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…)

Special needs resource

HelpKidzLearn is a collection of free software for younger learners and also for those with learning difficulties to play online. The software is split into four sections:

• Games and Quizzes
• Stories and Songs
• Creative Play
• Find Out About

There is also a section for Parents and advice to them about how they can best support their child.

Children and adults: highway, or byway

We are calling Studywiz in Southampton ‘eCity’, and held an information event last night at the school I started my teaching career in, Sholing Junior School (a very successful school, I might add). My thanks to the Head Teacher, Marc Parnell, for the use of their facilities. I was keen to keep my input to a minimum, and use the event as a showcase of the excellent progress that has already been made by Southampton schools.

I was also keen that, if possible, the schools represented would bring children along to both present, and demonstrate to adults what they could do. Well, what an effect that had. The usual quiet listening occurred, and I gazed across the room at the assembled tired teachers, hoping they wouldn’t become glazed. That didn’t happen, and the input from all the adults (including Hilary from Etech, who brought her usual gravitas and credibility to the situation) was excellent - enthusiastic, concise and clear, keeping everyone present informed and, importantly at this time of year, awake!

However, once the children were able to contribute, the room began to buzz, and the examples of what kids could do ellicited applause, and there was a great response to live chat between the children present, and those back at their own school. Subsequently, the kids then mingled with the adults, and showed them what they have done, what they love about Studywiz, and answered questions. They will always amaze me, and I’m chuffed the event went so well.

There was also proof that the practice in one school, to use children to train adults and other children, is going extremely well, as I have advised all along. If you’re reading this, and are implementing your Studywiz deployment, remember that children are the key to a smooth rollout. They were born in an age of web based technology, and are guaranteed to speed your journey.

Animoto Slideshow

Animoto is a fantastic website that produces beautifully crafted videos from your photos, clips and music. It is free and easy to use. The videos produced can be embedded into the html section of the Studywiz rich text editor - just click on SHARE when it is ready to fnd the embedding code. Click here.

Word of Mouth, and Implementing Studywiz

In Southampton, we are now deep into the second phase of our implementation, and the feedback from teachers attending training has been great - with them all really eager to get going with their classes, and start using Studywiz. We’re planning to hold an information event at a Southampton school, on the 1st December for those schools who are yet to show interest, where I want to involve teachers from across the city and, more importantly, children, so that we can show people how the thing works with real examples of great practice (and shock some adults, at how kids can pick up ICT skills faster than them!)

What I’ve become very aware of, especially in a unitary authority such as ours, is that word gets about. Last week, we had a small surge of schools who expressed their interest for the first time, even though they’ve not previously been in contact, or attended our launch events. It’s clear that teachers have been talking, and that the practical experiences of those who’ve been trained are being shared across Southampton. I’ve also heard that there is talk about the content that we purchased to be hosted on our deployment, and that it is creating a buzz as well.

In marketing, there is the ‘Viral’ approach to promoting a product, or an idea, and I can see how this works. In our case, we are providing something much better than a product or a brand - a set of tools that can really make an effective difference to Learning, and that is why the word has spread so quickly.