There’ve been several significant advancements in educational technology over the past few years. From filmstrips to tablets and learning management systems, technology keeps changing in an extremely fast pace and reshaping the way everyone views education.

We have put together some of the greatest innovations for the classroom as it’s important to remember where it all started. Enjoy!

This week is Staff Blog week here at Webanywhere, so each day we will be sharing with you a new blog post from one of our employees. Today it’s Emily Tasker talking about her personal experiences of E-Learning.

The human race has always had the capacity and need to learn. It has helped us to evolve in the beginning and expand into the world. Without this drive for knowledge, we would arguably not have survived as a species, but that is a debate for another time.

The drive to learn is innate in our structure, it’s in our very core. The difference nowadays is how that knowledge is obtained and/or made accessible. As a child, I remember asking my parents the annoying questions all parents must suffer through, the general response I received was ‘look it up in the encyclopedia’.
When we finally had a computer in our house, the default answer to my persistent questioning was ‘look it up on Encarta’. Encarta was a CD ROM but basically was a digitised encyclopedia; the difference being that Encarta, with its games and challenges, was far more engaging and fun than an encyclopedia.
My more recent questions are easily answered thanks to my computer, tablet and mobile phone making the internet more accessible. The ability to go onto the internet to research an answer is becoming second nature, almost subconscious to society.
One example of this was during my National Childbirth Trust (NCT) Class when I was pregnant with my daughter, we were asked ‘your newborn is poorly, who do you turn to for advice?’ and for each couple to write down their answers. All had the usual answers ‘parents’, ‘doctors’, ‘other first time mums’, but all also had some form of digital platform listed such as information/chat boards, mobile apps, ‘dr google’ was also mentioned! Without even thinking twice, all new parents at that class would turn to digital help with issues relating to their newborn. That’s a significant amount of trust that they are placing in the information the internet can provide them. One answer was so second nature it had given a search engine the persona of a doctor.
I personally think that is the crux of where E-learning/Edtech is heading, as humans innately learn, there will always be a need for E-learning, but to survive it needs to be fun, easily accessible and trustworthy.
Emily Tasker

Related Webanywhere pages
Our E-learning resources – provide personalised e-learning and revision tools, allowing teachers to quickly and easily create exercises for students

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.