Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Newcastle eLearning company launches online platform to help teachers build their own courses

New product launch that I found interesting. The story draws from the press release, but I'm interested in both prmoting New England businesses and in the application of new technology in education. 

Newcastle based edtech company Futura Group, today launched eCoach BETA, a cloud-based platform providing high school teachers with simple tools to build and design their own engaging online courses.

The eCoach allows teachers to transform their own materials into online courses attractive to students. 

According to Jude Novak (eCoach Product Manager), “courses made with the eCoach can be used to promote discovery, problem solving, and decision making in a fun and engaging way. The builder includes over 20 easy to use drag-and-drop eLearning templates to ensure that students have a great educational experience online”.

The company argues that with escalating professional demands such as reporting, compliance and benchmarking, teachers are increasingly time-poor; to stay ahead of the technology curve and deliver tech-savvy students with interactive course content would normally mean developing design skills or learning complex authoring software.

“Some teachers simply don’t have the time or design knowledge to create high-quality eLearning. The eCoach gives them everything they need to build interactive resources, without the headache of learning how to use complicated software”.

The eCoach is a cloud-based solution and courses are smartphone compatible and BYOD ready, meaning that students will be able to access courses at home, ‘on the go’, or in the classroom. This ‘build once and use anywhere’ approach means that the eCoach can be easily paired with popular tools like Google Classroom to transform teaching and learning in high schools.  
Google’s Education tools are widely used by teachers (both here and abroad) to foster collaboration and creativity. “Using the eCoach in tandem with such tools will help students have fun while they discover information and interact with new ideas”.    

“It looks great!” said Rachel McCann, PDHPE Teacher at Mudgee High School. “It’s not only highly engaging, but it provides a kind of consistent shape and form to lesson resources. I also love the fact that I can easily share courses I’ve made with my students using Google Classroom for safe and secure access.”

There are currently 175 teachers registered for eCoach BETA. Anyone interested in the eCoach can request access via the website: http://ecoach.com.au

1 comment:

Alex said...

Great post, protection data is where money should be spent! I agree. Not every website can afford responsive design. There are other things the money would be better spent on.
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