(1888PressRelease)
July 26, 2008 - Across the country, schools are gearing up to meet the Government’s targets to provide every pupil with access to an online learning space by September 2008. Not content with just maintaining the status quo, Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council and Education Bradford have met and exceeded this target by also providing schools with exciting and dynamic learning platform content for a truly interactive and varied learning experience. Working with educational software specialist Birchfield Interactive (www.birchfield.co.uk), the councils are two of the first authorities in the country to offer students and teachers such rich online learning resources that can be accessed from home and school 24/7!
Working with educational software specialist Birchfield Interactive (www.birchfield.co.uk), the councils are two of the first authorities in the country to offer students and teachers such rich online learning resources that can be accessed from home and school 24/7!
Motivating students to log onto their school learning platform from home is a constant challenge for teachers. Rotherham MBC and Education Bradford have risen to this challenge, ensuring that the kinds of technology young people enjoy using in their personal lives is now maximised in their academic lives. With 16,000 pages of new content ranging from 3D animations and videos to voice-overs and interactive games, Bradford’s and Rotherham’s schools can now ensure that the ‘You-Tube’ generation of pupils are as excited about learning online as they are with playing and chatting online.
Making learning fun and exciting is all part of the two councils’ drive to ensure that students are motivated, teachers are supported and that education standards are high. Providing schools with an easy way to access work anytime anywhere has been a huge step forward in developing education provision across Bradford and Rotherham. Through the partnership with Birchfield, the councils are now enabling schools to offer a truly interactive and varied learning experience - one that can be shared and developed, not only within a specific school but across the whole authority.
While Bradford and Rotherham offer all schools access to a learning platform providing pupils with an online learning space, the nature and design of each platform can vary radically. In choosing the flexible and SCORM*-compliant content designed by Birchfield, the two councils have ensured that as long as a school’s learning platform has met the government’s specifications, it can easily run and implement the software. Such an open approach in the software design means that all Bradford and Rotherham schools are able to maximise their council’s purchase and that ICT provision is consistent across the region.
Covering 15 subjects, all of Birchfield’s resources have been designed by teachers and professionally animated to offer students a visual, colourful and multimedia learning experience. Enabling a learning platform to be far more than just an electronic noticeboard or filing cabinet, the new content means that teachers can truly personalise learning for their students and cater for all their different learning styles. Specific resources can now be allocated to specific students, individual progress can be tracked and staff within each school can benefit from a common set of resources, not only facilitating collaboration but saving valuable time and effort!
Tom Ormerod, Learning Portal Development Manager at Rotherham MBC, commented: “Working with Birchfield to populate our Local Authority’s learning platform with dynamic content means that we can now maximise the impact of online learning and bring real benefits to both teachers and students.”
Education Bradford has purchased Birchfield’s entire PSHE range in traditional Lesson Kits and new learning platform formats. Sam Preston, Strategy Manager at Education Bradford, commented: “The pressure on teachers’ time is immense. The introduction of the Birchfield range has enabled support for teachers to review the syllabi whilst offering the opportunity to access and create professional, multimedia content that will appeal to all students of all abilities whether on or off site. Birchfield’s content and games not only offer invaluable learning support to teachers but also enhances multi agency provision and holds real appeal to students, both inside and outside of lessons.”
Jon Case, CEO of Birchfield commented: “We are delighted to be working in partnership with Education Bradford and Rotherham MBC and to be part of its visionary approach to education. Having a learning platform in place is one thing but it needs to be used by the whole school community in order to achieve real benefits. By populating their platform with compatible curriculum content, Bradford’s and Rotherham’s schools are not only meeting specific learning objectives and making the most out of their ICT provision, but also making learning fun!”
Further information about Birchfield Interactive can be obtained by contacting Anthony Evans, Head of Marketing; tel: 0800 915 6616, e-mail: aevans ( @ ) birchfield dot co dot uk or visit the web site at: www dot birchfield dot co dot uk dot
* SCORM stands for Sharable Content Object Reference Model. It is an XML-based framework designed to facilitate moving course content and related information (such as student records) between learning platforms, and to disaggregate course content into modular objects for reuse in other courses.
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