15/6/2010 - USA office opens in downtown Philly

Just a quick one to keep you all updated on our overseas developments. Having opened WebAnywhere Inc. in February this year we’ve finally found a suitable office to accommodate our lovely American workforce who are all currently working from home. The new office will be in downtown Philadelphia in the scenic Rittenhouse Square, shown below left...

Sean (M.D) flew out to sign the contract in June and managed to take some photos of the new office. A photo of the building is shown above right, it is so huge he couldn’t even fit it into one shot! Not surprisingly we don’t own the whole building just suite 401, but with plenty of room for expansion there will be pressure on the American team to upsize shortly.

21/5/2010 - Emerging Business Award Winner

Sean Gilligan, M.D. of WebAnywhere has won the Emerging Business Award at this year’s Yorkshire 42 under 42 Business Awards. Sean was also shortlisted for the Innovation Award.

This year’s 42 dinner at the Royal Armouries in Leeds was an extra special occasion as it was the 10^th anniversary for the Yorkshire 42 under 42s.

In researching the 42 individuals who made up the shortlist for this year’s awards, a common theme that emerged was how they have dealt effectively with the downturn, and especially the looming public sector cuts.

Alex McWhirter, assistant director of business at Yorkshire Forward, talked of the “dramatic change” in the business climate.

He said: “Entrepreneurship is the spark that can set our economy alight. We need successful indigenous start-ups that can establish themselves and expand their businesses internationally. In Yorkshire and Humber the private sector needs to be nurtured, and I’d argue that this will require entrepreneur-led growth.”

yorkshire_42_under_42_dinner_2010-sponsors&winners

14/4/2010 - Moodle Mooting

Most Moodle users will probably have heard of the Moodle Moot - a conference dedicated to users, developers and administrators of Moodle.

The Moodle Moot has been around for years with Moots being held all over the world, but for the first time ever, the UK Moot invited exhibitors down to meet the delegates. We jumped at the chance to exhibit and learn more about how we can enhance the opportunities Moodle has as a platform for creative teaching. Here’s a picture of our stand in a beautiful hall at the University of London Computer Centre.

For those of you considering using Moodle as your school’s choice of VLE, it is indeed a wise choice to make. Moodle is continuing to expand, currently there are 49,000 verified Moodle sites in 210 countries with over 34 million users. In Edugeek (fantastic forum for IT professionals) a poll was held to rate the best VLE. 269 users logged in to share their opinions of the 10 most popular VLEs for schools and the winner was… Moodle.

4/2/2010 - Eastburn School fights cyberbullying

Taken from The Craven Herald And Pioneer:

A school is helping to pioneer a social networking system to protect pupils from cyberbullying.

Eastburn Junior and Infants is testing a safe Facebook-style system.

Recently, parents of pupils were urged to ban them from using Facebook after a year six pupil received a "foul and abusive message" from someone pretending to be another pupil.

Keighley-based company WebAnywhere’s "Student Jotter" has similarities with the popular website – but retains a key safety feature ensuring teachers can monitor what students are accessing.

The school’s technology consultant, Karen Pickard, said: "We’ve been helping develop the system and have been back to WebAnywhere with modifications. They looked at them and agreed to implement a number.

"It is confined to the school, controlled and monitored by the school. It allows pupils to communicate with other pupils in the scheme, but not elsewhere."

She said both parents and children signed up to a code of conduct.

Sean Gilligan, who founded WebAnywhere in 2003, said: "The experience of Eastburn shows that there can be a negative side to social networking sites, but we have worked hard to make Student Jotter completely safe for pupils.

"Technology plays a key role in the classroom and it is important that both teachers and students can take advantage of this technology and use it to their benefit."

Student Jotter is specifically designed to encourage online interaction among pupils and teachers.

Pupils can write blogs, post messages on each other’s "walls" and upload pictures and documents. They can also add "friends", but these are restricted to fellow pupils.

It also provides an online environment where students can store e-Portfolios – a Government-backed initiative which offers pupils their own personal online space.

Research from charity Beatbullying found more than 11 per cent of 11-to-16-year-olds who had been "cyberbullied" were targeted using Facebook.

Emma-Jane Cross, chief executive of Beatbullying, said: "We know the consequences of cyberbullying are just as traumatic as those of face-to-face bullying.

"In the past year alone, we’ve witnessed tragic suicides resulting from relentless online hate campaigns."

16/11/2009 - Famous School Launches New Website

Taken from The Northern Echo:

A SCHOOL has launched a new website so that it can continue sharing information with others around the country Coxhoe Primary School, near Durham, has spent the last ten years actively putting information on to the Internet.

Now it has launched a new site, created and sponsored by Yorkshire-based company WebAnywhere, that offers free lesson plans, curriculum maps and links to useful websites.

It was created using WebAnywhere's School Jotter, which combines design, a web-hosting service and a content management system.

School head Stephen Jones said: "We are proud so many schools and teachers use our site because we feel it is important that educational resources are freely accessible.

"We are happy to share this information with any school, pupil or parent who wants it.

"Ultimately we hope that sharing in this way will play a significant part in putting schools across the country on a level playing field.

"The site encourages pupils to extend their school learning and also allows parents to take an active interest in what their child is learning and how it is being taught."

03/06/2009 - ICT Club for Teachers - SESSION ONE

15th June 2009 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm

This is the first ever ICT club held by WebAnywhere. During this first session we will get to know one another, discuss the agenda for future sessions and review current hot topics in ICT.

Click here for more details

02/06/2009 - WebAnywhere Celebrate with E²B^N

We are pleased to announce we will be exhibiting at the E2BN annual conference in Bedfordshire on the 24th and 25th June.

This year's 'Celebrate' conference will mark the 10th anniversary of E2BN and looks at how ICT has been used across the curriculum to offer new challenges to pupils of all abilities, both in school and at home.

Delegates can:

• Sample the latest technology through hands-on workshops
• Have access to a range of practical advice and assistance
• See examples of how innovation and best practice is transforming education in schools across the region
• Discuss and debate topical issues

The conference sessions and workshops have been organised to help all delegates to gain the confidence to exploit ICT more effectively within their schools or subject areas.

We will have some great offers available for schools during the conference.  To find out more about E2BN and to book your tickets please visit the website below:

http://conference.e2bn.org/

We hope to see you there.

01/05/2009 - Free E-learning Resources for Your School

We are delighted to announce the launch of our exciting new voucher scheme ‘Earn To Learn’. To get involved in the scheme and to start claiming e-learning software for your school all you have to do is start collecting vouchers today. Vouchers are given away for product purchases, referrals, taking part in demos and becoming a WebAnywhere advocate. There are lots of goodies to get your hands on such as spelling, maths and language software, survey tools, teaching PowerPoints and even a new school website.

Only 5 vouchers are needed to claim your first freebie. To get you started we’ve hidden a voucher somewhere in this website, have a flick through our tabs above and see if you can find yours.

To find out more about the scheme please click here.

27/04/2009 - Thousands of Schools Can Now Collect Donations Online

Since the launch of School Jotter, the powerful website creator, there has been numerous new features added to it so we thought an update might be in order.

Some of the most excited new features include:

• PayPal Donation Button - You can now save time and money collecting donations with a PayPal button on your school website. PayPal donate button allows visitors to make donations directly into your school PayPal account. This is a low cost way for schools to accept credit card and bank account donations.
• Surveys Module - This is a powerful data gathering tool which allows your school to conduct, analyse and interpret surveys through your school website. Surveys can be used to gather a range of information, from anonymous surveys on bullying to parents surveys for Ofsted.
• New Forms - There are lots of new form tools in School Jotter, including Absence forms-allowing parents to submit details of their child’s absence through the school website, Vacancy forms-allowing you to easily post and manage job vacancies in your school and Events forms- allowing you to post details of an event such as a school trip on your school website, providing visitors with the chance to sign up to the event online.
• YouTube - Using this module you can search YouTube from your school website by tag, name, description, users or authors. You can then select any videos you wish and insert them into your website for all your visitors to view. This could be an ideal way to populate your website with learning resources for your pupils.
• Google Docs - This popular new module means you can now upload any of your Google docs to your school website. This means you can now share survey results, word processed documents and spreadsheets with your website visitors.

We will continue to update School Jotter's features and customers subscribing to the premium account will continue to get access to any new developments at no extra cost. To find out more about School Jotter please click here.

06/04/2009 - The 24 Hour Classroom Assistant

Future School is a global leader in the development of learning management systems and we are now proud to announce we have partnered up with Future School to be able to offer our customers Future School's great educational software, online tutoring and motivational educational games. If you're interested in finding out how Future School can help you, book your free demonstration now.

30/03/2009 - New WebAnywhere Website Revealed

Welcome to our brand new website. Featuring an improved structure, exciting new content and an updated design, the site is now a one stop shop for all your school's ICT requirements. If there are any changes you would like to see or any information you can't find please let us know, we built the website for you so we want you to love it. Please email any comments to catherine.bell@webanywhere.co.uk.