Education Roundup: £60 million for student tech

Government boosts tech for learners to £60 million

The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) is set to boost its spending on technology in post-16 education by £20 million over last year to £59.8 million. The money will go to improving equipment and infrastructure and purchasing more mobile devices, such as mp3 players.

Jon Gamble, the LSC's director for adults and lifelong learning, said: "Our increased investment into technology will help us to create a more dynamic and forward looking Further Education System. Technology plays such an important role in learning and an understanding of the latest devices is also vital for many careers. Our programme of investment will ensure that more learners have access to the facilities they need to enrich their learning experience and their employability."

Research from the government's technology partner Becta has shown that over a third of students access virtual learning platforms away from their school.

University of Leeds picks Blackboard

The University of Leeds has chosen the Blackboard's learning, community and content systems to provide remote access to virtual educational materials for their 33,000 students and 7,300 staff.

Professor Vivien Jones, pro-vice-chancellor for Learning and Teaching, said: "We needed a system that both satisfied our ever-increasing student and faculty demands and was highly scalable. We are very pleased that we invested time in carrying out such a rigorous and comprehensive evaluation of our options, and we are confident that the Blackboard platform will give staff the leading-edge tools needed to realise our vision for developing a high-quality blended learning experience for all our students."

Cambridge College implements new wireless network

Khipu Networks has rolled out a new wireless local area network (WLAN) at the University of Cambridge's Homerton College to let students work flexibly improve internal communications and give students, staff and conference delegates a more flexible working environment.

The installation uses Alcatel-Lucent's OminAccess WLAN technology with Bradford Networks access control system.

Tristan Warbey, computer officer at Homerton College, said: "The Alcatel-Lucent and Bradford Networks integrated solution provides our students and staff with high-speed, easy and secure access to university resources from a range of mobile devices, wherever they are on the campus. By automatically identifying and authenticating users as they connect, the solution also keeps the network secure - a key issue with wireless networks."

The college hopes the network will attract students and will bring in revenue from conference delegates who use the network during vacation.

Email to a friend

Print this page

Social Bookmark this article: What is this?

Digg

Delicious

Reddit

StumbleUpon

Slashdot

Google

Facebook