E-Learning Made Easy......

Summer time was not a restful period for the Taecanet team! A new set of updates and improvements have now been added to the service, based on teacher's comments and feedback. As a result, Version 5 has now been unleashed, and schools are already benefiting from its delivery. In fact, on visiting Bugthorpe Primary School in Yorkshire last week, one of the students commented 'The person who invented this must be a genius'. Praise indeed!

As a reminder to all of those associated with Taecanet, we are now offering full coverage of Citizenship, and Religious Education from Yr2 - Yr9 (to add to our existing portfolio of Science, History & Geography). Some of the Citizenship Units look especially strong, and this is a testament to our network of teachers who are always striving to find the most exciting materials to share in our teaching and learning community. More exciting and interactive materials are being added to Taecanet all the time, to assist in motivating students and presenting them with tasks that are fun, but have serious educational value. The young man at Bugthorpe will certainly attest to that!

Our preferred method of updating and improving Taecanet is to use teacher feedback in order to direct these changes. A major step forward on this front is our introduction of optional 'voiceover technology' in order to assist weaker readers. This has been something frequently requested by our teachers, and it is now in place across the service. Instructions, questions and some content now contain optional voiceover in order to increase our effectiveness in reaching weaker readers.

The omission of such a technology has previously worked in the favour of some students as Claire Allen (St Paul's Primary School, Addlestone) attests to.

"A single student who was a Level 2, or at best Level 3 in Literacy....achieved a Level 5 in Science and this must be down to Taecanet as he used it extensively" (for the complete article, please visit http://www.taecanet.com/Addlestone.htm). However, this addition has increased the possibilities of personalised learning for all, and will give teachers increased peace of mind that their students will be able to complete all of the necessary tasks by learning at a pace that suits them. This is crucial to our approach.

Other changes include a new rating system for students in the Peer Assessment section. Previously, students rated each other with 'Good/Average/Poor' ratings, but teachers suggested that a 'one star/two star/three star' system would be a much better way of protecting pupil's confidence levels. This has now been implemented.

We will soon be creating our new subject areas, and Numeracy has been highlighted as an area of interest from many of our users. To that end, if there are any interested teachers reading this who would like to become part of our content creation team, please email chris.davison@taecanet.com

To follow this theme of additions, we have also added a number of 'services packages' available to all schools from as little as £150 per anum, which will include a number of on-site visits. This will ensure that schools have all of the necessary training and support needed throughout the year in order to successfully implement Taecanet into their teaching plans. This training can be tailored to school needs and will give schools a much better chance of making best use of our innovative teaching and learning tool.