Jotter Mobile just got even better with the release of v1.8, which will roll out across all apps by May 5th.
After lots of market research our developers have created the features you most requested, and we hope you will benefit from this free update.                     
Here are some of the changes you can expect to see:

Custom apps:

• Custom sections in the navigation structure. Each custom link consists of a name, icon and an URL. You can define up to three custom sections.
• Reordering and disabling of sections in the drawer menu and the dashboard tray. These are edited from the Mobile Centre module.

All apps:

• Notification badges on sections within the app. These show that new content has been added but not read by the user.
• New expanding dashboard tray option. This can be configured at the delivery stage or can be added with PCR.

If you would like more information about v1.8 or Jotter Mobile please call 0800 862 0492 or fill out our short contact form.

School website is very important for making a good first impression as it often is the first contact that people have with the school. Therefore, the school website affects the overall image and reputation of your school which can lead to increased admissions. Having good school web design is also very important for delivering a good user experience for its regular users, including teachers, students and parents.

Here are some of the most important features of why having a good school website matters.

The features of a good school website

Appearance

The overall look of the website is the first thing that users notice when they visit the website. This includes the layout, colours, images and fonts you use to build the website. Make sure that all these factors are considered when building the website as they contribute towards creating an overall impression of the school.

Make sure you check our infographic on how to design an awesome school website here.

Quality content

A good school website is expected to include a range of quality content. Remember to add basic information like contact details, welcoming messages, school value and images to the homepage followed by learning resources, curriculum information, news, events calendar and other school information.

Navigation

The website design and good content are very important, however, if visitors cannot easily find the information they are looking for, they will become frustrated and it will negatively affect the overall user experience.

This is especially important when talking about parents researching the schools for their children because if they find the website impossible to navigate, they might just leave the website and search for another school.

The right message

Make sure your website sends the right message to its visitors and it actually represents the values and promotes the strengths of your school. Your website is very important when it comes to creating the best image of your school.

Mobile version

This is another very important feature that should not be ignored in the modern days. Most users, including teachers, parents and students will visit the school website on their mobile devices. Therefore, it is important to make sure that the website remains clear on all devices.

Check out our new mobile apps for schools here.

It is engaging

Finally, make it engaging!

Having a school website is very important, but making it a good website is what creates a good image of your school and leads to the positive user experience.

The importance of spelling

Learning how to spell words is one of the most useful lifelong skills and it builds the basic foundation that all children will need throughout their education and life in general. Learning how to spell is very important for other basic skills, including writing and reading. These skills support children in achieving good results and progressing through various grades. What is more, being good at spelling may have an impact on the future careers of students.

One of the hot topics surrounding the education sector also relates to learning spelling in schools. The introduction of compulsory spelling tests for all key stage 2 pupils in England is expected to improve the literacy of students.

The new spelling tests are justified by making sure the students are prepared for the secondary school. This is expected to eventually improve the standards of learning and to raise England’s position in reading and writing. However, it has caused a number of negative responses in terms of being unnecessary and putting too much pressure on pupils, causing stress or even discriminating against students who might have special learning requirements caused my mental health.

Another point that some people make against spelling tests or even against teaching spelling in school is based on the irrelevance of learning how to spell in the age of technologies.

How technologies affect the way students learn to spell?

The rise of different learning technologies causes discussions on how they could be used to support education in schools. Some people see endless opportunities in how modern technologies could benefit education, while others only see the negatives associated with technologies or even believe that technology should be banned in schools. Talking about the relationship between spelling and modern technologies, most of us are familiar with ‘autocorrect’ on our smartphones or other online resources for checking spelling. Does that mean that that it is less important for students to learn spelling at school?

Having good spelling skills is just as important as it was before different technologies were available. Although technologies provide great alternative ways for practicing spelling, it should not be assumed that learning how to spell is less relevant nowadays. Mobile phones correct our spelling and if we are not sure how to spell something, it is easy to check it online. However, different learning technologies should be seen as opportunities for learning and practising spelling and we should not encourage students to view technology as a replacement for their own thinking as there will always be situations where technology might not be available.

It is clear that it is very important to learn how to spell and it should not be considered less important in the age of technology. However, it might be worth focusing more on teaching spelling in many different ways and helping students achieve high standards without causing unnecessary stress by making them take complicated tests for spelling.

Today we are sharing some ideas about how social media could be used in the classroom and how it can benefit your classroom and your school.

Connecting, communicating and sharing. Connect and communicate with other classrooms through social media. Connect and share resources with other teachers from your school or from other schools. You can also use hashtags to facilitate guest speaker discussions.

Improving teamwork. Use social media for class discussions. Create a private group for discussing a particular topic or engage in open discussions.

Engagement. Engage with students, parents and communities by posting updates regarding school news and events

Learning. Share online learning resources with students. Add links to useful websites, videos and documents online. Encourage students to share useful learning materials with their peers.

Staying up to date. Require students to post news related or any other trending articles. This activity encourages students to read relevant articles every day.

Sharing. Use social media platforms to share the work of your students. Publish interesting articles, presentations or other projects that your students create.

Increasing awareness of your school. Sharing links to your school website on social media can help increase the search engine rankings which means that your school website attracts more visitors that can lead to more people choosing your school.

To conclude, it is worth looking at different methods of incorporating social media in the classroom. It does not have to become a permanent thing, give it a go and maybe you will discover something that really helps to engage with students. Make sure you always educate your students how to use social media safely.

It is important to acknowledge that students are already interested and engaged in using technology, this creates many amazing opportunities for schools and teachers to benefit from integrating some forms of technology in the classroom and to make teaching and learning more effective. Here are some of the main benefits of using technology in the classroom.

Improves engagement

When technology is integrated into lessons, students are expected to be more interested in the subjects they are studying. Technology provides different opportunities to make learning more fun and enjoyable in terms of teaching same things in new ways. For instance, delivering teaching through gamification, taking students on virtual field trips and using other online learning resources. What is more, technology can encourage a more active participation in the learning process which can be hard to achieve through a traditional lecture environment.

Improves knowledge retention

Students who are engaged and interested in things they are studying, are expected to have a better knowledge retention. As mentioned before, technology can help to encourage active participation in the classroom which also is a very important factor for increased knowledge retention. Different forms of technology can be used to experiment with and decide what works best for students in terms of retaining their knowledge.

Encourages individual learning

No one learns in the same way because of different learning styles and different abilities. Technology provides great opportunities for making learning more effective for everyone with different needs. For example, students can learn at their own speed, review difficult concepts or skip ahead if they need to. What is more, technology can provide more opportunities for struggling or disabled students. Access to the Internet gives students access to a broad range of resources to conduct research in different ways, which in turn can increase the engagement.

Encourages collaboration

Students can practice collaboration skills by getting involved in different online activities. For instance, working on different projects by collaborating with others on forums or by sharing documents on their virtual learning environments. Technology can encourage collaboration with students in the same classroom, same school and even with other classrooms around the world.

Students can learn useful life skills through technology

By using technology in the classroom, both teachers and students can develop skills essential for the 21st century. Students can gain the skills they will need to be successful in the future. Modern learning is about collaborating with others, solving complex problems, critical thinking, developing different forms of communication and leadership skills, and improving motivation and productivity. What is more, technology can help develop many practical skills, including creating presentations, learning to differentiate reliable from unreliable sources on the Internet, maintaining proper online etiquette, and writing emails. These are very important skills that can be developed in the classroom.

Benefits for teachers

With countless online resources, technology can help improve teaching. Teachers can use different apps or trusted online resources to enhance the traditional ways of teaching and to keep students more engaged. Virtual lesson plans, grading software and online assessments can help teachers save a lot time. This valuable time can be used for working with students who are struggling. What is more, having virtual learning environments in schools enhances collaboration and knowledge sharing between teachers.

To learn more about different ways of incorporating technology in the classroom, visit the Webanywhere website.

Welcome to our last post in the four-part series where education experts give their opinion on learning management systems. In this piece, David Palank, Principal at San Miguel School in Washington DC and Jeannette Geib, the Educational Director at the world’s first online high school CompuHigh, share their experience of using  virtual learning environments.
Also read:
– Learning Management Systems: Your Opinion – Part 1
– Learning Management Systems: Your Opinion – Part 2
– Learning Management Systems: Your Opinion – Part 3
San Miguel School uniquely serves low-income youth in the DC area with a preference for those living in poverty and who would not otherwise have access to a high quality private education. San Miguel uses multiple Learning Management Systems at our school. They are an excellent tool for teachers and schools to monitor progress, give feedback, and gather data on student performance throughout the school year.

They benefit students in multiple ways. One of the ways they benefit students is that they give unbiased and immediate feedback. If a teacher gives you feedback, there is a chance that the student may feel that they are under ego threat and not accept the feedback. However, if a computer gives you feedback and tells what has been achieved or not, it is not a person telling you and therefore the student’s ego is not threatened.
Video games operate under similar principles. Many students enjoy video games because they are challenging, give immediate feedback, and operate on a progression through levels. They engage students because of these elements. Learning Management Systems operate the same way.
However, these systems are a tool, not a crutch. If teachers rely on them as their sole means of instruction, they are not using them properly.

I am the Educational Director at CompuHigh, an online high school that has been around since 1994. When this school was founded, there really wasn’t anything else like it out there; there wasn’t even a ‘World Wide Web’ to speak of, so doing high school online was a unique proposition.
Our founder, Stan Kanner, simply taught himself programming and created the software he needed to run a school on the internet. Today, our ‘homegrown’ Learning Management System works beautifully because the programming has always sprung organically from the needs of the students, teachers, and administration. We just say, “Hey can we have a button here that does this? Can we have a system that tracks this?” and Stan could make it happen, usually the same day.
I realise that most school systems are too large to be that nimble, but I would always recommend hiring a smart programmer and growing your system ‘in house’ rather than trying to buy an ‘out of the box’ LMS.

In the third of our four-part series of articles on learning management systems, Sean Aiken Head of Basis Independent School in McLean and Dr Daniel Usera from Arkansas State University talk about e-learning platforms in their institutes.
Also read:     – Learning Management Systems: Your Opinion – Part 1

          – Learning Management Systems: Your Opinion – Part 2

 

Software simply cannot replace the dynamic, co-creative classroom interaction between teacher and student. Technology is one of many tools available to teachers to inspire students to take ownership over their learning. But there is no replacement for a genuine relationship – you will always remember your favorite teacher more fondly than your favorite computer.

At BASIS Independent, our approach to the use of technology in education is highly focused: we use technology to help us solve problems of scale, as the connective tissue that joins an international network of PreK-12 schools. Most learning platforms are designed to displace the teacher or compensate for weak pedagogical talent. Our platform by contrast is designed to give full control to trusted educators and their unique styles and goals to strengthen and enhance our services over time.
BASISedLink and Assessment our curricular management system, was created to address the challenging balance of accountability and autonomy in the classroom. It’s an example of expertly curated crowd sourcing for instructional design and quality control, to ensure that crucial decisions are made by master teachers and not top-down, centralized bureaucracies.
With BASISedLink and Assessment (BELA), our teachers capture, organize, and share their innovative lesson designs, topic sequencing, time allocation, best practices, and desired outcomes – all in real time. Each topic is linked to assessment tools of varying form, depth, and complexity, like simulations, or short answer, and yes even multiple choice. We want to expose students to diverse avenues in which they can demonstrate success and then let expert teachers determine the best course of action. This intersection of teacher agency and student performance produces useful data to inform the path they will walk together.
BASISedLink and Assessment’s planning and review features help teachers analyze what their kids have actually mastered, not just what they’ve completed. Students benefit from adaptable, authentic learning experiences that align to what’s actually happening in their classrooms. We expect teachers to diverge from a syllabus when the needs of their students call for it, and that flexibility is vital to their lifelong engagement.
The science and art of learning is extraordinarily complex. When we consider the course of technological progress, we should be cautious about those ‘advancements’ that further diminish the role of teaching as an actual profession. Rather than pitching technology against teachers, tools like BASISedLink and Assessment help energize and empower us to create richly-layered and highly interactive learning experiences for all our students.

Arkansas State University uses a very popular LMS. I think it definitely has advantages. It acts as a central hub where students can turn in all of their assignments in one place, and they can see their grade progress without having to send an e-mail. It makes keeping track of student assignments way easier.
The LMS has a ton of features like plagiarism detection, creating forums, and blog posting. With students being more computer-savvy these days, I think they enjoy the convenience of accessing course material and their grades at the click of a few buttons.
There are a few disadvantages, however. Some students (especially non-traditional) are not as computer literate, so they will often e-mail me asking how to do basic tasks. Every once in a while, a student will use the LMS malfunctioning as an excuse for turning in a late assignment (e.g. “the LMS wasn’t working” or “I tried turning it into the LMS but it kept getting an error.”) And at my university, the IT people often have to do “maintenance” on the LMS, which requires it to go down for periods of time. And if you don’t like reading off screens, grading assignments can be a strain on the eyes after a while (so I have to take breaks).
So that’s my experience.

This is the second of our four-part post on learning management systems. Read Learning Management Systems: Your Opinion – Part 1, where Donna Lubrano from the Northeastern University in Boston shares her opinion with our readers.

In this post, Kathy Walter, Educator and CEO at Nsoma, reveals her thoughts on Learning Platforms and their contribution to student learning.

Learning Management Systems (LMSs) are used in a number of schools to deliver online learning content in a structured way. As opposed to gather random search content from search engines, learning management systems do just that – they manage learning based on the subject, teacher and curricula being taught. Like all technology, they work only as well as the people or person loading them with content. Most technology solutions for learning do not come with content and those that do need to have that content licensed separately.

Learning Management Systems are great for delivering content to students for a number of reasons.
1. Different paces, steering together: because you can control what content students see, but students do not necessarily know where other students are in their learning path. So, for instance, one student may be far ahead in a lesson and another may be far behind, but unless the lesson plans for them working together on a topic, each student proceeds at their own pace.
2. Anytime, Anywhere: LMS allows students to log in at school or at home. So if they are sick or miss an assignment, want to review for the day ahead or want to go back and review a concept they did not understand, it’s all possible.
3. Flexible Delivery: Most LMS render on a computer or laptop, but also on mobile phones and tablets. So it does not matter what device a student has, they can learn from anything.
4. Special Needs Handled: When students require additional mechanics like braille readers, color blind screen adaptors, text readout, etc, many LMSs link with other technology tools to help all learners.
As with any technology, there are also drawbacks:
1. Training: LMSs are more prevalent these days, but many schools and teachers still have not learned to use them. And schools may change their LMSs as contracts expire and new bids have to be issued. It takes a long time to train staff and students to use them when it’s not something they are familiar with.
2. Let me in! LMSs require logins and when they are not sync’d with other login systems and a student forgets a password, it takes valuable learning time to get them up and running
3. Technology changes: LMS companies deliver a lot of technology changes each year, but not all LMSs have the same functionality. Some can vary widely. And some functionality works more intuitively than others. This can be frustrating for users when they expect to do something quickly and wind up with more work – for instance, teachers trying to load in lessons and assessments. People usually adapt well, but when a new round of changes comes out, companies still have a habit of not always understanding classroom and school processes, and it can lead to user frustration. Too much user frustration, particularly by teachers means some will stop using a system all together.

Bottom line: every school should have an LMS. The types and cost vary widely, but technology runs our world. Not introducing our school kids to technology in all aspects puts them at a severe disadvantage. It’s worth the time and effort to deliver at least part of their education via online content.

Kathy Walter, CEO at Nsoma, is responsible for conceiving and delivering innovative solutions that support the instructional and educational agendas of school districts and edTech companies. She recently served as the Executive Director, Product Strategy & Innovation at the NYC Department of Education and prior to that as Director, Product Development at a start-up online learning solution.
Kathy has a BA in Applied Math from Union College, an MBA From NYU’s Stern School of Business, and a Graduate Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). She’s currently completing her JD at Fordham Law School in Education and IP law. Kathy has been an ESL Educator at Northeastern University and Cambridge Learning Center; an ESL curriculum consultant with the YearUp program in Boston; and a program developer for several teaching projects in Uganda.

We’ve asked education experts about learning management systems in their organisations, how they benefit their students and if they see any disadvantages or problems in using them. As the replies we received were numerous, we’ll be posting a four-part series of articles, where education experts give their opinion on learning management systems. This is the first part of that series.

The first opinion comes from Donna Lubrano at the Northeastern University in Boston:

Learning Management Systems are fantastic tools for the instructor as well as the students. For the professor it provides a repository for all the learning materials to be used for the course, a systematic approach to the course development, and learning tools to make multimedia presentations, such as podcasts, videos exams and quizzes.

The classroom is a new entity where the majority of learning comes from the students preparation for the physical classroom experience. The LMS provides the delivery of those tools that can be used outside of the classroom in preparation. It allows the professor to curate the material and provide his/her perspective on the subject/material. This is especially helpful for remote learning, hybrid and full online learning environments.
For the student it’s fantastic. They have a clear path to the material and a dynamic learning environment using many of the mediums which are part of their everyday experience. Listening to podcasts and viewing videos can be done on their smartphones while traveling or even in a coffee shop.
The multimedia nature of the tools and resources accommodates the many different types of learners and provides an opportunity to even have some fun with tools such as Quizlet to take quizzes, research tools and other materials.
Learning is no longer confined to the classroom; Harvard Professor, Eric Mazur and his concept of Peer Instruction and the flipped classroom support this idea for course management software. It has helped re-engineer the instructor’s role from “sage on stage” (not my words!) to “guide on the side”. The LMS helps the professor “curate” the material for the student to help guide them through the subject. In the curation the student gets to understand the professor’s perspective as well.
A notable disadvantage is that the student has to be technically savvy, have reliable internet access and a computer, iPad, or phone. Without those tools they cannot do the work. So in lower-income areas or schools, these tools may not be readily available to all students and will put them at a disadvantage in regards to other students.
For older students, especially those who are returning to school via online programs, learning the LMS toolset can be a barrier in and of itself. Especially if they are exclusively online and may need in-person help to learn the systems. Professors need to set clear office hours to help students over some of those barriers and to provide alternatives for students who don’t have reliable access to computers and the internet. This can be done with more flexible deadlines and options to hand in homework the old-fashioned way, via paper.
The benefit to the student is tremendous; it is 24 hours a day access to the classroom requirements; especially for those students who work to pay for their education – it allows them to work on their reading and assignments, before or after work. Because learning is a very collaborative environment, the LMS has incredible collaboration tools that don’t require students to be in the same room together. A classroom in Dubai can work on a project with a classroom in US using tools like video conferencing etc. These tools are game changers and continue to change the role of the professor and the way classrooms are designed.
Donna Lubrano is an adjunct faculty with a Master’s degree in International Business from Boston University. She has experience in a broad range of commercial endeavors including, health and fitness, international education, event and conference planning, healthcare, and corporate training. She has worked with students from around the globe, in Leadership and Entrepreneurship. She is a frequent contributor to on-line articles, is a business mentor to small businesses and start-ups. She is currently working on an international virtual student exchange program that would allow students who cannot travel abroad to work on business projects with students from international classrooms.

BBC News recently published an article regarding the new way of testing how well students know times tables. According to new government plans, students aged 11 will be expected to know their times tables up to 12×12 and they will be tested using an “on-screen check”. Students will be able to do this test by completing multiplication challenges against the clock, which will be scored instantly.
“Every pupil in England will be tested on their times tables before leaving primary school, under government plans”.
“The Department for Education says it is the first use of on-screen technology in National Curriculum tests”.

According to new plans, the checks will be piloted to about 3,000 pupils in 80 primary schools this summer, before being rolled out across the country in 2017. The decision to test students was based on the opinion that maths was a non-negotiable aspect of a good education. What is more, it has been noticed that some students continue to struggle with the times table; this test is seen as an opportunity to deliver educational excellence.

In addition to other benefits, this test is expected to help teachers recognise students who might be falling behind and it should also help target those areas that require more attention.
However, Labour says standards are being threatened by a shortage of teachers, and in the past some teaching unions have warned additional tests can place unwelcome pressure on teachers and pupils. Similarly, in the article published on The Telegraph, it has been noted that testing at a young age, when pupils have not developed their resilience and coping strategies, should be kept to a minimum and for the very young it is best avoided. It has also been acknowledged that teachers should have the freedom to use time more productively rather than putting pupils through a times table test.
Therefore, it can be agreed that alongside expected benefits, it is important to acknowledge all the possible negative aspects that might be resulted by this new test. The learning of times tables is obviously very important – but is a special test necessary?