Taecanet Springboard - "A Wonderful Learning Facility"

T-Learning are very pleased to welcome Carsic Primary School in Nottinghamshire into our teaching and learning community. Although the school have only subscribed recently, they already seem to be reaping the benefits of Taecanet Springboard to help promote personalised learning across the curriculum.

Teacher, Neil Pacheco, commented;

"Thanks for all you have done for our children to enable the whole school to access this wonderful learning facility. I have shown the site to our technician who provides IT support for other schools in Nottingham and he was very impressed and will no doubt pass this on to the other schools".

Many thanks to Neil and his team for their continued support and for implementing their training so quickly. Carsic Primary have raced up to the top of our user stats, becoming T-Learning's 'School Of The Month' for September!

More information on Taecanet Springboard can be found at www.taecanet.com and any email enquiries can be directed to support@taecanet.com

Boost PE Theory Results With Taecanet Springboard For PE!

Schools and Sports Colleges are being encouraged to use the Taecanet Springboard for PE 'Revision Packs' to help students revise for GCSE exams in the coming weeks. This makes allocating work a much easier process for teachers by enabling them to allocate all GCSE PE Units at one time. This means that 13 Units of work (encompassing over 200 learning activities) can be released for a class of pupils in roughly 20 seconds. Efficient working indeed! As all of the work has already been created by teachers in Sports Colleges, this process couldn't be easier.

To add to this, all marking takes place automatically saving teachers even more time. Real-time reports on class & pupil progress helps teachers to pin-point areas of weakness, which can help planning and teaching.

A function which can make work even more time efficient for students is the 'Revision Mode' offered by Taecanet Springboard. This allows students to access a variety of assessment questions related to a particular topic of work (or all Units in the case of the Revision Packs). Students can answer all questions, which should take between 5-10 mins. Once the test has been completed, the student will receive an accurate score and percentage, which is automatically fed back to the teacher online. For any questions the pupils get wrong, they are looped back to learn about the areas where questions have been answered incorrectly. This means that the system can effectively 'gap fill' for every pupil in the class. Pre-exams, this is a very useful capability for both teachers and students.

So far, the PE resources have proved a great success in schools. Please email chris.davison@t-learning.net for more information on special offers for low cost access before summer exams.

Nokia/Ovi Announcement - Free Nav!

Nokia's worldwide unveiling is now over and the major announcement for Nokia/Ovi is that they are now offering free mapping/navigation services through their devices!

This will be a big blow to external sat nav providers and gives further proof of the inevitable convergence of disparate services onto mobile devices. For more info on this, you can visit the official Nokia site at http://events.nokia.com/ovimaps/index.html

For more informal information and opinion on this release, please visit http://www.womworld.com/nokia

This seems a fitting time for T-Learning to be running our mobile elearning project. By enabling students to capture and share valuable learning resources through mobile devices we hope we can add real value to education by utilising technologies, which are prolific throughout the younger population. Mapping and navigation could be a valuable assest here.

T-Learning Deliver 1 Million Learning Journeys In 7 Months!

So, we have come to the end of another school year. We have reached some interesting milestones while helping schools to deal with key objectives such as personalised learning, assessment, inclusion, intervention and home access.

Within this school year, our community of schools have completed over 1 million learning journeys! This is testament to how useful schools find Taecanet Springboard in helping with the above factors and for continual learning, revision and extension work across the curriculum.

At T-Learning, our model is simple. We collate knowledge and resources from hundreds of teachers, and share that with the wider schools population. This means that ALL teachers can get involved (no matter what their ICT capability) and easily involve themselves in the provision of ICT to enhance education. The ease of use from the teacher's point of view is matched by the pupils ability to log on 24/7 and complete motivational and interactive learning journeys with rewards throughout for good work. All of this student activity is tracked and reported to the teachers in order to help with personal or whole class intervention.

As well as the cross curricular learning community, we have also recently undertaken work to set up a sustainable online PE learning community with the help of Youth Sport Trust (YST). This work has now been completed and enables both BTEC & GCSE PE teachers and students to benefit from a similar formula as described above. Within this school year, over 60 schools have completed around 100,000 learning journeys in PE, which is really encouraging.

For more info on T-Learning's innovative services, please contact chris.davison@t-learning.net

Help Us To Help You!

Our attempts to quantify whether Taecanet helps to improve student attainment continue. We now have much feedback and case study material attesting to the fact that learning on Taecanet Springboard does help to improve results, as well as helping student motivation levels.

We have recently heard from Ian Fergus, Headteacher at Woodside Primary School in the Forest of Dean (SW England). The school is very small, with only 100 students and Taecanet Springboard was originally implemented in 2006 to help support teaching and learning in Science. Initially, Years 5/6 were the main users, but since then, younger students have begun to use the service across different subject areas as well. They really enjoy using the service and seem to have a real appetite for all things Taecanet, which is great news! Teachers also find the service a great help for class work, in terms of finding and utilising content for whole class sessions.

So what was the impact on learning?

Results at KS2
06/07 100% L4 Science 35% L5 in a group with 33% SEN
07/08 100% L4 Science 66% L5 much more able group but still exceeded targets.

This seems quite a marked improvement, even taking into account the factors stated. Even the 06/07 stats show Taecanet can be used to help students with varying levels of ability to achieve.

For any schools who wish to know more about improved results and general school feedback, please visit http://www.taecanet.com/casestudies.htm or email enquiries@taecanet.com. We are very proud of our contribution at Woodside Primary, as well as all of the other schools we are currently helping.

Thanks to Ian Fergus and his team for their continued support.

Middlesbrough ICT Event

Many thanks to everyone who attended our stand (above) at the Middlesbrough ICT Event at the Riverside Stadium last week. It was a great venue, and a pleasure to see some of our existing customers, as well as some new faces. I have to say that the food was great too!

We have a number of subscribers across Middlesbrough (as well as the rest of the NE), and events like this give us the chance to spend some face to face time with these schools, as well as introducing our service to new parties. Feedback from the event was that local schools think Taecanet Springboard offers an easy-to-use service, which is helping students to learn in a way that suits them. Personalised learning allows students to learn as individuals by working at their own pace. The fact that teachers and students can access the service online means that 24/7 learning can be achieved for students, and planning and preparation is completely flexible for teachers. Students really enjoy the activities and are highly motivated while using it. Teachers can save hours in terms of planning & prep and even marking, by tapping into our teaching and learning community. The service has been created BY teachers FOR teachers, therefore meeting teacher's needs.

Taecanet Springboard has a positive reputation for helping schools to improve results. For more info on this, please visit http://www.taecanet.com/casestudies.htm. For a free guest account, or to arrange a visit, please email chris.davison@taecanet.com with your request.

Thanks again and I hope to see you in the coming weeks, if not, next year!

Can E-Learning In Schools Benefit Future Life Skills?

At Taecanet, we like to think that our services transcend traditional educational boundaries, and this is reflected in our nationwide customer base. Taecanet Springboard has been successfully implemented in high & low achieving public sector schools, Independent schools, PRUs (Pupil Referral Units), Home and Hospital Services and more.

We can help schools to improve attainment, to engage pupils and learn in a way that suits them. For more info on how this has been achieved, please visit http://www.taecanet.com/casestudies.htm . Taecanet can also offer much more than increased curriculum knowledge, as the online format helps to bring education into the 21st Century, and can therefore help to improve life skills for students (and arguably teachers too).

James Wilding is the Principal of Claires Court Schools in Maidenhead, Berkshire (http://www.clairescourt.com/). Claires Court is made up 5 school divisions on 3 school sites: Co-ed Nursery, single sex boys and girls at junior and secondary level and a co-ed 6th Form. The school has been using Taecanet Springboard for a number of years to deliver cross-curricular elearning. They have also recently taken part in KS3 'SOSCA' assessments, set up by the University of Durham. This assessment takes place on a PC, and James reported a strong correlation between students who use Taecanet Springboard for curriculum work, and students who fared best in the SOSCA tests. James commented;

"Our top end learners are now expected to pass on-screen assessments for Law, for medicine, for entry to Imperial College and post degree for most blue chip schemes – over 15% already for University entry."

"....assessments on screen are really hard to use if you are wedded to paper and pencil problem solving, and we reckon we need to give the boys and girls a lot more practice at working on screen."

"Our SOSCA science performance was stunning…and when spoken to about why, those candidates that performed the science assessment felt that the variety of work that they had completed using springboard was one of the key reasons."

We are obviously delighted to play a role in any sort of school improvement, and we look forward to continuing our successful working relationship with Claires Court, as well as all the rest of our subscribers. For more information on Taecanet's services, please visit http://www.taecanet.com/ or email enquiries@taecanet.com

Content Overload! Help Needed

Many millions of people use the internet every day, and it's potential power as a tool in the educational sphere is unquestionable. Almost any topic is available in milliseconds, but when it comes.....it comes in droves. This brings up somewhat of a quandary for us all. The content is all there.....probably in it's entirety! But do we want to, or do we have the time, to sift through this mass of content to find what we are looking for? The answer is more than likely 'no'.

As a worker in the education field, I typed '1066' into Google as a test, and I got over 50 million hits! If I were a teacher, or even a student, where would I start? If teachers can easily harness the good aspects of the internet, and filter the bad, then it makes the internet a unique and very exploitable tool. That is where Taecanet comes into play, as we have taken the concept of filtering the internet so that educators can benefit. For more information on how Taecanet is helping schools, visit www.taecanet.com

'The Filter' is a service, taking this concept to the entertainment market. Advertising has already adopted this technique to target specific interest groups, and The Filter aims to learn your taste in entertainment and deliver appropriate content directly to you. This is decided by a mathematical approach of probability, based on your designated preferences. Please visit http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/7489345.stm for the article.

As it happens, Peter Gabriel (ex Genesis), is one of the backers, and he commented on web content;

"You feel like you're drowning sometimes - there's just too much stuff, and you really want the good stuff, the stuff that's going to excite and inspire you......filtering is coming in a big way".

It just goes to show that content delivery is getting smarter along with the daily growth of the internet. At best, this tool is an invaluable facility making exciting multi-media content available at the touch of a button. At worst, it is like sifting through a skip to find something you may wish to use. Thankfully, with innovative 'filtering agents' like Taecanet and The Filter, coming to the fore, we can expect more of the former!

Easy Personalised Learning for PRUs

Last week saw the National PRU Conference at Eastwood Hall in Notts (pictured above). The venue and event was a great success, and we would like to thank Neil Finbow for his organisation and assistance. There were a range of suppliers exhibiting, offering educational board games to online learning. Taecanet offered a workshop on Friday detailing how PRUs can improve the provision of personalised learning for students, which seemed to go down very well. For more information on this workshop or for a copy of the presentation slides, please contact david.holden@taecanet.com

We met a number of people from various centres around the country to tell them about Taecanet and how we are helping to connect teachers and provide an easy way of sharing in best practice, saving teachers' time, and offering personalised learning for students. We also saw some existing customers as well, which is always a pleasure.

Taecanet's ethos is simple. We combine the knowledge of hundreds of teachers, so that other teachers can benefit! By doing this, we have created a vast network, which is helping teachers to deliver effective online elearning that can benefit whole class work, as well as individual work plans for students. On this basis, we are attracting sustained interest from PRUs (and groups of PRUs) due to the fact that we can help engage students, and give teachers assistance in setting work for individual pupils in a matter of seconds. If this sounds too good to be true, please call 0871 288 4580 to find out how.

Taecanet offers a range of services designed to meet the needs of mainstream schools, as well as PRUs, and we have a special pricing structure for PRUs which makes 24/7 personalised learning affordable to every PRU in the country. To find out how PRUs are benefiting from Taecanet, please visit http://www.taecanet.com/casestudies.htm where you can find a PRU case study at the foot of the page.

Following on from the event, we would like to welcome the Compass Centre PRU, Bolton, into our teaching and learning community, and we look forward to getting the centre up and running early next term.

Please contact chris.davison@taecanet.com for more information on Taecanet's services for PRUs, or for more general information please go to www.taecanet.com

Collaborative Learning - Sharing Knowledge Through Teacher Networks

Some would say collaboration in education is the best way of efficiently sharing best practice in order to help raise standards. By sharing techniques and resources, schools can improve efficiency and the quality of output. This thinking underpins the Taecanet model, and with hundreds of teachers acting to collaborate, the rest of the teaching population can significantly benefit. After all, why should teachers continually re-invent the wheel?

We see ourselves as integral to the dissemination of this 'knowledge share' to which teachers, themselves, actively contribute. Teacher's expertise for teaching is matched by our expertise to build their input into educationally valuable digital objects, and distribute them online. In this way, easy access is achieved, and so far, millions of Learning Journeys have been completed. In many cases, results have also improved accordingly. To find out more about how Taecanet are helping schools, please visit http://www.taecanet.com/casestudies.htm

As a result of this successful collaboration between education and industry, Taecanet are now undertaking more specialist projects. A collaborative project is now underway involving Taecanet and the Youth Sports Trust. This project was initiated by Tony Downey, Headteacher at Blessed Robert Sutton Catholic Sports College (http://www.robertsutton.staffs.sch.uk/), who saw Taecanet as a valuable partner to help facilitate shared knowledge across a number of schools. Mr Downey commented;

"I very much liked the process of collaboration between schools and industry, and I think Taecanet are undertaking work that I have not seen from anybody else".

"What I liked about the service, was how receptive I was as a learner. The user is invited to learn and improve, and then undertake assessment. The mixture of engagement and interactivity, which make up the learning process, is the closest thing that I have witnessed to a real life school scenario."

"I have been impressed with the output of materials so far, and I look forward to the finished product and it's release in the future".

Other schools, such as Charters School, Cavendish and Kingdown Schools have now joined forces in order to create KS4 G.C.S.E and BTEC P.E. modules, which will be distributed through the Taecanet Springboard service. There will be an Autumn Term trialling process involving 20 schools, before the results are presented to the Sports Colleges Conference 2008. A significant proportion of the work has been completed by the teachers involved, and Taecanet are delighted to be involved in this innovative and exciting project. Please click here for the full article from the Youth Sports Trust website.

If you would like any more information on this project, please visit http://www.taecanet.com/contact.htm and type 'P.E.' before entering your query. More general information on Taecanet's services can be found by visiting www.taecanet.com

SEN thumbs up for Taecanet!

Over the years, we have gained much experience in the world of ICT in education. Taecanet Springboard has been successfully implemented in hundreds of schools, and we are now seeing an increased awareness and interest from centres outside of the 'mainstream schools' market. PRUs (Pupils Referral Units) and Home and Hospital Services still have a responsibility to provide valid educational experiences for students under their care. In some cases, the plan is to return these students to mainstream education in the future, and therefore, maintaining curriculum links is vital. Even if the students have been permanently excluded, their education provision should not suffer. In fact, it should be used as a focus to facilitate achievement and motivation.

We have recently received feedback from Rob Davies at The Summit Centre PRU in Wigan. The staff were recently trained in using the service, and the centre has seen a good take up of Taecanet Springboard to date. It seems that the students are really keen too! Rob commented;

"Its going really well. Sometimes we have a problem getting the young people off Taecanet to start normal lessons!". I hope the second sentence is somewhat tongue in cheek, as we don't want to partake in starting a student mutiny!

This is excellent news, and further proves that Taecanet Springboard can engage students from a diverse range of ability levels and educational extremities, ranging from high level achievers in traditional mainstream to SEN (Special Educational Needs). Along with effective teaching, ICT can unite and invigorate learners and in some ways, level the educational playing field. By providing flexible and motivational materials, teachers can decide what work to set, and how to deliver it, based on the individual needs of students. Inexpensive, shared valuable teaching resources will work to benefit everybody; not just the privileged few. This is where Taecanet's role is so vital.

For more information on how Taecanet Springboard can help SEN centres, including PRUs, please visit http://www.taecanet.com/casestudies.htm where you can also read case studies from mainstream schools. To arrange a demonstration or for more information, please contact enquiries@taecanet.com

Taecanet @ NAHT - Continuing To Share Best Practice in Education

I am very pleased to announce that the NAHT Conference 2008 was a great success for Taecanet. The Echo Arena was a stunning venue for this event, and proved to be a great draw, with around 600 school leaders in attendance. The complimentary wine was welcomed by all on the Friday night following the opening, but there was still serious business to attend to over the Bank Holiday weekend. As a local company, it was great to see some local schools visit the stand (pictured above), and we have made some very useful contacts for the future.

Every person who visited the stand was entitled to a free guest account, which will be sent out imminently. You can also apply for an account via our website at www.taecanet.com so please feel free to have a go and see how other schools are benefiting! We are helping to improve results and positively impact the use of cross-curricular ICT in hundreds of schools across the country. To get an insight into how schools are benefiting from using Taecanet Springboard, please visit http://www.taecanet.com/casestudies.htm where you can choose from a range of Primary, Secondary and SEN related case studies.

Many thanks to Michael O'Hanlon from St Francis Xavier School in Liverpool, who was on-hand to show interested parties how students use the service, which was a great help. He also managed to rub shoulders with Dame Kelly Holmes, double Olympic Gold medalist who was speaking at the event! See above picture.

I'm sure Dame Kelly would approve of the projects which Taecanet have initiated in her field. As we have done with many other subjects across the curriculum, we are working to share best practice in P.E. by pooling excellent teachers' contributions from a number of schools. I certainly hope we can spur on some stars of the future as well. For more info on this project or on Taecanet in general, please visit our website or email enquiries@taecanet.com

Technology Savvy School Is Rewarded!

Friday 28th March saw the unveiling of a plaque by Teresa May MP at Holy Trinity Primary School in Cookham, Berks. This was to celebrate the school's completion of the 1,000,000th Learning Journey on Taecanet Springboard, and the day proved quite a success! As you can see by the top picture, the event was celebrated by (from left to right): Arthur Burgin (School Governor), Graeme Aldous (Headteacher), Rt. Hon. Teresa May MP, students, Ian Nairn (Taecanet founder) and Fiona Tattershall (Head of PTA). We were also joined by some local journalists covering the event, and there was press coverage in the Maidenhead Advertiser newspaper and on Time106.6 FM.

As well as the plaque being unveiled, the school also had the opportunity to try out their own Virtual Classroom, which was offered as part of the prize to the school for reaching this milestone. Holy Trinity shared a live online lesson with the Virtual School in Florida. This meant that students on both sides of the Atlantic were able to share a live lesson; a feat that would have been near impossible otherwise. This was extremely successful, and again highlighted just how much ICT can impact education, and can make things happen that were simply not possible before its introduction.

Mr Aldous commented "Today was just the start of expanding our horizons internationally using ICT. The students just loved the experience and the technology is easy to use and exceptionally effective". Glowing praise indeed! We are delighted to be able to help put Holy Trinity on the international map, and will continue to support their activities in the future.

Taecanet's ethos is of collaboration, in order to help spread best practice. Our offering of both synchronous and asynchronous learning tools helps to make the concept of blended learning a reality, meaning that different learning styles are easliy catered for. We make teachers the focal point of our services, so that students (as well as other teachers) in the UK and abroad, can benefit and achieve even more.

Many thanks to all involved for a great day. For more information, please visit http://www.taecanet.com/news.htm where you can read the press release, or contact enquiries@taecanet.com for more information on Taecanet.

Do Teachers Make Effective Use of ICT?

I have come across an interesting article suggesting that a third of the teachers still struggle to make good use of technology in their teaching. To add to this issue, the research also suggests that 62% of teachers think that ICT improves student attainment. What a quandary!

This research was conducted by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), in which 1000 teachers were quizzed. A major reason for the lack of ICT usage in schools was due to lack of resources and poor reliability. In my opinion, the only way to improve this is through strong leadership and to make time available to teachers to improve skill levels. This was also reflected in the research where teachers suggested that ICT Leadership needs to be improved, and a poor 44% of teachers consider their schools use of technology to be 'innovative'. For the full article, please click here

Given the possibilities that ICT affords many schools, this does paint a stark picture. Although technology in schools has been well funded in recent years (to the tune of £3 billion) by the Labour Government, you have to ask whether this funding has been spent effectively. This research suggests not. Although much hardware is in place, questions must be asked on whether training and implementation have met the needs of teachers. What good is a PC if you don't know where the 'On' button is!?

Would suggesting that teachers are incapable be accurate? Or is it more that a lack of leadership and strategy has let them down? Another article taken from Times online promotes even more stark figures by suggesting that 80% of schools are failing to make good use of ICT (for the full article please click here) This would suggest that leadership does need to be improved, and negative attitudes surrounding ICT altered, so that the massive investment to date can reap the rewards that we know ICT can provide.

Taecanet Springboard (www.taecanet.com) offers an extremely easy to use, easy to access service, which is proven to raise attainment levels. We, at Taecanet, hope to play a part in improving and sustaining the use of technology in education, so that teachers can see the true value of blended learning.

Taecanet @ SSAT National Conference 2007

Please come and see Taecanet at the 15th National SSAT Event! The venue is the ICC in Birmingham, and the date is 29th & 30th November 2007. We have always enjoyed a good relationship with the SSAT on a number of levels. As we are based in the NW, Sue Moore has always been very supportive of our approach to teaching and learning. Some of our very first trial schools were SSAT schools, and many SSAT teachers have contributed their knowledge to the Taecanet Springboard service, for the benefit of others. Our collaborative learning service is now implemented in many SSAT schools throughout England and benefiting their teachers and students alike.

For more information on this event, please visit http://imm.specialistschools.org.uk/natconf/

We are very much looking forward to this event, and meeting the delegates.

Visit stand E27 in order to enter our free prize draw, where schools can save up to £1800!

Taecanet @ NW Education Technology Show from 21/11/2007

Taecanet will be attending the North West Education Show on 21st & 22nd November 2007! The venue for this event will be the Last Drop Village Hotel in Bolton (BL7 9PZ), and we very much look forward to meeting the local teaching community to share our ideas.

Personalised learning is at the very core of Taecanet's approach to teaching and learning, and our ethos of 'shared knowledge' is currently benefiting over 500 schools in England, and over 100 in the NW region. Schools report huge improvements to student attainment levels after using Taecanet, and we would be delighted to show you how your school can benefit as well.

To book a time to visit us, or if you are generally interested and wish to know more, please contact chris.davison@taecanet.com

Taecanet at Longton CLC 29/11/2007

Taecanet will be attending Longton CLC in Stoke on 29th November. We have joined up with the CLC in order to spread the word and to assist local schools with how to create more of a community focus, while at the same time improving student attainment. To see how schools have seen up to 50% improvements in SATs results, as a result from using Taecanet for revision http://www.taecanet.com/Addlestone.htm

Schools can benefit from sharing a common approach to elearning and sharing best practice, which actually mirrors Taecanet's approach to teaching and learning. Also, a common learning tool can greatly assist pupils in the transition from Primary to Secondary Education. By providing a bridge between KS2 & KS3 work, Taecanet Springboard can help students to remain focussed and motivated, which will assist with reducing the dips in performance associated with this transition. Teachers can save hours of work in planning and preparation by benefiting form our 'shared learning' approach. You can gain the collective knowledge of hundreds of teachers!

We are working with many school clusters around the country, and often work out preferential rates for clusters, making Taecanet Springboard even better value for money.

For more information or to book your place, please contact sue.waller@taecanet.com

Over 500 schools can't be wrong! Come along and see if you wish to join our school community.

Sketchcasting anyone?

I came across an excellent use of technology today, which I think could have profound implications on the way that people can distribute their ideas online.

'Sketchcasting' (http://sketchcast.com) has been released largely as an aid to blogging, but I can see this having a massive impact in the education sphere. You can sign up for free and start creating in seconds. You can watch this video which describes my version of how Taecanet operates. Teachers with questions (Q) on how to implement technology, sometimes do not know where to turn for answers. Other teachers with knowledge and answers (A) should be the first port of call. Taecanet (T) facilitates this exchange between these disparate groups by ensuring everyone has the answers.

I apologise for the 'simplistic' (terrible) artwork, but for me, this is one of its significant assets. I think this type of communication will be huge in many a sector. Watch this space (or rather create in it)!

Slow internet - fast students!

It can indeed be a problem for some schools, trying to offer effective online elearning to pupils, while having to deal with limited bandwidth. However, this does not necessarily mean that such learning has to stop, as there are a multitude of ways to make the most of current provisions. From my personal experience, here are some such options when using Taecanet Springboard for teaching:

Whiteboard activities - It is easy to use Taecanet Springboard on an interactive whiteboard. Teachers can guide students through Learning Journeys on the board in order to help weaker readers, or simply to increase class participation. Students can be invited up to control the board, and press the buttons in order to go through the Journeys. By doing this, students can be polled for correct answers and whole class participation is acheived extremely easily. This will be motivational for students as they are learning in a new and exciting way, and at the same time, teachers can benefit from the integrated content that is easily accessible through the service. As there is only one PC being used at a time, the internet connection should be fast and efficient.

To facilitate such activities, all teachers are provided with 'student' usernames, so that they can guide their class through work on the whiteboard, or simply gain confidence with the system in their own time. Another way to promote this usage would be to access the 'Help' file as a teacher. Within there, teachers can access all of the content within the service, in isolation. By using the 'Unit Explorer', ALL available content can be accessed in seconds, without the need to use the pre-prepared Journeys. This section gives teachers increased ownership on how they would like to use the materials, and it will provide an excellent starting point for personalised research. No longer do teachers have to sought through millions of web hits through search engines, because we have already paid teachers to do this legwork! Save hours in terms of planning and preperation and take advantage! If you are doing a topic next week, see what you can find in the Unit Explorer!

Homework - As Taecanet Springboard is an online resource, teachers can easily allocate work for students to complete at home. With more and more households being equipped with broadband, this will increasingly be an option for schools. For those students who cannot gain access at home, teachers can set a longer timescale and perhaps create 'homework clubs' where students can get online in at lunch or before/after school. This has been especially effective in a number of schools that I have visited. This technique will reduce the need for large bandwidth by staggering student's use of PC's, while retaining your delivery of essential personalised learning. Some will complete their work at home, some may come in at lunch, some after school.....and so on. This will ease the impact on your school systems, and give students increased ownership over their work. Win win.

These are just a few basic ideas that I can point to through my experiences of working with classes. Please comment below this article if you know of any more!

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.