Scholaris

SID 2012 (Safe Internet Day 2012) is aimed at closing the gap in online safety awareness of young people. Frequently, young people believe they are more conversant with technology than adults and this extends to the internet, shaping attitudes and ultimately online behaviour. The ‘know it all’ misconception of youth can expose young people to online dangers.

To help improve safety, SID 2012 encourages the up and coming generation to develop better awareness of staying safe online. SID 2012 aims to kick start the dialogue between parents and children about the internet. Children are asked to share their ICT and internet skills while discussing how they can be safe online.

SID 2012 is invaluable for raising awareness, but internet safety is not just for one day. The dangers of the internet are ever attendant, 365 days of the year. Scholaris learning portals are designed from the ground up to wrap in online safety 24×7. The portal ensures safety by assembling resources within the secure environment of the portal. This enables engagement, collaboration and information sharing with a trusted community and minimises exposure to potential threats from the wild, wild web outside.

Click this link to download the Scholaris PDF brochure.

Click this link to visit the SID 2012 website.

Dateline: 19 January 2012, the Guggenheim Museum, New York.

Apple has unveiled a new version of its iBooks software that allows publishers to create interactive textbooks for the iPad. This initial launch is for the US market where Apple has struck deals with publishers such as McGraw-Hill and Pearson.

Walter Isacsson, Steve Jobs’ biographer, highlights that the great man himself spent his last years looking at how to shake up the textbook market. “These are beautiful books. Interactive, gorgeous, fun engaging,” said Apple senior VP of world-wide marketing, Philip Schiller. More usefully, descriptions of functionality include images that turn into slideshows, text hyperlinks to glossaries, and instantly assessed multiple choice tests.

This clearly signifies the acceleration of education towards a digital and online future. Anything that helps to improve learning is a valuable and welcome addition to the education market, and this complements the all-around capability and management features of a web portal like Scholaris.

Apple’s move looks to be the opening shot in a tussle over the textbook market with Amazon. Frequently, in the fight for control of a competitive market, corporate and shareholder interests are prioritised, and big business drivers often compromise nobler social interests.

Let’s hope that fairness, equal opportunity and the achievement of learners is not a casualty here.

Click here to see the report of the launch in The Guardian.

We are pleased to announce the release of V4.4 the latest version of our Scholaris Education Portal

This version introduces the Scholaris Junior portal which provides a fun and engaging learning environment developed specifically for junior students. Scholaris Junior provides students with a rich and engaging interface that reflects the age and maturity of the students, this is achieved by providing the students with a selection of themes and avatars from which they can select and personalise their own learning environment. Scholaris Junior enables schools to establish and deliver teaching and learning in today’s digital age in a safe and secure environment. The solution facilitates the introduction and use of technology and tools in a controlled way minimising exposure and potential threats from the outside community.

The upgrade also introduces a rubric builder to allow teachers to create and share rubrics to support assessment using a matrix of criteria and perfromance. The rubrics also support student self assessment and comment and can be used with multiple assignment types.

A new Group Management modules allows teachers and administrators to build personal, school and district groups. These groups are usable across the port

Improvements and feature enhancements have been made across most of the modules in the portal

V4.4 is available for both the SharePoint 2007 and 2010 platforms

The upgrade package can be downloaded from the Customer Software Downloads area

As you may imagine, at Scholaris we are passionate about education and technology. That’s why this week we are a little disappointed with the findings of Ofsted in the UK.

A three year study shows that in almost one-fifth of secondary schools as many as 50% of 14-16 year olds are not taught ICT, a compulsory subject for five to 16 year olds. The report comes at a time when the profile of issues around the teaching of computing, science and technology in the UK are being elevated.

The technology strategy for schools is expected to be published by the government in the new year and in August Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Google, observed the UK invented the computer yet is “throwing away your great computer heritage”.

Michael Gove and David Cameron have both gone on record with comments that suggest they recognise that there is a gap between where the UK is now and where it needs to be in teaching computer science and bringing through the next generation of programmers. As teaching and learning progresses through this decade, Learning Portals such as Scholaris are positioned to occupy a prominent position in education.

A plethora of technology touch points already grabs the attention of many learners; the immediacy of Learning Portals in the classroom driving better learning experiences only serves to enhance the attraction to technology, perhaps providing the inspiration to pursue computing as a career.

If today’s learners are to be gainfully employed workers and successful entrepreneurs tomorrow, it is an absolute necessity that in a world dominated by technologically strong economies, education systems support the technology aspirations of learners as much as possible.

Click this link to see the original report in The Guardian.

Scholaris helps parents to take a more pro-active role that complements teaching activity. Parents log on to their own portal workspace to access communication tools and information in one place. Here are five examples of how Scholaris enables parents to be more hands-on.

1. Track attendance

Parents need to be sure that children are attending school as expected. Scholaris puts the attendance register online so that parents can instantly see that all is well with attendance.

2. View assessments as they are completed

Waiting for end-of-term reports means parents are behind the curve by a whole term when it comes to understanding how a child is progressing. A continual view of achievement is provided through a Scholaris Learning Portal.

3. Structured communication

Communicating with teachers directly through slips of paper or chance, snatched conversations at the gates can be somewhat haphazard. Scholaris enables parents to email teachers from the Learning Portal and provides access on demand to news and announcements.

4. Check what homework is due

Staying on top of a child’s homework schedule can be difficult. The ability to readily see what homework has been assigned and when it is due is provided by a quick look at the Learning Portal.

5. Greater influence over educational matters

Most parents have a view on education, however opportunities to positively influence educational matters are often lacking. Participating in surveys and forums through Scholaris Learning Portal enables more opportunity to influence educational matters.

Following on from our admin overload blog, here we provide some examples of how Scholaris provides teachers with all they need to release their teaching skills on students rather than get trapped in the paper chase.

• Access all your applications from one place
  •  Can you imagine assembling all the day-to-day admin in a single digital workspace? From timetables and class lists to attendance records and assigned work, when teachers log into Scholaris they have fingertip access to deal with routine admin.
     
•  Engage and Collaborate with students in one place
  •  Avoiding repeating yourself saves time and sharing content generated through collaboration ensures consistent student learning experiences. Scholaris provides the capability to share and interact across the class and it’s accessible anywhere, anytime.
     
• Manage Student Work
  •  Photocopying and paper handouts may be an accepted way of distributing non-text book content. However it’s a pretty inefficient use of time, not to mention paper and energy. Scholaris lets you distribute resources online as digital files minimising the impact of teaching activity on the environment.
     
• Where appropriate let Scholaris mark homework for you
  •  Marking non-subjective assignments like multiple choice papers by hand is quite easy if you cut a mask. However the assessment of objective tasks delivered as online homework is faster and easier if you let Scholaris take over.
     
• Track student progress in one place
  •  Bringing student performance information from multiple paper sources is time consuming at reports time. Scholaris brings attendance, results and assessment history together to rapidly compile reports.

Follow this link for some tutorials that demonstrate how Scholaris simplifies teacher admin.

It is perhaps inevitable that education systems that are wholly or partly funded by taxpayers cannot remain free from political interference. If we follow this line of thinking to one of its logical conclusions: