Sir William Borlase’s Grammar School
THE SEARCH FOR THE ALL-ENCOMPASSING LEARNING PLATFORM
Earlier this year, the school set about searching for an educational collaboration system. In the words of their IT Manager, Anu Chawla, they were “very keen that they should not have yet another system and interface for staff to have to deal with.” They were using shared drives that were open to misuse, a separate email system and a separate website for delivering curriculum material. It became apparent that what they ideally needed was a common platform or interface for all of these functions and more for their users.
They looked at a number of systems - both commercial and open source. They carefully considered factors beyond functionality, including the ability to deploy quickly, and the need and cost of associated professional services. FirstClass together with FirstClass ED and osisREPORT was the only solution which met all of their requirements. Ms. Chawla already knew of FirstClass as a communication and collaboration platform in the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead. She was also familiar with the osisREPORT application for FirstClass. It was after looking at FirstClass ED, the new add-on eLearning module for FirstClass which follows the FirstClass philosophy of "easy to use", that she found the all encompassing Learning Platform she was looking for.
THE FUTURE “We have approached the system deployment incrementally,” stated Ms. Chawla. ”The teachers have found using FirstClass very easy and so now are confident and ready to move on to the next step. In the New Year we plan to start using the many other great features which FirstClass has to offer such as podcasting, blogging, web publishing and PDA synchronisation.” In the words of the school’s Headteacher, Mr. Peter Holding, “As more and more schools move towards the implementation of a Learning Platform, we feel confident that Sir William Borlase’s Grammar School has the best tools available to meet all the challenges ahead.” |
