BridgED: Making connections between industry and practice
ConnectED
We are the UK distributors in education and training for SONY PlayStation and SONY Virtuoso. We provide excellent, innovative and reliable technology with first class training and support.
SONY PlayStation®Portable: Over the previous 18 months, PlayStation®Portable (PSP™) has been purchased and used extensively in over 200 UK educational and training institutions. The combination of SONY PSP’s gaming heritage and its ability to capture and play open standard educational digital content via audio, video, and internet has made it a compelling new mobile learning tool. Students can now use existing ‘social technology’ platforms like SONY PSP™ to access real and engaging educational content.
The use of SONY PSP™ in the classroom makes learning interesting and fun, allowing interaction, collaboration and uniquely blending social and learning time. Learning can be done at home as PSP™ works with a standard TV connection. Video and audio can then be shared and transferred back and forth between home and school.
NEW for SONY PSP from ConnectED “Second Sight” Interactive blended learning technology: ConnectED is pleased to showcase Second Sight at BridgED. This ground breaking new technology works with traditional printed content to trigger audio, video and interactive 3D images. Second Sight enables teachers to blend the use of their established text books, display materials and audio visual content in a way that has not been easy to deploy in the classroom before.
“Content is now king. Students are used to playing and reviewing rich media files in audio, video and in gaming, anytime and anywhere. They expect a richer experience. PSP™ helps fulfill that need. It is easy to use, extremely robust and portable, and most importantly PSP™ plays rich media at a much lower cost that a standard PC” Andy Goff, Education Director, ConnectED.
SONY Virtuoso: SONY Virtuoso is already the digital language lab of choice for over 150 UK schools, colleges and universities and is the complete language lab solution allowing access on site, across campus, from site to site and from home. SONY Virtuoso is transportation software and bridges the distance between learners and teachers. Enabling students to work with audio and video material, it allows access to interactive exercises and websites, students can link themed resources into text, audio, video and gap-fill exercises.
Edudigi Ltd – The Primary Channel
At edudigi we are bringing the benefits of digital media to schools and colleges.
We ask teachers how they could you transform their school into an exciting, creative environment which engages and motivates pupils in learning?
We are an educational media company that offers schools their very own, Internet based, digital media broadcasting facility and learning environment. We call it their very their very own TV channel where the children are the crew and the stars!
Imagine – every pupil able to share their own work, being able to work with others through a simple yet powerful framework that encourages collaboration.
Imagine the investigation, the writing, the ICT skills, the planning that go into creating a programme. Imagine the opportunities for cross-curricular and work related learning.
Imagine delivery of Every Child Matters in a way that makes sense to your school, to staff, parents and – most importantly – the pupils.
Create, Communicate, Collaborate!
- Simple, effective, low-cost way to introduce digital media to your school
- Full package of training, equipment, advice and support available
- TV and radio station for every child
- Transforms the education environment
- Engages pupils, parents and others in the life of the school
- Promotes team-working and fosters collaboration
Schools are currently using our platform to:
- Create weekly TV news programmes broadcast around the school, to other schools and parents
- Collaborate on learning projects (eg; Road Safety, Healthy Eating) that result in TV and radio programmes, blogs and mixed media work
- Keep in touch with partner schools around the corner and around the globe
- Record radio and TV dramas written and performed in school
- Deliver cross-curricular learning
- Celebrate and share successes and achievements
- Enrol parents in their child’s learning
- Publish school and class news
eFolio: from Maximise-ICT
Ray Tolley started teaching in 1963 and has held a wide range of senior posts in schools, combining technological awareness, a keen eye for problem solving and a strong leadership in policy making and curriculum development.
Following many years of innovative work in schools, it was no wonder that he was quickly appointed as an Advisory Teacher for ICT as soon as the very first computers became available to schools in 1981. After working for some 6 years in this capacity he was appointed as Director of Technology, setting up the CTC in Gateshead. In 1999 he was appointed as Head of ICT and Project Manager to assist in turning round a ‘failing school’ in Oxfordshire.
Whilst researching for a NAACE/Becta paper on the impact of VLEs in schools, it soon became apparent that few schools or even the vendors had little understanding of the place of e-Portfolios in schools. After presenting another research paper to Becta on the use of e-Portfolios for Diploma students, it was inevitable that the problem-solving/technological/curriculum mind turned to developing an e-Portfolio system appropriate to Lifelong, Lifewide learning.
eFolio is a simple but very powerful learner-owned e-Portfolio capable of delivering all the requirements of any e-Portfolio system. Perhaps the most powerful facility of eFolio is its ability to evolve, chameleon-like, with the needs of the learner. Even the youngest of pupils can change the colour schemes and graphic templates according to how learners wish to represent themselves. It can present different ‘views’ to differing audiences and viewing can be controlled by time and permissions.
eFolio is a truly Lifelong e-Portfolio as it is hosted externally to any institution and thus providing complete portability from one institution to another or even accessed by multiple institutions. Its simplicity and e-safety make it also accessible for all abilities.
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Hodder Education
Hodder Education is one of the leading educational publishers. As well as publishing printed resources for secondary schools we also have an innovative software solution - Dynamic Learning.
Dynamic Learning Network Editions provide teachers with a bank of digital resources that motivate and inspire your students, helping you to deliver interactive lessons and get the most out of your whiteboard. It’s really simple to use and even teachers who aren’t so confident with ICT will deliver memorable lessons with ease.
Teachers can watch their lessons explode into life with video clips, audio files, photos and illustrations, animated activities, quizzes, voting activities, digital tutoring, Interactive Assessments and much more. We provide ready-made lessons but teachers can also create your own customised and professional lessons with our drag-and-drop technology. Additionally any other existing resources can also be integrated into the Dynamic Learning environment so that everything is in one place.
All our content is pre-tagged to save time, everything can be searched for and shared with colleagues and students. Because the content is pre-tagged and SCORM-compliant teachers can populate their VLEs quickly and easily.
And that’s not all, Dynamic Learning resources make home study more enjoyable too, allowing your students to practice and revise as much as they want. Our printed books are supported by free digital material that supports the content of the text, enabling them to personalise their learning experience and work at their own pace. They can easily search for content and the tests and quizzes mean they can check how much they have learnt too.
To find out more visit www.dynamic-learning.co.uk; you can see Dynamic Learning in action!
Isaacs UK
Ruth Churchill Dower is the Director of Isaacs UK, a creative learning consultancy with a remit to pioneer learning networks across the cultural and educational communities. One of the main networks run by Isaacs UK is Earlyarts, a professional development network for arts, cultural and early years professionals using creative approaches to help children and families achieve a better quality of life and learning. Ruth recently won the Ogunte Women’s Social Leadership Awards 2009 for her work in building Earlyarts to make real change happen in children’s lives.
Isaacs UK’s latest development, Dream Catcher, explores the use of new technology to enhance (rather than reduce) communication processes between young children, their parents, teachers and carers. The stage one trials have been documented and a short video released about the findings, with a view to building a prototype platform in stage two.
Ruth has worked on developing arts, cultural, early education and learning strategies in both policy and practice, with clients such as Arts Council England, CAPE UK, Department of Culture, Media and Sport, Futurelab, National Museums Liverpool, Canterbury Children’s Centre, Oakwood Primary School Leeds, Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, and Creative Partnerships.
Ruth has published work on the impacts of arts and culture on learning processes, networked learning, knowledge management, social media, professional development, impact assessments, research and evaluation. She is also a Director and board member of Germination, a cultural production company, a member of Small Size (European network for the diffusion of performing arts for children), EUnetART (European Network of arts organisations for children and young people), and a fellow of the RSA (Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts).
Learn.co.uk & Guardian Professional
Resources & services from Guardian News and Media Ltd
From digital to print, conferences to consultancy, schools to syndication: we help you to engage with your audience.
Guardian Professional’s activities span the public, media and education sectors. As well as our work for clients in government departments, non-governmental organisations and the private sector, we produce Guardian-branded projects.
We bring a flexible, creative approach to our clients’ projects. We have expertise in advertising and sponsorship, conferences and events, digital & print publishing and research – and we often combine several strands to create the right package for our clients.
We know how to get the message across, whatever your audience. This could be primary school children across UK, media professionals, chief executives of major companies or civil servants. And we have the skills to deliver it.
Our portfolio includes learn.co.uk offering access to learnpremium, one of the largest online curriculum resource websites covering Foundation to AS Level. Materials include complete online lessons, whiteboard activities, printable worksheets, automated tests, diagrams, teachers’ notes plus excellent support for students’ coursework and revision.
Learnnewsdesk is learn.co.uk’s online news service for schools. Aimed at 9-14 year olds, our in-house editors write daily news articles linked to curriculum objectives. Students are encouraged to read the articles or listen to the accompanying podcasts. Each story includes a primary and secondary activity and students are invited to email their reports and podcasts for publication on the site.
The Guardian Digital Archive is a fully-searchable online archive of the Guardian, Observer and Manchester Guardian newspapers from 1791 to 2003. An excellent research resource, the Digital Archive enriches a wide range of school subjects.
Further information on any of our resources can be requested via email: learncontact [at] guardian [dot] co [dot] uk, or by visiting www.learn.co.uk or www.guardianprofessional.co.uk.
Learnosity
Teaching of spoken language skills is difficult. There are many constraints to student learning:
- Teachers only have a very limited amount of time to spend with each student in one-on-one scenarios.
- There is limited ability to 'record and review' for the benefit of both student and teacher.
- Students do not have the ability to review their conversations with teachers.
With oral language fluency of the utmost importance to secondary language acquisition, the Learnosity Voice products focus on verbal abilities, allowing students to use any phone to dial into a voice application, and answer a series of voice-based questions.
The platform enables language students and teachers to interact on a one to one level. It makes it practical to give spoken language homework, allows students to practice Oral and Aural skills, and is efficient and effective for teachers- as they can listen to each student individually at a time to suit them.
Why use a Mobile Phone?
We could have used computers and microphones for these applications, but there are number of reasons we chose to use mobile phones.
- Phones are built for speaking and listening.
- There is no learning curve, technical support, installation etc. It just works.
- Teachers don't have to book computer or language labs, students just take out their phones and dial in.
- Almost every single student will already have a mobile phone.
The Learnosity Voice mobile language learning platform has been deployed in a large scale projects conducted by the Irish and Australian governments, in the teaching and learning of the Irish and Indonesian languages. The platform has also been deployed in schools and universities in the UK, US, Saudi Arabia, and Australia.
Promethean
Promethean is a global leader in interactive classroom solutions that empowers teachers to engage, educate, assess and motivate learners. Developed by and for educators, its award-winning ActivClassroom is an innovative and integrated suite of solutions providing time-saving technology for teachers and engaging, informative content for the modern-day classroom that has been proven to significantly raise achievement levels.
Beyond the classroom, Promethean’s integrated learning system also provides comprehensive training and support. Promethean Planet (www.PrometheanPlanet.com) is the largest online teacher forum for premium and interactive whiteboard content. More than a third of a million educators from around the world currently access and adapt downloadable flipcharts, participate in conversations on the forum and blog and share best practice to create fun, engaging lessons that capture both the imagination and attention of their students.
Radiowaves
Radiowaves is the UK’s largest Educational Social Network. Our multi-award winning service gives schools and youth groups their own online radio station and TV channel and safe social network to publish podcasts, videos and blogs.
We’re in the MySpace age teaching the Facebook generation. As a social network designed exclusively for use within education, Radiowaves is able to engage and excite today’s young people by enabling them to communicate, connect and create in ways that are relevant. Feeding off each school’s or youth group’s Radiowaves website are personalised student web-pages where each young person can showcase their work to parents, guardians, friends, grandparents and the rest of the world! Indeed, Radiowaves is about celebrating the individual. We provide platforms for both whole organisations and individual students to shine in their own unique way and open up opportunities for involvement in national projects via our partnerships with organisations such as the Football Foundation, the Imperial War Museum, The Ministry of Justice and Shine.
We not only provide subscriptions to our customised Radiowaves websites but guide our schools and groups through creating content and maintaining their new virtual world. Our staff and student training days are run by educational and media professionals and are the essential ‘how to’ for podcasting, video making, live broadcasting and even animation. For organisations keen to be podcasting to perfection we provide professional reporter equipment to ensure great quality audio.
Check out www.radiowaves.co.uk for a browse around our online international community of almost 1,000 Radiowaves websites.
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Steljes
Steljes Limited is an innovative technology distributor that sources products from around the world, working with manufacturers to customise and bring their solutions to the UK market through a specialised channel network.
We work across the Education sector, exploring the impact of technology on teaching and learning to ensure that it delivers real value. Our partners include:
SMART Technologies – the inventor and market leader in interactive whiteboards, pioneer of multi-user, multi-touch interactive surfaces and developer of a comprehensive interactive classroom through the integration of hardware, software and resources
TurningPoint® – an early champion of response systems for classroom engagement and assessment for learning
AVerMedia – redefining the price/quality decision for educators wanting to combine digital and real-world objects using a visualiser
Tibboh – age-appropriate and genuinely unlimited internet connectivity for use in school and beyond, helping redefine learning environments
We believe in technology with purpose and look forward to discussing what this means for your learners.
To find out more visit www.steljes.co.uk or one of our partner sites: www.mysmartspaces.co.uk, www.turningtechnologies.co.uk, www.avervision.eu/uk, www.tibboh.co.uk
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Vivid
Vivid Interactive will be celebrating 21 years as specialists in digital media for education in November 2009. We believe that digital technology will positively transform education for young people in the 21st century. But having experienced the rapid technological changes that have taken place over the past 21 years we have learnt to balance the technology with the pedagogy.
We understand that the real benefits of the technology will take time to properly realise, and that the landscape can be bewildering at times. We know that many schools are struggling with the implementation of digital technology. We know that many teachers are trying to make sense of the technology and its application to learning, but with precious little time and training to assist them.
Many of the digital learning resources that publishers distribute to schools are developed by us in our Brighton studio (see www.vividinteractive.co.uk). And we continue to develop our own resources for direct distribution. In all these developments it is important that we are able to work with subject experts and education experts, and most importantly with teachers and pupils themselves.
To this end we are strengthening our direct ties with schools so we can talk with teachers and pupils directly about their needs.
This is designed to help us achieve our mission:
‘to positively transform the learning experiences of young people by giving them a voice, and creating 21st century personalised rich and supportive learning environments for them’
WebPlay
WebPlay is an arts-education charity. We believe that children learn best when their lessons are fun, creative and collaborative.
We specialise in creating award-winning projects that combine drama and technology to connect schools from across the UK and around the world.
All our projects are aligned to the National Curriculum and have been proven to raise children’s aspirations, skills creativity and cross-cultural awareness as well as increase teachers’ professional development in using drama and technology across the curriculum.
WebPlay was created in 2000 by Sydney Thornbury, who had drunk a lot of coffee that day. The original pilot linked six classes in London with six classes in Los Angeles. We were still on dial-up modems! Since then (and the introduction of broadband), we have worked with over 20,000 children from over 400 schools across England, the US and Bangalore, India. In 2010, we will even be working in China!