and readers, including:

• People learning English as a second language
• People with memory difficulties, senile dementia or other brain damage
• People with dyslexia, dyspraxia or spatial/time/organisational difficulties
• People who are deaf or hearing impaired
• Young children who have not yet started to read.
• People with Autistic Spectrum Disorders

The two Widgit products that Studywiz currently supports are Insite and Point. Have a look at the videos below to see these in action. (more…)