Last week, Webanywhere’s Managing Director, Sean Gilligan, shared his story and experiences with Year 9 students at Holy Family Catholic School, Bradford, for their Enterprise Day. Sean inspired the school by explaining how starting up your own business can be an exciting and rewarding career choice for school leavers.
After his presentation Sean set an Apprentice style task, where pupils were split into groups of eight. Each group had to pick a name for themselves and assign a Project Manager, who then led their team in completing the task, which was to identify a problem in the school and solve it.
After a brainstorming session, each team presented to the rest of the Year 9 students and teachers, with innovative and inspired ideas. These included a salad bar for the school and a student support service. The teachers then scored them out of ten in the style of the Strictly Come Dancing judging panel.
The winning idea was thought up by the group ‘8 Minds’. They came up with the idea of having an ‘Electro-card’, a swipe card that could be used to pay for things in school, for example dinners or trips. This card could then be topped up by parents, avoiding the need for cash in school.
The teams who presented the top three ideas were all given Webanywhere goodie bags.
Sean Gilligan said: “Enterprise Day was a great exercise for Year 9 students to generate creative business ideas. Starting your own company can be within anyone’s grasp and I hope some of these young people at Holy Family Catholic School will be business leaders for Bradford and West Yorkshire in years to come.”
For more information about what Webanywhere do for schools, or to learn more about our work with the community, email me at lucy.smith@webanywhere.co.uk.
Here at Webanywhere we’ve had a busy few months, packed full of events. The season kicked off with Getting I.T Right in Hull at the end of April. Since then we’ve attended over 16 others, including COBIS, E2BN, Imoot, as well as hosting our own Nurturing Online Learning series.
If you want your website to stand out from the crowd, using video could be the way to go. If a picture paints a thousand words, as the saying goes, imagine how much more you can communicate on film!
Web video has never been so popular, with 72 hours of video being uploaded to YouTube alone every minute. We’ve seen our School Jotter community enthusiastically adopting this trend – particularly the use of video tours of their schools. It’s really simple to upload your own videos to Jotter, and nowadays most schools have access to filming and editing equipment.
If you want a little help however, we do offer a video production service to schools, including planning, filming, editing and publishing your video. Here are a couple of examples of recent videos we’ve produced. You can see more on our Vimeo channel: http://vimeo.com/webanywhere
(if you’d like us to make your school video – email Dave at david.smith@webanywhere.co.uk)
Webanywhere’s Managing Director Sean Gilligan was a guest on yesterday’s BBC Breakfast News TV show presented by Susanna Reid and Bill Turnbull, discussing the possibility of including gardening as part of the revised National Curriculum.
Sean was interviewed alongside Chris Collins, Blue Peter’s resident gardener, who participated from his own back garden in London promoting the benefits this new subject could bring to the children, such as physical exercise and team work.
Sean expressed his support too, stating that what he would like to see is “gardening combined with entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial education”. “Kids need to get out of the classroom. Their learning environment affects their engagement, and engagement in education is so, so important” he added.
During the interview, he highlighted the importance of having an entrepreneurial mindset even at an early stage. From his point of view, employability is fundamental for the education process, and should start at Primary schools.
You can watch Sean’s appearance on the video below.
The latest update for School Jotter 2 is an exciting one: all School Jotter 2 users now have access to literally hundreds of clipart images!
The massive bank of images, accessible through your School Jotter 2 account, includes everything from images of the Ancient Romans to seasons, arctic animals to superheroes. You can use them either as part of classroom activities – or to enhance your School Jotter 2 school website.
To access the new School Jotter 2 bank of clipart images, just log in to your account, click on My Site from the top tabs, and then choose My Files from the Manage drop-down menu on the right hand side. Your files should all appear in the window – but you’ll notice at the top of the window the new Clipart button.
Click on Clipart – and then you can choose from the hundreds of images throughout the dozens of categories on the left! You can download any of the images simply by clicking Download underneath your chosen image.
We’ve tried to cover popular topics being covered by classes this term – and also provide you with images that will enhance your school website. Of course – these are all free to the School Jotter user, to use whenever you want!
School Jotter is Webanywhere’s most popular product. However, the schools that benefit most from what we offer are those who use our three main primary products together: School Jotter, Learnanywhere and Learner Journey.
Cawthorne Primary School are one such school – and it has made such a difference to school life. As well as School Jotter, Cawthorne Primary School now have Learnanywhere, Webanywhere’s primary learning platform, and Learner Journey, the pupil e-portfolio system.
School Secretary Gill Buckingham told us: “Webanywhere were recommended by our technician who had seen lots of other providers in different schools he visited. We eventually chose School Jotter, along with Learnanywhere and Student Jotter because we wanted children to liaise more between work and school.”
Now, children at Cawthorne Primary School use Learnanywhere and Learner Journey on a daily basis: To share their work with peers and parents, and to do their homework, too. School Jotter has brought more visitors to the school’s website, but Learnanywhere has improved the learning experience. “I like it because it’s safe, and parents can look at the work their kids have done and the points they’ve earned,” Gill told us. “It has really brought the school, the parents and the children together.”
Read the full case study here.
Last night saw Webanywhere launch Learner Journey here in Keighley. Learner Journey is the new pupil e-portfolio system that allows learners to showcase their proudest achievements – and with the option to communicate with peers in a safe, secure environment, it promotes e-safety in schools.
e-Safety is now a big part of Ofsted’s inspections, so we invited along safeguarding expert Jeff Haslam. Jeff sits on the Education Board of CEOP and is a consultant for the UK Safer Internet Centre – making him the perfect choice for guest speaker.
Jeff took us through Ofsted guidelines and the legal responsibilities for safeguarding in schools, discussing how they can protect both staff and children from the risks the internet presents. A walk-through of Learner Journey followed, with its many functions demonstrated: from sending messages and posting on peers’ walls, to uploading work and collaborating on joint projects. Learner Journey works in a similar way to social networking sites like Facebook – but users’ profiles are not visible or accessible to anyone outside of their school.
Guests were then able to try it for themselves – and enjoy some of the delicious buffet provided! Webanywhere looks forward to working with these teachers further – and help promote safe social networking in schools, with Learner Journey.
If you’d like to keep up to date with Webanywhere events like this, follow us on Twitter (@webanywhere_ltd). If you would like to book a free Learner Journey Demonstration, contact us by clicking here.
This week saw Webanywhere take up residence at BETT and Learning Technologies. Our presence at both shows is bigger and better than ever, and both shows have been incredibly hectic – a great chance to show off our new products and chat to customers old and new.
Follow us on Twitter @webanywhere_ltd , or #BETT_Show for all the latest from the show. Here’s a snapshot of our week so far:
Meanwhile, across town at Learning Technologies
There’s still time to visit BETT 2013, its definitely not to be missed – tomorrows highlights includes ‘An audience with Professor Brian Cox – Bringing Science to Life in Schools’ (click here for the full programme)
Webanywhere are at stand F280. Reasons to visit us include:
A free Mathsanywhere account for primary schools who visit the Webanywhere stand
A 5% discount for BETT visitors on the Webanywhere product range. Simply visit the stand and get the promo code(s)
The launch of the new look Learner Journey e-portfolio and safe social network for schools, with enhanced functionality, improved user interface and a range of new themes
A chance to see a demo of the great new Learnanywhere mobile app, which allows the primary specific VLE to be accessed on the go
A joint promotion with Webanywhere partners Planet Sherston (stand F310) – take a product demo at both stands and claim a sticker. Attach both stickers to our flyer and get a promo code for a fantastic special offer
and of course the chance to have a coffee and a chat with our expert e-learning consultants, there to ensure your school is able to unlock the benefits of educational technology in an easy, cost effective manner.
Getting more visitors to your website: how do you do it? With so many websites competing for people’s time and attention these days, there’s one way your School Jotter website can reach more people quicker: SEO.
What’s SEO? It’s Search Engine Optimisation, the art of getting your website as high as possible in search results on sites like Google. All is revealed in our new, free white paper, Increase Your Schools Rankings In Google, which you can find by clicking here.
In this white paper, we discuss the ways to increase your website’s rankings in Google. This will help to increase your school’s awareness within the local area, and get you in front of more existing and potential parents and pupils. Follow the guide, and soon your website will become a buzzing community of web visitors!
If you have any ideas or suggestions on how to improve your school website’s search rankings, let us know below.
e-Portfolios are becoming increasingly popular in schools: they allow learners to showcase their work and achievements to their peers, and gives them a permanent account of their learning path. Crucial when students start applying for jobs – and ideal for parents who want to know what their son or daughter did at school during the week.
Webanywhere’s Student Jotter has been a highly successful e-Portfolio within schools around the world – and now, it’s being relaunched and rebranded: as Learner Journey.
It’s the next generation of e-portfolio, with new features including a re-organised user interface, making it easier to use, integration with Google Apps (so you can embed documents and YouTube clips), and android/tablet compatibility (including an instant picture upload option).
Learner Journey also promotes collaborative learning: the Collaboration page is where students can share work, and actually edit it at the same time from different computers.
Learner Journey will be officially launched at this month’s BETT Show. However, Webanywhere will be hosting a special, one-off pre-launch event at our offices. We’ll have a guest speaker, Jeff Haslam from SWGFL, who will be talking about the new Ofsted e-safety requirements, how your school can protect teachers and pupils from internet dangers – and also provide you with some useful resources. You’ll also have the chance to try out Learner Journey yourself – and there’ll be a £200 discount for any school that signs up for Learner Journey at the event.
To register for the event, click here. For more information on e-Portfolios, and how they can also be integrated into the flipped classroom technique, click here.
