When Webanywhere looks at learning trends – which will often inform the direction our products take – we look to what’s happening in America.

Often, whatever happens in the USA feeds through to the UK, and then the rest of the world, afterwards. One of the latest trends is mobile learning, something we’ve blogged about in the past here and here.

Many schools are still hesitant about adopting mobile learning, and even more so about introducing a Bring Your Own Device policy (BYOD). But a recent blog post we read on www.eschoolnews.com highlighted why the trend is actually booming – despite those reservations.

In fact, there are six main reasons why mobile learning, and BYOD is booming – and here they are, based on a recent annual survey completed by parents and educators in the US, called Speak Up, by Project Tomorrow.

1. School and district administrators said in the survey that tablets (41%), mobile apps (22%) and BYOD (22%) have had “a significant impact on transforming teaching and learning.”

2. Of those who completed the survey, 86% said mobile learning increases student engagement.

3. 67% said mobile learning helps each student to personalise learning.

4. Mobile learning helps students develop skills they will need when going to college and starting their career, such as problem solving (51%), teamwork and collaboration skills (47%) and strong communication skills (37%).

5. 32% of the technology administrators who completed the survey said that BYOD “helps schools address budget challenges while still giving students access to technology.”

6. In 2010, the same survey had revealed that only 22% of schools would allow learners to use their own mobile devices in school. THe latest survey, however, showed that this number had rocketed to 41% – with an additional 10% having implemented a BYOD policy. A sign of the times indeed!

If you’re thinking of trying mobile learning, or you would like help with setting up in mobile learning in your school, get in touch with us here.

School Jotter is the UK’s most popular school website system. Over the years, we’ve watched as more and more schools adopt our system and use it to improve parental engagement, bring a school closer to its community and create a focus point for pupils and teachers.
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This weekend, the Tour De France comes to Yorkshire – visiting places like York, Leeds and Harrogate – plus Webanywhere’s hometown, Keighley!
Le Tour Yorkshire is a significant date in the calendar for both sport and for Yorkshire – and we’d like to help schools celebrate. If you are planning classroom activities to mark this weekend’s event, you can download our free Le Tour Yorkshire worksheet below.
The free worksheet can be coloured in by pupils, who can give their rider and bike a striking design – and then name their cycling team!
To download the free Le Tour Yorkshire worksheet, simply click on the link below, then right-click your mouse to save to your computer. You can then print out the free worksheet and hand out to pupils in your classroom.
When your children have completed their classroom worksheets, send them back to us – we’ll pick the best one and award their school our blogging app!

Completed worksheets should be sent to Le Tour Yorkshire Competition, Webanywhere Ltd, Aire Valley Business Centre, Lawkholme Lane, Keighley, BD21 3BB. You can also attach your completed worksheets to an email and send them to info@webanywhere.co.uk. Please include your school name when you send your worksheets through.
The competition winner will be announced on Friday 11th July.
If you’d like to know more about classroom blogging, and using it to improve literacy skills, sign up for our blog – Improving Literacy Skills With Blogging, which takes place on 16th July. Find out more here.
Le Tour Yorkshire Worksheet

For those of you who follow us on Twitter (@webanywhere_ltd) you’ll know that we held a webinar today, Engaging Parents Using The Jotter Apps.
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Back in February, when Webanywhere revealed the next generation of e-learning, we had just two apps available to buy: Learn and Merits.
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Webanywhere’s Corporate division has been working with the British Safety Council for some time. We have provided them with their learning platform for delivering health and safety training – and now, we’re working with them to help keep secondary school students safe on work placements.

Off the back of recently published Health and Safety Executive (HSE) statistics – 148 people were killed and 21,000 seriously injured at work in the UK last year; a young worker is 50% more likely to have an accident – we’re helping them to provide safety training courses to schools.

British Safety Council’s Entry Level Qualification in Workplace Hazard Awareness is designed for 14-19 year olds, and is an ideal way of preparing them for work experience, or leaving school and entering employment.

You can purchase qualifications for your students now – and, if you’re a Webanywhere customer, you’ll have received an email this week offering you an exclusive discount on bulk ordering of assessments!

If you want to find out more about the Entry Level in Workplace Hazard Awareness, click here.

Since February, Webanywhere has launched many exciting education apps. Now, for our next development, we need your help.
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Since February, Webanywhere has been releasing new education apps every few weeks. So far, apps we’ve launched have included a blogging tool, a school surveys builder, a learning sites tool and an online rewards and behaviour management system.
Now, we’re looking for the next big idea – and this where we need the help of the people who use our apps day in, day out – teachers and pupils.
The development of all our apps has been based on comments, suggestions and feedback from teachers – so we’re launching a competition, Think Of An app, where we’re asking for you to give us your ideas for new apps we can develop.
The best app idea will be rewarded with a full suite of apps, worth £7K. Three runners up will win School Merits and Bloganywhere for their school.

You can register your school and get your Think Of An App Competition information pack here. The closing date is Friday, 18th July, 2014.
If you have any questions, just email competitions@webanywhere.co.uk.
Our last major competition, Create Your Character, saw primary schools across the UK designing new avatars for our primary VLE. Winners were awarded with a subscription to Learnanywhere, and many, like pupils at St Thomas Aquinas School, Stoke appeared in local papers.
Good luck!

One of the hardest tasks for some schools is not just engaging pupils in their learning – but engaging parents in the pupil’s learning, too.
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