School expands virtual learning

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Emerson Park School has signed on with Extrasys to expand its virtual learning environment.

The 1,000 students at the Romford, Essex comprehensive secondary school will be able to access their personal e-learning accounts from any broadband-enabled computer and put their own content into the virtual learning environment (VLE), take online tests and access interactive content.

The school previously used Microsoft Class Server, but needed to switch because of support changes. While the school opted to stay with Microsoft's SharePoint server solution, they needed someone who could manage and host it, as they didn't have the capability in-house.

"Extrasys takes care of all the IT management for us - such as backing up files, installing updates, and keeping the data secure - which leaves me free to concentrate on developing a compelling learning environment," said Ralph Reid, the school's director of IT.

For under £1.50 a month per user, Extrasys will provide support, development and data centres for the next three years. Reid said a comparable service from other SharePoint services firms can cost as much as £6.50 per user, per month.

Such savings are important for the school. Despite its innovative plans, it ranks lowest in its borough in terms of overall ICT, Reid said - not helped by the school's debt keeping the budget tight.

Aside from financial benefits, the best part of the system is its flexibility. "Other providers might provide the same solution, but this is as if we had our own server we can customise," Reid said.

The end goal is to create a "dashboard for learning" similar to what businesses use to manage their information, in order to track usage, progress and other data about students. Teachers will be able to see how long it took a student to complete a task and let students learn at their own pace.

But first, Reid is hoping to move school's communications into this century. "We still have pigeon holes," he said.

It's not just about in-school activities, however. Reid plans to use the system's flexibility to create a parents' portal so they can check up on their children's progress.

"We'd like to extend access to parents if possible, so kids can be given encouragement with homework, and provided with maximum educational support," said Reid.

Rather surprisingly, the students told the school via a survey that they would like to be able to access their schoolwork from home and have real time access to teaching staff after hours through forums and instant messaging.

"The students have been pretty encouraging," Reid said. "They're the experts. They know this kind of environment and they want more functionality."

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