Kids on the phone wind me up no end. Telling kids to get off their phones when they’re not supposed to be on them winds me up even more. Kids ignoring me after I tell them to get off their phones when they’re not supposed to be on them is liable to send me into apoplexy whilst carpet bombing detentions in the general area of said kid as they continue to remain blissfully unaware and firmly ensconced in the world of Snapchat, YouTube, WhatsApp and every distraction the digital world has to offer.
So annoying. But then I’m one to talk.

When it comes to being on the phone, there are times that I’m worse than the kids. To the detriment of such minor annoyances as social interaction, the all-out horror of ‘family time’, or meals where some of the food actually goes into my mouth rather than down my shirt as I gaze lovingly at my tiny little screen to the world, I’m pretty much surgically attached. ‘Glued to the screen’ doesn’t quite cut it – I’m more cemented. I’m nothing if not massively hypocritical when it comes to the kids.
So phones, yep – a lot of the time they are tiny little distraction machines that eat focus for lunch and have productivity for pudding.
But…
Technology isn’t usage and usage isn’t technology. It’s true that in many cases, a mobile in your hand means nothing else gets done and it does take a modicum of self control not to get lost in the world behind the screen. But having said that, a phone can also be a fantastic tool for a busy and almost pathologically disorganised teacher like me. With the right apps, it can become a great way to save time, cut down on workload, and organise your day in such a way that it may give you a few extra minutes (which could, ironically, be spent telling more kids to get off their phones). It’s true, there is a world of distraction out there, but then again, there is also a world of help as well.
For me, my phone is a toolbox – it contains a whole bunch of things that I can use to get my job done. A bunch of equipment that formerly would have filled a decent sized bag – cameras, sound recorders, endless reams of paper, art supplies, games, whiteboards, notice boards, to do lists, maps, projectors; all these things can be squeezed into a little black rectangle, whacked into your pocket and taken with you, everywhere you go. That’s a lot less lugging and for me, less lugging is what it’s all about. Efficient, easy, portable – the abundance of mobile apps means that there’s often something available that can really help. Sometimes it’s even free. Free stuff rules.
The perception of the mobile phone as a hurdle to productivity isn’t necessarily a false one but when it comes right down to it, the phone itself is pretty much blameless. It’s what the user does with it that turns it into a help or a hindrance. In my own situation, it can often be a bit of both but ultimately that’s down to the type of person I am rather than the phone itself. And even at my most slack-jawed and unresponsive, the benefits that it represents far outweigh the annoyances.
In a case of ‘physician, heal thyself’, I try to model the use of mobile tech for learning with the kids, show them some of things that I’ve discovered that I think might help them in their own studies, maybe prize their faces away from the gossip, self-affirmation and the more addictive elements turning them towards things that’ll help with productivity, understanding and streamlining cumbersome processes (because there’s plenty out there). In doing so, I try to remind myself that there is a world away from social media, lolz and likes – a world where instead of a barrier, mobiles and the apps they contain can make the difficult job of teaching ever so slightly easier and that the screen can act as window to a different way of working rather than a mirror of some of our less wholesome traits.
That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop telling them to put their phone away, mind.
In the next post, I look at how effective use of mobile apps can improve your workflow.
Tom Starkey is an educator based in Leeds. He’s written for the Times Educational Supplement and Teach Secondary magazine. tweeting at @tstarkey1212 and writes at stackofmarking.wordpress.com.

We’ve created a handy infographic to help explain some of the more confusing aspects of website creation, click on the image for a higher resolution version!

Webanywhere are pleased to have been featured in this week’s Yorkshire Post business supplement in an article entitled “Elearning provider looks to States for growth”.
The article quotes our CEO, Sean Gilligan who explains that the company’s purpose is to create jobs and develop young talent whilst continuing its expansion, more particularly in the US.
Our Education Technology conference which is held at the Hilton Leeds City on the 23rd of June is also featured with Sean stating that “with the rise of web-based learning and tablet computers, there’s never been a better time to bring this conference to the heart of Leeds”.

We’ve reached the time of year again where snow is in the headlines. Upland areas are inaccessible, cars can’t use the roads and the power’s in danger of going out – all of these having a massive knock-on effect for schools.
As a headteacher, you have the difficult task of considering whether or not to open your school, or perhaps you’re a parent worrying about sending your children out into the cold. At Webanywhere we believe technology can help with the problems weather brings.

Teachers – Tell parents whether your school is open with Broadcast

Whether your school is a small village primary or a huge comprehensive secondary, getting out the message of closure is often a hassle. If you do have to close you rely on parents checking your website, reading the newsletters you sent out or hoping they’ve listened to broadcasts on the radio or local TV.
The Broadcast app in the School Jotter suite can help with this. With its easy-to-use interface, you can instantly get the message out to thousands of people. Of course, this doesn’t just have to be used for snow – you might want to use it to promote a charity drive or a new promotion at the school – and with detailed segmentation you can target specific parts of the school as you wish, and it has some of the best value tarrifs on the market. For a free trial of the Broadcast app (and the School Jotter suite), visit schooljotter.com.

Make sure your learning can be taken online with a robust VLE package

Establishing good e-learning foundations is not just good for your pupils’ digital literacy – if the school has to close it’s a good way to make sure they can continue learning at home. Webanywhere have several options for VLE provision, and these come with full SCORM-compliance, so you can buy-in new content or port existing courses. Our Learn App for Jotter provides a simple interface to create learning “sites”, which can be accessed from any device, while our more robust provisions are ideal for larger rollout, and as a certified provider you know you’re in safe hands. As above, you can get a free trial of Learn from schooljotter.com, or contact us to find out more about it.
If your content is all online, you know you don’t need to worry about where your students are when they learn. Combine the flexibility of a VLE with the power of the Broadcast app and you can quickly plan for any eventuality

Team member Helen Bound tells us about her Friday exhibiting with Webanywhere

So my first time at BETT as an Exhibitor. Spent many a year trawling around the stands trying to fine that elusive ‘thing’ that would make Teaching/Learning better! So to be on the ‘other side’, enthusing and glad-handing complete strangers, was a little alien at first. However it didn’t take long to share that enthusiasm with our visitors and share all our great products and new features with them.
Friday had a different feel to it compared to the first two days and there were many more visitors at our stand wanting to know about School Jotter and what it and we could do for them.

We got a lot of interest from schools too – organisations using an open-source LMS who had hit a ‘wall’ in terms of its functionality, new features and ability to be used by colleagues in a meaningful and relevant way. In other words they needed some consultancy. They knew how to use it, but wanted to use it better, and they wanted to encourage fellow educators to use it too – a great opportunity here to extend our offering to customers and offer them ongoing consultancy after the initial training.
I remember finding at my previous employer, as well as at many schools, that after the initial flurry of activity of getting an open-source LMS installed and training the staff, there comes a point when you want to start progressing and using in a meaningful way. You’re just not sure how to move it forwards and start engaging students and staff!
Our other customers on the day were keen to see all the features of School Jotter, and to be honest I also took that opportunity to observe the presentations by a group of well-informed and professional staff who were able to read a customers request and tailor the presentation accordingly. I certainly learnt a lot and will be signing up for more  training on School Jotter in the coming weeks – as a new starter I’m still very much finding my feet!
I had many former colleagues visit me on the Friday to see how I’d made the transition from the education side over to the corporate world! I think they were impressed with what I’m doing with Webanywhere. There were many positive remarks about the stand, the presenters, the knowledge about e-learning and the passion that was very evident from a group of very engaging colleagues.
Thank you all for a great BETT. I’ve learnt a lot and it’s helped me get a very good understanding of what we do as a company and how there is the potential for new business through clever use of training and consultancy.
Helen Bound

With Christmas almost here, we’ve had a dig through the Webanywhere archives and come up with some great resources we published a few years ago. These files are free to download and use, and we recommend taking a look at the teachers notes on this page. Simply click on the titles to download the files and save them to your computer

Christmas Postcards

Cut out and create these cards, then share them with your class – they’re suitable for all ages.
Use them in your continuous provision to help foundation stage children with mark-making, or perhaps promote group-work and have pupils write a card as a whole-class activity. Place more confident writers with less able children to promote contribution and ensure that everyone can contribute. It’s a good idea to first demonstrate model-writing in front of the class, and draw attention to the unique aspects of a postcard.

Christmas Slideshow

Introduce your children to different cultural representations of Christmas with this festive slideshow. It includes interesting facts about each featured country as well as a set of questions. Use it to promote discussion of how other country’s traditions might differ from your own, and see what you have in common too!

Christmas Wordsearch

This word search features various different names for the “gift giver” who appears at Christmas around the world. Some may seem familiar, while others not so much! Encourage your children to research some of the lesser known characters, or perhaps use this in conjunction with the slideshow above showcasing different traditions.

Christmas Poems

Introduce your children to the idea of acrostic poetry with this set of templates. Ensure that you model the principles first – perhaps create a mind map of descriptive words before discussing as a class the ideas for each line before writing suggestions on the board.
One the children understand the concept, let them try a poem on their own – for lower ability students use the shorter templates, while the more able will be at home with the long ones. As with the postcards above, this could also be done as a mixed-group activity, with the more and less able collaborating on A3 sheets.

We hope you’re able to make good use of these resources and would like to wish you and your class a very merry Christmas!

BETT, the world’s largest educational technology event, is returning to the ExCel in London for four days from the 21st to the 24th January 2015, after the success of BETT 2014.
This massive educational technology exhibition brings together some of the most important players in their respective fields, allowing them to showcase the latest in educational advancements and innovation. Expect to see major brands on the show floor, including the BBC, Dell, RM and Microsoft, all dedicated to improving the education sector through technology.
Again, 2015 looks to be bringing an exhilarating event with many, many exhibitors, seminars and summits, as well as special guest speakers, including Sir Ken Robinson, an Educational Visionary; Rt. Hon Nicky Morgan, Education Secretary for the UK; and Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia.
Some of the themes for 2015 include:

• Enhanced access to education through technology: traditional and disruptive ideas
• Evidence-based education
• Creating collaborative minds and personalised teaching
• A global and regional outlook of enhanced access to education
• Creating a legacy of change

Webanywhere will be returning again in 2015 with their latest offerings to the educational technology market, come and find us, we will be at Stand F380. Find out more on our exhibitor page at www.bettshow.com
We very much look forward to seeing you there!

School Jotter is the UK’s number one primary school website system. It has been extended to include a suite of education apps so that many aspects of a school’s teaching and learning activities can be supported online, on one website, from one easy to use dashboard interface.
Let’s take a look at two of the most popular apps, Blog and Learn.

Blogging for Schools

The Blog app allows teachers and pupils to create multimedia posts – for instance, a teacher’s explanation of recent class activities, a writing competition, or reflections on a school trip – and to share their feedback and thoughts with each other.
This content can be published across other apps, such as the school’s main website. This allows the wider school community to view selected posts or entire blogs, and add their own, moderated, comments.

Step 1 – Teacher writes a blog post:

Step 2 – Which is published on the school’s website:

Learning and Teaching Resources

The Learn app lets teachers create and share mini websites that are more than a list of Powerpoints and videos. They can include interactive quizzes, assignments and collaborative learning tools such as the wiki.
Learning sites can be shared among the school or with the wider School Jotter Community to quickly recycle common content every year, or share teaching ideas and learning materials.

A hub for your e-learning needs

With these, and the 12 other apps that comprise the School Jotter suite, you can turn your school website into a hub for digital learning activity that is easy to learn and manage and is fully supported by Webanywhere, a leading company in the educational learning business.
In addition, SIMS integration gives seamless and complete integration with your school’s user database so that School Jotter is always up to date with parent, pupil and staff information, with no administration overhead.
Sign up for a free 30 day trial of School Jotter here.

It’s been a while since we updated you on the new School Jotter Apps we’ve been working on. To jog your memory, School Jotter became integrated with a range of e-learning apps earlier this year that can be activated from your School Jotter dashboard. Continue reading →

We had a fabulous response to this competition, seeing the Tour de Yorkshire really captured your imaginations! A very big thank you to all of the fabulous pupils and schools that sent entries to us. You made the judges job very difficult!
Our winning entry is from a year 3 pupil who attends Skipton Parish Church Of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School. The team is called Speeding Sharks!
I think you will all agree this is a perfect representation of the Tour de Yorkshire which gave Yorkshire an exciting and colourful weekend.

We would like to showcase some other fabulous entries that we believe deserve a well done! 

If you would like to know more about our Bloganywhere app you will find more information here.