As the world develops and technology becomes more and more part of our daily lives, it’s essential that both primary and secondary schools acknowledge and embrace the constantly developing digital world. Technology within the classroom provides teachers with new and exciting ways of teaching as well as new ways of allowing students to learn. Many schools now manage their day to day running using Virtual Learning Environments, however it’s essential that they’re continuously looking to the future to ensure they keep up with constantly developing technology.

One thing that schools are doing is providing its students with their own portable device. By providing students with a portable device, it can both excite and engage them as they’re using something that they are not only comfortable with but something they enjoy using. “A recent Childwise report indicated that of the 8.6 million children aged 5-16 in the UK, 73% have a laptop, PC or tablet”. A somewhat shocking but unsurprising statistic highlights how children are now growing up in the digital world and why it’s essential that schools embrace technology to create the best opportunity for students to learn.
Despite the common availability of Laptops for many years, it took the release of Apple’s iPad to really kick start the portable device phenomenon. The iPad was described as a revolutionary technology when it was first released back in 2010. It rapidly grew in popularity to become an essential part of so many people’s everyday lives. However, in recent years, Google’s Chromebook has grown in popularity within the education sector despite poor commercial sales. It seems that many schools are now opting to choose it over an iPad.
Initially iPads were designed for browsing the web and accessing apple’s plethora of apps and it was seemingly an after thought that people may want to use the device to write on. Because of this it’s nigh on impossible to easily write anything of length using its touch screen keyboard. This inability to type up longer pieces of work hinders the iPad’s overall usability within schools, whereas Chromebooks are essentially normal laptops with normal functional keyboards. This, combined with access to various pre-installed and free programs such as Google Docs and Google Books, it shows just how useful the Chromebook can be within the classroom.
Another reason why the education sector are now considering a Chromebook instead of an iPad, is down to cost. In a world full of constant cut backs and money saving projects, costings have to be looked at and assessed. A standard Chromebook is significantly cheaper than an iPad and for the saving, you are getting something that is more practical and functional for a classroom.
Each device has a seemingly never ending list of positives and using either can only be a good thing for schools and their students, as they allow instant access to a never ending source of information and knowledge. However, when it comes to which device is the more practical solution, for most Schools it would probably be the Chromebook. The iPad’s flexibility and ability to be transformed into a video camera, a musical instrument among other things is widely useful, however a Chromebook is cost effective, simple and functional and this is likely to be what most schools will be looking for from their choice of portable devices.

Mobilegeddon is here. In February earlier this year, Google announced that any sites that aren’t mobile-friendly will find their search rank plummet from April 21st, making it extremely difficult to find your site if it isn’t readable on mobile. It comes as very little surprise to anyone keeping an eye on website traffic over the past few years, nearly 60% of all internet browsing is now done from a mobile or tablet, which is why Google is now making it a top priority. This is something that schools need to fix if they want their site to remain in the top hits in Google.

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Our friends over at Early Childhood Education Degrees recently published a great infographic on how technology hardware is being used in schools, and we wanted to share their fantastic work with you. Click through to see the full infographic, with some excellent stats on how schools are engaging with new technologies:
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We launched our Homework Block just a couple of weeks ago, and now we’re very proud to reveal our newest website at www.homeworkanywhere.com.
The new site has everything you need to know about our homework plugin, and you can contact us from within it for a free demo of how its functionality can save teachers time, make submitting homework easier and allow parents to track their child’s progress.

Furthermore, the site is built entirely within Webanywhere’s own School Jotter Site platform, demonstrating again the flexibility and versatility of our platform. The site is fully responsive and we feel it really demonstrates how School Jotter Site can improve your school website.

UPDATE 14/04/2015: Check out our dedicated Homework Block Site!

ORIGINAL STORY: We’re now offering the Homework Block as a part of all of our solutions!
This newly-developed module will simplify any teacher’s life when it comes to managing, setting, tracking and marking students’ homework. Use the Homework Block to:

Track students’ homework

Access to the Homework Block is granted to the teacher, parents and student, meaning all are able to keep track of progress. Parents can log in from home and see what their child has been assigned and a general overview of the students’ work.

Submit homework online

Students can instantly submit their homework from anywhere with an Internet connection, meaning no more forgotten work, and not having to wait for the next day to hand work in!

A useful homework-planning tool

Homework plans for the entire term or curriculum can be entered into the block ahead of time, so you can have it automatically roll out when necessary. Assignments can be set for entire classes, and streaming is even possible for different-levelled classrooms.
We’re confident that the new Homework Block will prove to be an effective way to save you time and effort, reducing one of the most common complaints about teachers’ workloads. For more information, contact a member of our salesteam to discuss your needs and requirements.

After many weeks of work, we’re really proud to announce the launch of our new-look website dedicated to School Jotter at www.schoolanywhere.co.uk. It’s a central resource for all your School Jotter questions and information, and you can custom-build a School Jotter distribution for us to implement for you.
The new site is fully responsive and is designed to look great at any resolution – whether you’re browsing on a 27″ monitor or a 4″ phone, the site should be fluid and responsive.

What’s especially unique about the site and its versatility is that it was built entirely within School Jotter Site – Webanywhere’s own, custom-built school website system. This meant the site was easy to build, with drag-and-drop construction and WYSIWIG editing. We really think that this is an example for us to show the power of Jotter to the world – we’re so confident in its abilities for schools that we’re building our own websites in it!
We’re really pleased with our new website, and we hope you will be too. Check it out at www.schoolanywhere.co.uk.

For 2015 we’re supporting a national competition where your students could win vouchers totalling up to £5,000! We’ll let them express it in their own words though:
As an online competition that challenges participants to engage in research during a designated time frame, the National Academic Challenge (NAC) is an upcoming 3-phase event designed to help prepare students in Key Stage 3 and above for all the challenges of today’s job market.
Some aspects that make the NAC a unique educational event:

• Teams can participate anywhere, together at their school or individually from their own homes.
• The event develops an active pursuit of information to seek answers to the complex problems presented while other competitions test memory based information.
• The NAC environment encourages the application of new learning methods, teamwork and increases the use of new technologies in the classroom.
• Promotes interaction with the entire school community including teachers, students, parents and school staff.

The competition will take place over two weekends and it will be up to students to manage their time for each phase.
The first phase consists of four hands-on tasks for each team to complete. While these tasks are not scored or mandatory, they are used as the first tie-breaking factor to determine the winner of the competition. Teams will have 5 days to complete as many tasks as they can.
The second phase is a qualifying round and consists of 10 questions from the following topics: History, Environment, Music, Trivia, News, Languages, Art, Technology, Sports, Logical Reasoning and a surprise topic. Each question is worth a number of points based on the difficulty of the question and teams will have 36 hours to complete as many questions as they can. Teams that score higher than the national average performance will qualify for the third and final phase, which consists of a timed Puzzle in an unrevealed format.
The team that has the highest combined score from the second and third phase will be the winner. They will receive £5,000 to be evenly divided between members and an additional £1,000 for their teacher.
The NAC is an extraordinary opportunity for students to learn how to think outside the box, work in teams, manage conflicts, critically analyze complex problems and assume leadership in the quest for knowledge as they interact with students from around the country.
The registration deadline for teachers and their student teams is 13th of March.
For more information and registration, visit the official website at: www.nachallenge.com

Continuing our look at School Jotter’s app suite we take a look at the Portfolio app. Using a simple interface, Portfolio allows students to show off their best work in a secure, closed environment. The ability to create a private website means students can learn valuable skills about design and e-safety. Check out the video for more information:

For more information head on over to www.schooljotter.com

In our “What is…?” series we move onto looking at the apps that are available in School Jotter, Webanywhere’s very own school website creator. As the number 1 platform in the UK for school websites, we wanted to help explain why the suite is so popular, starting by asking the question: “What is… The Blog App?”
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