“I arrived in Norway with high expectations of itslearning,” says Tan Caglayan of Çağlayan Kitabevi, Istanbul. “And those expectations were exceeded. I’m now not just excited about the learning platform and how popular it will prove in Turkey, but also about how it will improve education in my country.”

Improving the quality of education

According to Tan, the biggest benefit of itslearning is how it can be used by teachers in the classroom to raise the quality of education they deliver. This was covered on the first day of training, when an itslearning trainer showed how teachers can use itslearning to create engaging lessons, manage classes and share resources.

“The biggest problem with education in Turkey is that it depends on where you live. Children living in cities often have access to better education than those in the countryside. By enabling teachers to share resources, and even record and share videos of themselves teaching, itslearning can give children access to the same education anywhere.”

Everything covered in one week

Over one week of intensive training, the partners covered all they need to know in order to set up, sell and support itslearning. Many of the sessions were attended by everyone, but towards the end of the week, the partners split into different groups to cover different aspects of itslearning, such as integrations with other systems, how best to run technical support and how to re-use marketing materials created by itslearning’s Global Marketing team.

“It was a great week that has given us a real foundation for success,” says Marcello Aguilar of Grupo Staff, Monterrey, Mexico. “It didn’t just cover the product, but also how to be successful with it: how to take the ideas from itslearning’s global sales and marketing teams and mould them to our market. Essentially, business is about people, and I’ve met an excellent group of people this week.”

More bootcamps this year

According to Kelvyn Hicks, itslearning global partner manager, the bootcamp was a huge success. “To see new partners presenting and giving a good demo of itslearning four days after seeing it for the first time was awesome. Everyone left excited about the possibilities and we’re all looking forward to working together to make itslearning a success in their countries.”

itslearning will run a partner bootcamp every quarter with the next one scheduled in June . If you’d like to join, contac partners@itslearning.com  to find out more about our new Global Partner Program and to see if there’s still space.

There were some fantastic ideas, including innovative ways to use video to teach vocational subjects and a great way to motivate language learners. But after careful consideration, our panel of judges settled on these two winners.

Flipping the classroom: Anne Cathrine Gotaas, Sandvika Further Education College, Norway

This flipped classroom concept is simple: students study the theory at home and use classroom time to put their newly gained knowledge into practice. Anne Cathrine delivers flipped classroom teaching to her students by creating videos, animations and other resources and adding them to the relevant itslearning course.

Best use awards
The Best use of itslearning awards 2011 were open to any teacher who uses itslearning. The winning entries had to demonstrate a use of itslearning that engages students, raises student achievement and is easily transferable to another teacher. The judging panel was made up of four people:

• Russell Prue, ICT Evangelist, Author & Broadcaster
• Alastair Cameron, Senior Learning Strategist (itslearning)
• Trond Skeie, Training Manager (itslearning)
• Arne Bergby, CEO (itslearning)
The videos are embedded into a test and students must answer one or two questions after watching the video. The student will then see if she has understood the video or if she has to watch it again. This technique also means that Anne Cathrine can see which areas have caused problems for her students – and she can prepare her classroom lessons accordingly. She can also track which students have watched or read the materials and which haven’t.

Improving behaviour among disaffected students: Dee Kerwick-Chrisp, Greys Education Centre, UK

Greys Education Centre takes the students that other schools deem too hard to teach. With these students, encouraging good behaviour is usually vital to successful learning.

Once a week, every student meets with a teacher to set their behaviour goals, which are then added to the student’s individual learning plan (ILP). Then, at the end of each lesson, the class teacher refers to the student’s ILP before assigning the student a behaviour grade (using a 1-5 scale that only reflects good behaviour).

Any student with an average above 3.2 for the week can enjoy a free lesson – and the student with the best score gets a certificate. This reward system has proven extremely successful, with students competing with each other to get the best score. The student’s weekly behaviour report is also printed out and sent to their parents – and the reports are sometimes used as evidence that students are adhering to court orders.

Great ideas for teachers everywhere

“The decision was extremely difficult and we’d like to thank everyone who entered for sharing their great ideas with us,” says Alastair Cameron, one of the judges. “We’re really pleased that there are so many great teachers doing great things with itslearning, and I hope that teachers around the world will benefit from reading about and seeing their ideas.”

You can see all 12 entries (each with a description and video) that made the shortlist on our global website.

Contents

• Video summary
• Improvements to the new design
• New space-saving news content block
• Improved course list content block
• Embed external content in pages
• Better overview in the assessment record
• New version of the rich-text editor
• Get more out of the calendar with resource booking and iCal support
• More information for teachers in the personal profile
• Send notifications when you update an element
• Corrections

Watch the video below to see what's new in the release.

Improvements to the new design

In the previous release we did a major update to the look and feel, and now we've improved it even more. The Intermediate, Animal misfits and Space themes are now available in two versions: one with text in the top menu and one with icons only. This makes it easier for teachers to tailor the themes to different age groups.

We've also introduced a brand new Summersky theme, which in essence is a different version of the standard itslearning skin.

• Read more about the different interfaces and themes in the itslearning help!

New space-saving news content block

We're happy to introduce a new version of the news content block. The new block is more compact and has a smaller font.

Improved course list content block

It's now easier to keep up to date with what's happening in your courses thanks to several new features in the course list content block. You can now see how many changes have been made since you last visited the course (the orange droplet) – and you can also see which courses have had new bulletins added to them (the grey icon).

• Read more about the course content blocks in the itslearning help!

 

Embed external content in pages

Now to a feature we know many page creators have been waiting for: you can now embed external content from services such as YouTube and Slideshare directly from the rich content block into pages. Look for the new 'Source' button in the editor when adding or editing rich content.

 

 

Better overview in the assessment record

The assessment record, or grade book, has been updated with four sought-after features:

Categories

You might have different types of assessments in a single course, such as for homework assignments, group assignments, classroom assignments and tests. These assignments can now be grouped together to form a category (you can, of course, create your own categories). This means you can filter your assessment records by category to get a better overview and also weight assessments differently within individual categories.

 

Add terms and categories directly into new elements

It's now possible to select a term and category when adding tests and assignments.

Column headers always show

The column headers in the assessment record are now always visible at the top of the grid, even when you scroll down a long list of participants.

Improved input field for marking

A new autocomplete feature enables you to give a mark or assessment quicker when marking assignments. When you enter the assessment, itslearning will suggest an assessment as soon as you type the first letter or number. This is especially useful if you use an assessment scale with many options.

 

• Read more about the assessment record in the itslearning help!

 

New version of the rich-text editor

You can now use a brand new version of the rich-text editor. The new icons and colours give it a more modern look, but the editor works exactly as it did before.

 

• Read more about the rich-text editor in the itslearning help!

 

Get more out of the calendar with resource booking and iCal support

These two new features will improve the calendar for all our users.

Resource booking

Administrators can now create a list of resources – such as rooms, cameras, computers, and smartboards – and let other users book them directly through their calendar.

Note: we've decided to launch this feature as a limited beta, and only selected sites will have access to it. Interested? Read about the beta program and how to join it at http://info.itslearning.net/ResourceBeta.html.

 

• Read more about setting up and using resource booking in the itslearning help!

iCal support

Do you use a Mac, an iPhone, Microsoft Outlook or any other device that supports iCal? If so, you can now subscribe to calendar activities through an iCal feed. Simply click the Subscribe link in the Activities content block. Read more about iCal on Wikipedia.

 

 

More information for teachers in the personal profile

Course teachers now have access to aggregated information in the person profile. In plain English, this means they can now see a full list of assessments, attendance reports and behaviour reports for each student – including assessments and reports from other subject teachers – when they click a student's personal profile. You have to be registered as teacher of that student in at least one course to see this information.

 

• What information can other users see in your profile? Find out in the person profile topic in the itslearning help.

 

Send notifications when you update an element

Have you ever found a mistake in a page, note, assignment or test and had to notify everyone that you've made a change? Now you can send notifications automatically when you make a change. This isn't a default setting (as people don't want to be bombarded with notifications about every little change), so you need to untick the 'Minor edit' box before saving the change. itslearning will then take care of the rest.

 

In elements with autosave, such as Pages, you'll find a Notify about changes button:

 

 

Corrections

In this release we have corrected more than 100 issues. Read this document to find out more about the most important (English only).

Check out:

• itslearning presentations
• Schoolforum
• Take our quiz - win an iPad

Visit itslearning at Online Educa at stand B63 in the sponsors hall.

itslearning has a new look!

You've probably noticed the new colours, icons and menus already? Read all about the design refresh in this article.

Access information through the person profile

To all learners: Your assessments are now only a click away. Before this update you had to enter each course to see your assessments. Now you can simply click your name in the personal menu to access your assessments, attendance and behaviour remarks.

See your relations to other users

When clicking another person's name – for example in course lists and assignment overview – his profile opens. To make it easier to distinguish users, the profile now shows any courses you have in common, and how you are related. For example: "Frank Beck is your teacher in the following courses: History and English".

New language: Brazilian Portuguese

Olá Brasil! Our language package now includes Brazilian Portuguese. To change the itslearning interface language go to My settings >> Customise itslearning. We now support British English, American English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian bokmal, Norwegian nynorsk, Swedish, Danish, and Brazilian Portuguese.

Discussions

To make it easier to follow discussions, new posts and threads will now appear in the notification content block.

Attendance change log

Teachers can now view the attendance change log. Previously, this information was available to mentors and headteachers only. You'll find the log in Status and follow-up >> Attendance >> Reports >> Term report.

CAS support

CAS (Central Authentication Service), originally an authentication system created by Yale University to provide a trusted way for applications to authenticate users, is now supported in itslearning. Read more about CAS. This service can be enabled on request.

Entrée support

Entree is an authentication system created by Kennisnet to provide a trusted way for an application to authenticate a user. It is used throughout the Netherlands and is supported by over 40 content providers. itslearning will act as an Entree identity provider so that users can access 3rd party content after being authenticated into itslearning. This service can be enabled on request.

Updated app library

The app library is revamped. Read more in this press release.

Corrections

In this release we have corrected more than 50 issues. Read this document to find out more (English only).

Release webinar

Watch our release webinar to find out more about the release:

Read more about the conference and see our exciting presentations here

Multimedia made easy

Many teachers and students use media elements such as video, sound and animations as part of teaching material or assignment answers. In this release we have improved the user experience around embedding and previewing of multimedia objects – both external content and content made with the inbuilt video recorder. This makes it a lot easier to use video files in content that is created with the rich-text editor.

So, what have we done? First of all, the Link to my file option in the Insert menu in the rich-text editor has been renamed to File from my web files.

More interesting, the My files pop-up window that appears when you click File from my web files has been changed. It now contains tools to link, embed and preview files. But what do the different icons do?

• Link icon: Inserts an URL with a link to the file.
• Embed icon: Embeds the video file into your content (which means that you see a player in the element to which the video is added). Note that if the icon looks like this:  the file type cannot be embedded.
• Preview icon: Opens a new page for previewing and setting the dimensions of the videos you're embedding (see screen shot below).

What file formats are supported?
There's a wide range of file formats available, but we have decided to support the most common file types used for web.

• Files from the inbuilt video recorder
• Apple QuickTime Movie (mov)
• Windows Media Video File (wmv)
• Flash Video File (flv)
• Shockwave Flash Movie (swf)

As of now, file types such as mp3, avi, mpg and mp4 cannot be embedded.

Keep up to date with your courses

To make it easier to keep up to date with your courses a new content block for notifying you about changes and updates in courses is now available on My dashboard and the course and hierarchy dashboards.

RSS subscriptions
Do you want to keep up to date without logging on? Why not subscribe to the RSS feed in Outlook, on your phone or your preferred RSS reader? Click the RSS icon in top left corner to subscribe. Below is an example from Microsoft Outlook.

Customise the notification content block
Want to customise the content block? Dashboard administrators (hierarchy and My dashboard) are allowed to edit:

• block title
• whether to show updates from all courses or just favourite courses
• how many items to show per page

What notifications do you need?
What notifications would you like to receive? Click beta feedback box at the bottom of the content block to give us your feedback!

Improvements to the course and project content block
Previously, changes in the course content block (the one with the list of courses) was highlighted in red. The changes are now based on the course notification content block. It only shows a change if a notification has been given to the current user since the user's last visit to the course. A blue dot next to the course name indicates that it was updated since your last visit. The same changes apply to the project content block.

Planner

Custom fields in planner
Before this release you could inline edit custom lesson fields in the planner. Now it's also possible to edit custom fields from the edit lesson page.

More filter options for the planner content block
In the Show drop-down in the planner, students can now decide to show plans within a period of time (for example a week) to give a better overview. New options are:

• "Next week": shows the plan for the current week
• "Next two weeks": shows the plans for the current week and next week

Curriculum

Our users in the US and the Netherlands will now find new learning objectives in the learning objective libraries. The learning objectives are ready to import into plans and course elements with a few clicks of the mouse.

Common Core Curriculum for the USA
Common Core's Curriculum Maps translate the new Common Core State Standards for Kindergarten through 12th grade into unit maps that teachers can use to plan their year, craft their own more detailed curriculum, and create lesson plans. They were written by public school teachers for public school teachers.

Curriculum for Dutch vocational education
Dutch users will now find the new 2011 curriculum for Dutch vocational education (BVE) in the learning objective library.

Attendance

Some of our users have suggested that it should be possible for mentors to comment on day and session attendance. We thought it was a good idea, and this has now been implemented in the attendance system. For ease of use, the comments on day/session attendance behave exactly similar to hour remarks. The mentor can decide if the comment should be visible for the learner.

Do you have an idea? Please submit it in our idea portal!

Task list deadline

Before this update the deadlines on tasks appeared with both weeks and days. To make the deadline format consistent throughout the platform it now only shows days until deadline.

Shibboleth

We have added support for single sign-on through non-federated Shibboleth 1.3r.

Procapita: Users with no username or password

Sites using the Procapita (MIS) integration experienced that users without username and password were imported to itslearning. Procapita has updated their solution, and users without username and password are no longer imported.

IST Extens and IST SATS

It's now possible to export attendance, behaviour and assessment data to IST Extens and IST SATS.

API

More data is available in the API for apps. Administrators must approve apps that should have access to protected data from Administration >> Manage protected data for apps. This means that a school can allow an app to receive, for example, social security numbers or phone numbers.

Enhanced IMS-ES options for integration partners

The IMS-ES integration system has been improved. Third-party MIS/SIS vendors can now create/update Parents and Parent/Child relationships through the IMS-ES interface. To assist third- party vendors read existing groups from itslearning we have implemented the "readMembershipsForPerson" and "readMembershipsForGroup" methods.

Periods have been replaced with terms

In the assessment record (or grade book), periods have been replaced with terms. This article explains more about the change.

Miscellaneous updates and enhancements

Click to see a list of other minor updates and enhancements.

 Teacher Moliehi Sekese from Lesotho in Bergen, Norway.

Moliehi teaches English and science at Mamoeketsi Primary School in Lesotho – a small, low-income enclave completely surrounded by South Africa. In Lesotho, a country of 2 million people, about 40% of the population live below the international poverty line. According to UNAIDS, an estimated 24% of the adult population is infected with HIV/AIDS, (the third highest per population percentage in the world). However, an estimated 85% of the population over the age of 15 is literate. As such, Lesotho boasts one of the highest literacy rates in Africa, in part because Lesotho invests over 12% of its GDP in education.

Faith in technology despite few resources

Award winner
Moliehi Sekese won the Microsoft Innovative Education Forum's Educator's Choice award in 2009 for a school project about indigenous plants. She visited the itslearning user conference in 2011.

You can also read what Ann Michaelsen's students wrote about her in the article International guest visits our International English class.
At Mamoeketsi Primary School, the teacher is the only source of information for students, because text books, and even desks and chairs, are scarce. In fact, until recently, there was no electricity at the school, and Moliehi had to charge the laptops from home.

She was invited to the itslearning user conference in Bergen, Norway, in April. Here the teacher from one of the poorest countries of the world made a lasting impression on the teachers from one of the richest countries of the world.

Despite of having only two laptops available, Moliehi expressed strong faith in ICT in school. "I believe the use of technology creates better and more motivated students," she said. "Now we have two computers and electricity in my school – things we never dreamed of before. Now we can use them to the benefit of the children."

Help raising funds for Moliehi's school

The Norwegian teacher Ann Michaelsen met Moliehi Sekese at the Microsoft Innovative Education Forum Award. Ann and Moliehi stayed in contact and now Ann is gathering funds so Mamoeketsi Primary School can buy more computers, mobile phones and get an internet connection. If you want to contribute, please contact Ann at ann.s.michaelsen@sandvika.vgs.no.

Norwegian-based educational ICT provider itslearning announced today that it will shortly acquire majority ownership of the Dutch company Dactique. Both companies provide learning platforms and related products to customers in primary, secondary, vocational and higher education.

As a result of the deal, itslearning will establish a subsidiary in the Netherlands, called itslearning Nederland which will combine both Dactique and itslearning’s current Dutch operation. itslearning has operated in the Netherlands since 2004 through partners.

itslearning AS CEO Arne Bergby comments: “One of our main goals with this deal is to be able to serve our customer in the Netherlands better. We want to be closer to our customers on the ground so we can offer them even better service and support, and Dactique are known for their strong customer support and service – so joining forces will be advantageous for all.”

“We’re delighted with the deal,” says Quirijn Hamel, Managing Director, Dactique. “After years of fierce competition between the two companies, the new cooperation will give us more room for product development and innovation – which will be good news for educational institutions across the country.”

Currently, Dactique provides two products to the education sector in the Netherlands: Dapter, a learning and ePortfolio system; and Teletop an advanced learning platform. The two products have a combined total of around 400,000 users.

Operations will continue in Dactique’s facilities in Enschede, the Netherlands and the management team will remain the same. Dactique and itslearning will now work together to combine the best features of their two learning platforms, while continuing to develop Dapter.

The acquisition will consolidate itslearning AS’s position as one of the world’s leading learning platform providers with around 180 employees and millions of users.

For more information on itslearning, please visit www.itslearning.eu. For more information on Dactique please visit www.dactique.nl (in Dutch).

For more information, please contact:

Arne Bergby, itslearning CEO, Email: arne.bergby@itslearning.com, Phone: +47 9715 7095

Quirijn Hamel, Dactique Managing Director, Email: q.hamel@dactique.nl, Phone: +31 6 2047 7777

You can find your local itslearning press contact at www.itslearning.eu/press

Notes to editors

About itslearning
Headquartered in Bergen, Norway, itslearning has offices in Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and USA. More than 40% of itslearning’s resources are dedicated to product design and development.

About Dactique
Dactique provides a number of products and services to the Dutch education sector, including an advanced learning platform and an e-Portfolio solution. Founded in 2003, the company is headquartered in Enschede.

In a recent webinar, Russell talked about Todaysmeet, Vocaroo and Jing which are all free. They’re easy to use too – even for the non-technically minded.

Todaysmeet

About Russell Stannard
Russell Stannard runs teachertraining
videos.com which offers free training videos to teachers looking to incorporate technology into their teaching and learning. The site regularly gets 20,000 teachers visitors each month. Russell has won a number of awards for his work.

Todaysmeet is excellent for engaging students in a brainstorming session. It allows you to create an ‘online room’ where your students can chat together and add comments through on-screen messages. All you need to do is add a question or theme to get the discussion started. As an online tool, Todaysmeet is perfect for learning situations outside the classroom. And, if you’re giving a lecture or webinar, your users can ask questions and comment on the fly.

Vocaroo

Students are different and need different ways to express themselves, and sometimes it is good to use something other than written feedback than writing. That’s where Vocaroo comes in – a great tool that lets teachers and students give feedback through audio recordings. Let your students record sound, and allow them to express themselves in new ways.

Jing

A tool for recording what you do on the screen, Jing can be a real time-saver. But how can you use it in your teaching? The key is to use it to improve differentiation and appeal to different learning styles. Some students need visual feedback, and Jing makes it easier than ever before to record screen captures. Watch the webinar to see how to use Jing to comment on student homework.

Want to see the webinar? Click here to register and download.

The survey, conducted by itslearning in March 2011, asked 5805 teachers from six different countries how they involve parents in education – and what could be done to improve parental engagement in school. Unsurprisingly, 75% of teachers rated parental engagement as either ‘important’ or ‘very important’ for the success of a child’s education.

However, 44% said they would like to communicate with parents more, citing a lack of time or lack of communication channel as the reason that they didn’t involve parents more.

Increasing communication with parent in education

According to Morten Fahlvik, Research Manager at itslearning, the survey shows that most teachers speak to parents at least once a semester. But Morten also argues that communication has to occur more often if parental involvement is to be really effective. itslearning’s parent portal could be the answer.

“Many teachers use a mix of old and new technologies to communicate with parents,” Morten explains. “But none of them are specifically designed for the task – and as a result, they all have their drawbacks. For example, 46% of teachers email each of their students’ parents at least once a month. Writing this amount of email is time-consuming, especially as one email to 20 or more parents usually results in ten or more replies that have to be dealt with individually. Teachers want a tool that will improve the flow of information and reduce their workload.”

How do teachers currently communicate with parents?

The survey shows that teachers communicate with parents in different ways.

• Email (used by 46% of teachers at least once a month)
• Learning platform (46%)
• Telephone (44%)
• Text/SMS (37%)
• School website (31%)
• Face-to-face meeting (27%)
• Letter (24%)

Removing the barriers to better parental involvement

In the survey, 71% of teachers said they felt a parent portal connected to their school learning platform could help improve parent involvement at their school.

Launched last year, the itslearning parent portal gives parents access to a secure webpage that gives them information about their child’s education – such as grades and attendance. Much of the information is updated automatically, saving teachers valuable time, and teachers can also add specific information about individual students as required.

Find out more

Read the press release
Find out more about the itslearning parent portal
Read how one primary school in Norway is succeeding with the parent portal

Time-saving improvements to the attendance, assessment and behaviour system

Do you use systems other than itslearning to manage attendance, assessment and behaviour? You can now use itslearning's built-in systems and save money on your software expenses. The last couple of releases we have focused on increasing the efficiency of our attendance, behaviour and assessment systems. Read more…

Planner and progress report

The planner is now easier to work with. In order to help teachers get started with the planner, we have now added a hideable tip box on the planner page with a link to the help system. Also, when working with the planner, all changes are now saved in the background. Read more…

Miscellaneous news and enhancements

Administrators can now select which skin will be used by different users at their site, so they can differentiate the look and feel between schools and different age groups. There's even a new skin called Animal Misfits.

Many users want to use itslearning on their mobile devices. Users logging on with a mobile device – such as an iPhone or Android phone – can now use the simple editor to when working in itslearning. (The rich-text editor does not support mobile devices.) This gives mobile users almost all the same functionality as computer users. Read more…

Staff can view logs
It is now possible for staff to view logs for attendance, behaviour and final course assessments. The logs contain information about when the remark was last changed and what was changed. This is important for staff so that they can control and document changes.

Group filter on reports
Course teachers can now filter behaviour and attendance reports according to course groups.

Attendance

Correct attendance records for deleted courses and courses with attendance disabled
Attendance records are now correctly implemented in courses which have been deleted and courses with attendance disabled.

Ability to change submitted attendance
A new option that allows teachers to change submitted attendance is now available in the Workflow settings. This means they can correct mistakes and make alterations.

Teachers and mentors can delete remarks
Teachers and mentors now have the option to delete a comment from an attendance remark. To delete a comment, click the Delete icon.

Better information with tooltips
Tooltips are now included in the week report table in the attendance system. This gives users a quick explanation of the table contents.

Select multiple students when keeping day absence
To make attendance keeping easier, it is now possible to select more than one student when registering day absence.

Separate day remarks from hour remarks
Previously, when a learner, teacher or supervisor viewed a learner's course absence report, it was not possible to see which absences were a result of an hour absence or automatically generated as a result of a day absence. To improve this, we have added an icon next to the date on day absences, a tooltip on the icon and a help text beneath the attendance grid.

Supervisors can no longer complete multiple weeks
It is no longer possible for supervisors to complete multiple weeks in the attendance report. But why have we removed this feature? To keep the workflow flowing, it is necessary that supervisors follow-up on a weekly basis. Based on the workflow settings, parent, students and external systems will see the attendance when the week is completed. For example, if the mentor does this once a month, students and parents will only get a monthly update, instead of a weekly overview.

Better attendance report overview
We’ve shortened the list of hierarchies in the attendance report overview. The user can choose to see the full list of the hierarchies by clicking a link.

Breadcrumbs
The breadcrumbs, or navigation paths, now look the same throughout the attendance mentor and attendance course overviews.

"Send reminder" text enhancement
The texts in the Send reminder messages that were sent from the attendance system have been enhanced.

Behaviour

New behaviour content block
Behaviour remarks that are set as visible to parents and/or learners, are shown on the parent’s/learner’s dashboard. The content block is automatically added to the summary dashboard.

Easier to read behaviour reports
The readability of the behaviour report overview has been improved by giving the term assessment columns a different colour. It should now be easy to separate behaviour remarks from the term assessment A link to the online help is also added to this page.

Change behaviour assignments from the behaviour overview report
It is now possible for supervisors to change the behaviour grade directly from the behaviour overview report. This means that they don't have to go through the detailed report, for example, when assessing a number of learners at once.

More efficient behaviour assessment
Mentors can now assess a number of learners in the behaviour overview.

Decide who sees the behaviour remarks
Users have told us that they would like the behaviour remark visibility to be set to "Visible to learner" by default. We agree, but to make everyone happy we have created a configurable setting in Administration >> Terms.

Assessment

Connect final term assessments to terms
Course assessments for terms are now connected to the "Use terms in grade book" setting. Previously, the Course assessment was an option when adding/editing a term, even though "Use terms in grade book" was not enabled on Site.

Show or hide average or mean grades
It is now possible to choose whether to show or hide the average and count in personal grade book for teachers as well. The setting affects the grade book overview page, grade book personal page and the assignment report.

Getting started with the planner made easy
In order to help teachers get started with the planner, we have now added a hideable tip box on the planner page with a link to the help system.

Planner saves automatically as you work
When working with the planner, all changes are now saved automatically as you work. For the user, this means that the browser will keep the position the user was working in, and not jump back to the top of the page when the user adds a new lesson or topic.

Inline lesson date editor
It is now possible to set the date for a lesson directly from the planner grid. In previous versions you had to go into each lesson to set the date.

Progress report

Progress report: Now with inactive tasks
Inactive tasks now appear in the progress report as short grey bars. They change status to Open (tall grey bar) when the teacher activates them. This gives students a clear impression of their overall status in the course, even if the teacher hasn't activated all the activities.

Progress report: Tests with multiple attempts
In a test with multiple attempts where the best attempt counts, the progress report always shows it as Completed after the first attempt. Previously, the status reverted to "In progress" when the student began a new attempt.

Progress report: Change the text in the progress report
The text "An activity is completed when it is submitted" was incorrect and is now removed. Tests may also require a specific score in order for it to be complete, and assignments are based on the submission status.

Assign different interfaces and skins to different users and groups
Administrators can now select which skin will be used by different users at their site, so they can differentiate the look and feel between schools and different age groups. In addition to the standard XP interface, the early learner interface and intermediate interface, we've also added a new interface called Animal Misfits. This new option is available in profiles and policies.

Better copy-and-move feature in courses
We have improved the drop-down list that appears when you are copying or moving elements in a course. Previously, all archived and active courses were listed, but now the drop-down list shows your favourite courses first, then then other courses and archived courses.

Also, when moving elements the current course or project is now set as the default target location.

Browser support
itslearning is tested in the most common browsers which, right now, are the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and Safari. Our aim is to support new versions of browsers within 6 months of the browser being released.

Terms: No Add button if there are no terms to add
The Add button is now disabled if no terms have been defined or if no more terms are available to add.

Terms: Asynchronous terms completion
Previously, terms completion was effective immediately after the user made a change. The completion of terms is now made asynchronously. This means that the Complete term button has been reintroduced, and is active from the last week of the term.

User feedback: Help us improve!
Do you want to help us improve our features? Users with suggestions for improving a feature can now send a message directly to the itslearning product management team from itslearning. A message will appear in the elements that we want your feedback on.

SCORM: More space when viewing SCORM content
If a teacher manually links to SCORM content, it is now possible to hide the header information by selecting SCORM as the Communication setting for the link.

Tests: Test timer no longer stops
When taking a test, itslearning now counts from when the test was started, and the timer no longer pauses if the student leaves the test.

Tests: Superfluous word removed
When adding or editing a test the word "or" appeared between the Save and Cancel buttons. "or" has now been removed.

Assignments: Better assignment report overview
To make it easier to see an overview of assignment reports, we’ve added paging to the assignment report page in courses.

Rich-text editor: Relative links solves issues with site shortnames
Links to elements in itslearning in the rich-text editor are now automatically made relative to avoid issues with site shortnames. For example, links like https://school.itslearning.com/weblink/weblink.aspx?weblinkid=12 are shortened to /weblink/weblink.aspx?weblinkid=12.

This addresses the issue where a user is logged out from itslearning when clicking a link.

Workflow: Workflow page now has add and save buttons
To prevent changes from being instant, Add and Save buttons have been added to the workflow page.

Integrations: Shibboleth - the SAML2 client now supports attribute encryption
The SAML2 client used by itslearning now to supports attribute encryption, enabling support for Shibboleth 2.

Integrations: View logs for an IMS ES integration
Administrators with permission to manage enterprise web services can now view the logs from an integration in order to investigate issues and faults, and see the changes from one import to another. It is also possible to select the integration for specific sites, and filter the logs from an integration.

Integrations: View details for an IMS ES log message
Administrators can now view the details of an IMS ES integration message.

itslearning trademark and logo has changed
itslearning has changed the spelling of the brand name from "it's learning" to "itslearning". All logos and trademarks have been adapted to the new spelling.

Corrections

We have corrected quite a few issues in this release, and here are the most important:

SCORM 2004 does not save completed status
Even if a score was 100% on a SCORM test, the status was still "Incomplete" when it should have been "Complete". This has now been addressed.

Landing Page setting don't work on school
Setting the landing page to "School" for a student did not work. The landing page was still the main dashboard. This has now been addressed.

Server error when moving hierarchies
Some of our users experienced server errors when trying to move hierarchies. This has now been addressed.

Incorrect sorting of plans on dashboards
In the planner drop-down list on the dashboard the lessons appeared in incorrect topics. This has now been addressed.

Start URLs didn't work when set by policies
If you set start URL in a policy it did not work. This has now been addressed.

eLogin and school dashboard
Students that logged in with eLogin did not land on the school dashboard. This has now been addressed.

Deleted parents and mentors
Deleted parents were still visible to mentors in the mentor overview. This has now been addressed.

Assignments and "Next" button
Some teachers experienced that the "Next" button did not work when using groups in assignments. This has now been addressed.

Calendar links on dashboards
Links added in calendar entries did not appear in dashboards. This has now been addressed.

Double top frame
If a course was clicked in the web parts the top frame appeared twice. This has now been addressed.

Problem with links in Early learner courses
Even if a number of different links were added to an early learner course, all links appeared the same. This has now been addressed.

Choose different skins for individual users or groups

To make sure the itslearning experience is tailored to the individual user, administrators can now decide what skin different people use.

A skin is a custom graphical appearance in itslearning. As well as looking different, it’s possible to choose skins with fewer buttons and functionality – and so make the user experience simpler for students who need it. Below is an example of the new Animal Misfits skin.

Time-saving improvements to the attendance, assessment and behaviour system

Do you use systems other than itslearning for managing attendance, assessment and behaviour? Consider using itslearning's built-in systems instead! The last couple of releases we have focused on increasing the efficiency of the attendance, behaviour and assessment systems. In this version we present the following news:

• You can now set up alternating timetables (A-B weeks)
• Teachers can change kept attendance (until the mentor has approved it)
• Comments to attendance remarks can now be deleted
• It is now possible to select more than one student when registering day absence.
• It is now possible to separate day absence from hour absence in the attendance report
• Mentors can set behaviour remarks from the behaviour overview

Read more…

Enhanced planner

The planner is now easier to work with. In order to help teachers get started with the planner, we have now added a hideable tip box on the planner page with a link to the help system. Also, when working with the planner, all changes are now saved in the background.

Read more…

Better support for itslearning when using mobile devices

The rich-text editor in itslearning does not support mobile devices. Users logging on with a mobile device – such as an iPhone or Android phone – now get the simple editor instead of rich-text editor in several places in itslearning.

Other news

We’ve got lots of other updates, too. The technically inclined can visit our product blog to read all the details about the release.

In what ways can you benefit from integrating your content with the itslearning platform? According to itslearning’s Director of Global Sales and Services John Arthur Berg, it’s easy to get started – and a partnership can be lucrative, even for vendors with small applications.

"itslearning has more than 2 million users, and the potential in our user mass, combined with our tools for handling Digital Rights Management (DRM) and licensing, can make it profitable to partner with us," says John Arthur.

Build on itslearning’s existing framework

If you’re building a standalone app, as well as developing the core functionality of the app itself, you also have to deal with user provisioning, authentication and globalisation and localisation. But if you integrate with itslearning, you get a lot of this for free.

"A feature many vendors find interesting is our localisation support. You might start by adding your tool in your native language. But we have users in eight additional countries, if you choose to add support for other languages, itslearning can help you reach new markets."

External applications can also benefit from itslearning’s assignment settings – including deadlines, mandatory/not mandatory, visible to, visible for, assessment scales and submission statuses. By connecting to these statuses, the activities from your tools will be visible in itslearning’s task lists, calendar, reports, grade books and parent portal.

itslearning provides an excellent display window for your application, but it is up to you to actually sell your products. However, John Arthur is clear that itslearning does what they can to market your application – and that all applications are treated equal.

"Since we’re an open platform, we have to be careful about not giving vendors competitive advantage or exclusivity. But if you as a vendor agree, we can bundle your tool with itslearning in a tender process," John Arthur explains.

Let itslearning increase the value of your application

"If a teacher can insert a video about a current news event directly into a test, the resource has gone from being a good bit of TV footage to something more: a tool for learning," says John Arthur.

No additional or hidden fees

itslearning’s strategy is to be an open platform, as opposed to many other companies that demand a license or partner fee before vendors are allowed to use their APIs.

At itslearning, anyone can access the developer portal, their own developers, APIs and readily available SDKs – free of charge. The only thing you need is a minimum of programming skills and a place to upload your application.

Interesting market

But is there a market for third-party tools in the education segment? John Arthur believes the market is more open than most people think.

"It’s an interesting market, definitely. All over the world, the education sector spends huge sums on content. And in the future, this market will most likely expand as more schools and universities look to reduce paper and textbook costs by buying more digital content. Right now, the highest earning third-party tool in itslearning makes over €600,000 a year," says John Arthur.

Will your idea sell?

The sky is the limit when it comes to what kind of applications you can integrate with itslearning – and John Arthur already has a wish list of what he’d like to see developed.

"We really want to see good tools for video and real time collaboration, and tools for podcasts and wikis. Other tools that would be useful are a good Twitter integration, or a feed reader type of tool for the built-in editor in itslearning – this would really make communication for teachers and their students easier."

Perhaps higher education will take the challenge, and let their skilled students develop applications?

Oddvar Sunde teaches physics, mathematics and chemistry at Lister Upper Secondary School in Vest-Agder, Norway. He has used itslearning for approximately ten years – and during this time he has acquired valuable knowledge about how to use it efficiently. He has even won an award for his work, but what did he do to earn it?

Everyday teaching strategies

”I focus on the everyday use,” says Oddvar, who thinks it is important to engage the learners in order to get the most out of the learning platform. Simple things can make a difference, such as creating folders where learners can submit complete solutions to assignments. These folders have proved to be of invaluable help for fellow learners that are struggling with the subject.

Oddvar’s colleagues describe him as a solution-oriented teacher with advanced itslearning skills who sees possibilities rather than problems. On the basis of this, Oddvar was one of the winners of the Creative use of itslearning award at the 2010 Del & Bruk Conference in Sandvika, Norway.His learners are also allowed to assess their peers. If they have cooperated on a project, he gives them the opportunity to assess each other afterwards. The assessments are carried out anonymously with the survey tool – and Oddvar believes peer assessment encourages students to be more independent and motivated.

Practical work is published as assignments, often with learner-defined groups that let one learner hand in for the whole group. But for testing actual knowledge, Oddvar prefers the test tool.

“I think the interactive tests we create with the test tool are exciting because of the variation you can create with the many question types,” he explains. He likes to use free navigation – which means that the learners can navigate back and forth between the questions – and often uses penalties (a negative score) for incorrect answers, to prevent learners from trying to guess the correct answers.

Sharing resources with teachers and learners

“After tests I always provide feedback with a complete solution for the assignments,” says Oddvar. “When the school year is over, I gather these in a shared folder. This acts as a databank and other subject teachers can go in and use the content when they need it.”

Old tests are not forgotten. All tests are collected in a folder he calls “Test yourself folder”. Learners have full access, so they can take the tests as many times they like. This is a great method for students to repeat what has been taught during the year and proves invaluable when the exam is approaching.

He is also a valuable resource for other teachers – both at his own and other schools. He even let other teachers use the courses he creates.

External teaching tools

Oddvar says itslearning provides a very good overview because everything is gathered at one place. The many tools in itslearning – such as formula editor, tests, assignments and surveys – provide teachers with the aids they need to create good lessons. But if the built-in tools don’t suffice, he uses external tools that he integrates with itslearning. Like many other teachers, he uses Microsoft’s Excel, Word and PowerPoint on a regular basis. The forthcoming integration between Microsoft Office Web Applications and itslearning will make the everyday easier for Oddvar and other teachers who are dependent on Microsoft’s products and itslearning.

The minor updates include a new look and feel for content blocks, a fix that prevents the navigation tree from collapsing when new items are added, better information from itslearning to users and much more.

After the last release, the message system started to send messages to participants every time an assignment was edited. This error has now been fixed, and we sincerely apologise for any inconvenience the error caused.

Read more about the new features and changes in the entries below:

• Attendance, behaviour and assessment
• Better information to users
• Workflow, headteachers and supervisors
• Miscellaneous updates and corrections

Finally, we want to wish all our customers and users a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. There will be more exciting updates in 2011.

Attendance

We assume learners are present, unless told otherwise

After the release of the new attendance systems, there's been some confusion about marking learners "present". To clear things up: Presence is kept automatically – teachers and mentors don't have to do anything to mark learners as present. An information message reminding you of this now appears in the <Keep attendance interface.

Group absence remarks save time

It is now possible for teachers and mentors to add an absence remark for a group of participants. To do this, check the participants you want to add remarks about, and then set the absence remark at the top of the column.

Register absence directly from the attendance content block

We've added a "Register absence" link to the attendance content block, so learners and their parents can now register absence without having to go through the ePortfolio. Learners can also register their own absence from Status and follow-up >> Attendance in a course. This feature can be used to notify a teacher about planned absence, or provide reasons for unplanned absence.

Headteachers: Search for users on the attendance page

It is now possible for a headteacher to search for users on the keep attendance page. If a user is a headteacher for more than one organisation, the organisation drop down menu is shown instead of the organisation name.

The option to display term attendance

If attendance is disabled in Administration >> Edit global settings, attendance data is no longer displayed in the term details.

Behaviour

Let learners and parents see behaviour assessment in the content block

If a teacher or mentor has made behaviour assessments available for parents and/or learners, the assessments now appear in a new behaviour content block.

Choose what remarks the parents can see

When teachers and mentors add behaviour remarks, they can decide whether the remark should be visible to the learner's parents.

Easier commenting for mentors

To make the interface more efficient, we've changed the mentor's view of the behaviour overview. Mentors can now set behaviour remarks directly in a learner's behaviour overview page without having to click Add remark.

Behaviour overview for parents

On the parent dashboard, parents can now see a content block that shows all the behaviour incidents and achievements that have been flagged as visible to parents.

Selecting assessment categories for behaviour remarks

When adding a remark to a learner, teachers can select whether to connect the remark to one of the behaviour assessments in the term.

Completion of behaviour assessments

Mentors and headteachers can now set behaviour assessments as "complete for a term" from their respective interfaces.

Giving administrators more power to assess behaviour grades

Administrators can now enable and disable behaviour assessment grades, and define the number of behaviour grades to use.

Behaviour scales now available worldwide

Localised behaviour assessment scales are now available in all countries.

Assessment

Terms replace periods in grade book

Periods were introduced to permit teachers to place different course elements in different time periods. These have now been replaced by terms. Terms can be connected to a course, allowing teachers to create time periods based on school or site structures. The terms enable consistent and higher data quality across courses and support export of different periodised data.

There are benefits for the teachers, too. They will no longer have to decide which periods they should use for the grade book, and they can use different final assessments for terms as well as periodisation based on terms.

We are aware that you can't categorise the grade book by topic anymore, but this will be addressed in a future update. Terms are managed by administrators from Administration >> Terms.

Giving teachers the power to control final assessments

Teachers can now set and submit final term assessments in the grade book and submit final assessments of a course term.

We can now give users better information about updates, new features, critical bugs, scheduled downtime and more through an information box on the dashboard and log in pages. The information box appears at the top of the screen, and you can remove the message after you've read it. And as some information is only relevant to certain people, we can select which profiles can see the information box (such as administrators only, or administrators and teachers).

Tips in a box

In order to provide users with important information, we've introduced a new tip box. Most often, it will highlight new features or provide important information about a feature – such as the clarification of how to use of the attendance system (below). Clicking the Hide link in the top right corner hides the information and it won't appear again.

Better first visit page with newsletter options

There is now a newsletter opt-in for users when they log in for the first time, enabling them to decide if they want to receive different newsletters about itslearning (including tips, tricks, user stories, etc.). Only staff users (teachers and administrators) will see this page when they log in.

Users are automatically asked to update this information on a regular basis.

Google Analytics gives us more knowledge

Google Analytics tracking has been added to itslearning. Google Analytics can track information about screen resolution, browsers and operating systems – information that helps us design a better product, based on how people actually use it. The tracking is anonymous, and no personal information is tracked or stored. Google Analytics tracking is enabled for all sites by default, but it can be turned off by request.

Workflow

It is now possible for administrators to decide when different people (roles) see the attendance, behaviour and assessment information in different phases. This new feature is called "Workflow" and makes the workflow of a site smoother.

We have also prepared a solution that allows administrators to decide when the information is made available for external systems. (Note: this setting will not be functional until the API is ready.)

Let's illustrate how it works with a practical example: If you want the attendance to be visible for learners and parents in the course registration phase, click the Attendance tab, and check the boxes in front of "Learner" and "Parent". If you don't want attendance to be visible for learners and parents until the group registration phase, leave the boxes unchecked in the course registration phase, and check them in the next phase instead. This means that parents and learners will not be able to see the attendance until the teacher submits it to the mentor.

Workflow features can be found under Administration >> Workflow.

 Read more about workflow in the help!

Headteachers and supervisors

Introducing headteachers and supervisors

A "headteacher" (also known as school principal, headmaster or headmistress) is the most senior teacher and leader of a school. In itslearning, the headteacher role is responsible for monitoring the work of the mentors – such as attendance, behaviour and assessment overviews. Users who are assigned as headteachers will see a new Headteacher tab in the top menu. "Headteacher" is a dynamic term, and can be changed on site level to whatever name you want by clicking Administration >> Supervisors >> Settings.

"Supervisor" is a collective label for mentors and the new headteacher role. So, if a user is both a mentor and a headteacher, the Mentor and Headteacher tabs are replaced with a Supervisor tab, which contains the mentor and headteacher administration tools. Users who are only mentors or headteachers will get a mentor or headteacher tab respectively.

Administrators are allowed to manage both roles from the Supervisor page. Also note that the profile setting Manage mentors is now called Supervisor management.

Administrators can now assign headteachers

Administrators can now add headteachers to organisations from the supervisor page. When adding a user to the headteacher role, you get an organisation selector instead of the hierarchy selector. Only organisations that the user is a member of will show up.

Annoying tree menu collapse a thing of the past

We know that it was annoying that the course tree menu collapsed when new elements were added. This has now been changed, and the navigation tree stays open. This means users no longer have to manually navigate back to the folder from which the element was added.

Better privacy for course participants

To protect the privacy of course participants, reminders from the assignment tool are now sent as blind carbon copies (BCC). This prevents recipients from seeing the user names of other recipients.

Nicer look and feel for dashboards and content blocks

The dashboard and the content blocks now have a new look and feel. All content blocks now have a surrounding frame with shadow effect. Some content blocks also have a toolbar, as shown below.

Summary dashboard bypass for school administrators

It is now possible for teachers to manage the user summary dashboard. This enables school administrators to manage the user summary dashboard without involving a system administrator (the administrator's edits will only affect the hierarchy to which they are an administrator).

Users will only be able to manage the summary dashboards of the organisations to which they have administrative rights.

Give us feedback on the new progress report!

A beta label has been added to the bottom of the progress report 2.0 pages. Please let us know what you think about the functionality. We appreciate all comments – whether positive or negative.

We've moved the admin ILP settings

The individual learning plan settings have been separated from the mentor page, and can now be found in Administration >> Edit global settings >> Individual learning plans.

New last chance saloon for deleted terms

A new tab for terms has been created in the administration trash can. The tab contains deleted terms, and users can then decide whether to restore them or delete them permanently.

Version numbers are gone

As itslearning is a SaaS product and is continuously being enhanced, users will no longer see the version number for itslearning in browser and tab headings.

Corrections

We have made quite a few improvements and corrections since our last release. Here's a list of the most important.

Message when teacher changes status on an assignment
In our last update, we implemented a system for sending messages when changes were made to group assignments. As it turned out, messages were sent out to group participants every time teachers edited, commented or made changes to an assignment. This bug has now been fixed, and we sincerely apologise for any inconvenience the error caused.

Now, messages are only sent when teachers:

• edit the comment text field
• add or remove a comment file
• change the assessment status
• change the assessment

Messages are also sent when the assignment is a group assignment and when teachers:

• add or remove a group member
• edit the actual assignment answer
• add or remove the answer files (not comment files)

Calendar activities on children's dashboards
Because of an error, parents could see all the calendar activities that their children had in itslearning. Personal calendar activities should not be visible for parents. This has now been addressed.

Plagiarism duplicate
When a student submitted the same document to the same assignment twice before the deadline had passed, the plagiarism status indicated 100% or Failed. This has now been addressed.

Change score in open questions
If teachers had assessed an open question but later discovered that the score was wrong, they could not go back and change the score. This has now been addressed.

Early learner interface and Single Sign-On
Sites with local Single Sign-On solutions could not use the early learner interface. This has now been addressed.

Match questions and Internet Explorer 8
When creating a test in Internet Explorer 8.0 with matching questions and mathematical formulas, the content was presented as HTML code when the test was reviewed. This has now been addressed.

Math equations, Greek characters and tests
Teachers experienced errors if using math equations or Greek characters in tests. This has now been addressed.

Mentors could not access attendance
If a mentor was a member of only one course, and this course had attendance marks and terms, the mentor could not access the attendance data after the course had been deleted. This has now been addressed.

Editing of HTML files failed
When editing a HTML file in My web files, the text editor did not appear. This has now been addressed.

Links containing special characters now work
Content block links with "æ", "ø", "å" or other special characters in the link or label caused the link to appear incorrectly. This has now been addressed.

Messages not sent to people with apostrophe in username
In the internal messaging system, recipients with apostrophes in their username did not receive messages. This has now been addressed.

Formatting lost in editor
When entering HTML code in the source view of the editor, some of the formatting was lost. This has now been addressed.

Assessment portfolio – no access
If a learner had the ePortfolio setting "Who can access your ePortfolio?" set to "Only me", it was not possible for teachers to access the learner's assessment portfolio. This has now been addressed by adding a new setting for course administrators.

Safari: Context menu in rich-text editor
The context menu in the rich-text editor sometimes appeared outside the screen in the Safari browser. This has now been addressed.

Content blocks, file names and file uploading
When adding rich content blocks and files with special symbols, the files could not be opened or downloaded. This has now been addressed.

Sorting by name on personal report page
Sorting by name didn't work correctly on the personal report page. This has now been addressed.

Search for course didn't return results for teachers and learners
If learners or teachers clicked the Search tab >> User search and then Find course, no courses appeared in the results. This has now been addressed.

Adding participants to courses
Adding participants to a course from another course in the same organisation did not work. This has now been addressed.

Editing bulletins without titles
If the title of a bulletin consisted of a space only, it could not be edited. This has now been addressed.

Can't import parents' relationship to kids
Previously, it was not possible to import parent relationships to the parent dashboard. This has now been addressed.

Assessment visible in content block
Assessment marks were visible for parents in the parent dashboard and for learners in the "Completed activities" content block on "My Dashboard" even if the teacher hadn't chosen to publish them. This has now been addressed.

Most educational institutions recognise that itslearning is an excellent pedagogical tool. Now, with the acquisition of French learning platform provider InfoStance, we are developing a learning platform that combines pedagogical tools with advanced administration systems.

“We are very interested in the itslearning solution, but InfoStance has a good offer. It would be great to get a mix of the two solutions.” This was said by a potential itslearning customer in France just a few months ago. Soon, this customer – and many more around the globe – will be able to enjoy a learning platform that combines Norwegian pedagogical flair and French practicality.

InfoStance is the only company in France to have achieved full user adoption in Local Education Authorities, and its learning platform, ScolaStance, is known as an advanced school administrative system that integrates seamlessly with all other major school IT systems.

We’re working to create an even better learning platform by integrating the best elements of ScolaStance into itslearning – and our customers will see the first benefits by the end of next year.

Here are some of the ScolaStance features that we are looking to integrate:

• A resource booking tool for reserving rooms, projectors and other shared equipment
• An enhanced course schedule that’s integrated with timetable systems
• 360° overview of individual learners featuring grade books, ILPs, attendance and more
• Easy creation of dynamic student groups that can be used throughout the system
• Integrated website content management solutions for schools
• SDET 2.0 compliance and integration with French SSO and ENT systems

A new learning platform leader in France

itslearning announced that it had acquired a controlling share in InfoStance from French publishing giant Hachette Livre on 3 December 2010. The acquisition makes itslearning the largest learning platform provider in France in terms of users, with more than 900,000 users across the country.

Want to know more?

• Read the press release
• Find out more about InfoStance (in French)
• Contact your local press office

The video below (in Italian) shows students from Sophianum School in the Netherlands as they visit L.S.S. Cosimo De Giorgi in Italy.

What is the ELvis project?

Back in 1996, a group of European schools asked themselves how the internet and email will change the face of education. With true pioneering spirit, they set out to test early video conferencing equipment – which at the time took hours to set up – and looked into how email and web pages could be used for student collaboration.

Nearly 15 years on, these tools have been refined by itslearning, and schools in the Netherlands, the UK, Germany and Italy are using our learning platform to run the type of cross-border courses that the early ELvis pioneers could only dream off.

Tackling global warming

ELvis projects involve creating an online course that students in each of the participating schools can join. One example is a global warming project that combines science, technology, politics, geography, citizenship and history.

Students from the schools meet to plan, conduct experiments and share ideas. They then return to their schools and continue their collaboration online through the it’s learning messaging system, discussion forum, blog, ePortfolio and conferencing tools.

Another course, on the UK political elections, resulted in a number of mock manifestos on the ELvis YouTube site.

Why ELvis?

ELvis stands for the EuroLink Virtual International School. It should not be confused with Elvis Presley (although, a new ELvis course may well include a unit in which students record and share their own music videos in itslearning.)

Find out more on the ELvis website.

If you are one of the 2000 visitors at Online Educa in Berlin you are more than welcome to visit us at our stand B60 for a nice chat and demonstration of new possibilities in itslearning! We also hope that you won’t miss out on our customers exciting presentations:

Make It Simple! – Formative Evaluation for 21st Century Learners

Friday, December 3, 2010 - 14:30 - 16:00. Monika Solvig, Hop Secondary School, Norway

Enterprise Learning in Hordaland County, Norway – A Broad ICT for Learning Approach and Its Effects

Friday, December 3, 2010 - 14:15 - 16:00. Kjetil Brathetland, Hordaland County Administration, Norway

Thinking Big – How Small District Schools Can Create New Opportunities

Friday, December 3, 2010 - 16:30 - 18:00. Lisa Jane Stornes, Sauda Vidaregåande Skule and Nettskolen Rogaland, Norway

Win an iPad!

Take our general knowledge quiz. Beat the itslearning expert and you could win an iPad.
Eurovision Song Contest. Politics. Capital cities. Pelé. The Beatles...are you up for the challenge?

You visit itslearning at ONLINE EDUCA at stand B60 in Foyer Potsdam

Online Educa Berlin takes place at:

Hotel InterContinental Berlin:
Budapester Str. 2
10787 Berlin
Germany

itslearning was present at the Del & Bruk Conference at Sandvika Upper Secondary School in Norway on 17 November to hand out prizes to teachers who had distinguished themselves with creative use of itslearning. All nominees are teachers who stand out as examples for colleagues and learners – and as true everyday heroes, we think they deserve extra appreciation for their work.

The award was created by the Centre for ICT in Education, Akershus County Municipality, itslearning and Microsoft, and is divided into two categories: Creative Use of itslearning; the other for Creative ICT Educators. The newly created award had a fantastic response from all over Norway, and there were 40 nominations in all. Six nominees were short-listed for the Creative Use of itslearning Award – and the best three won an iPad.

And the nominees are …

All six nominees on the shortlist were invited to the Del & Bruk Conference, where they got to demonstrate their skills to other conference participants. The six schools in the “Creative Use of itslearning” category were:

Arstad Primary School represented by Inger Skjøstad
The school has developed a creative way to use individual learning plans as a tool in ongoing evaluation. The project actively involves teachers, form teachers, pupils and parents.

Risenga Lower Secondary School represented by Elin Måge
Elin – a self-proclaimed it’s learning addict – creates interest in itslearning by publishing engaging videos, games, links, music and files on a regular basis, and she shares what she creates with other teachers.

Lister Upper Secondary School represented by Oddvar Sunde
Oddvar has created a teaching method for scientific subjects that uses itslearning to its full potential. Oddvar often shares assignments and answers with teachers and learners – both at his own and other schools.

Sandvika Upper Secondary School represented by Kjersti Engelstad Stokke
Kjersti encourages her students to use a number of tools, including the itslearning discussion forum, to plan their education.

Rådalslien School represented by Jonny Eriksen
Jonny has created an easily transmissible ICT introduction course for eighth-grade pupils.

Hop Lower Secondary School represented by Monika Solvig
Monika likes to play with the pupils’ curiosity and is described as innovative in everything she does as a teacher. She shares her knowledge and what she creates with other teachers.

Tough jury decision

About the Del & Bruk Conference

“Del & Bruk” (Norwegian for “Share & Use”) is an online network for teachers, educators, researchers, librarians and others with an interest in social webs, ICT and schooling. Established in early 2009 by Ingunn Kjøl Wiig, a teacher from Sandvika Upper Secondary School, the network currently has over 6,000 members. Their motto is “Share what you have, use what you get”.

http://delogbruk.ning.com The jury was compromised of Vibeke Kløvstad from the Centre for ICT in Education, Ann Michaelsen from Sandvika Upper Secondary School, Bengt Jacobsen from Akershus County Municipality, Jan Helge Luth from Microsoft and Nils Viken from itslearning.

“The decision was really tough,” says Nils Viken. “We were interested in nominations that showed innovative use of ICT – such as software, tools and Web 2.0 technology – but they also had to really engage pupils. We also looked for projects that are easily transferrable to other teachers, schools or organisations.”

Using these criteria, the jury chose Elin Måge, Oddvar Sunde and Jonny Eriksen to receive iPads on behalf of their schools. Congratulations to them all!

Best ICT educators

The winners of the Creative ICT Educator category were Stovner Upper Secondary School represented by Magnus Sandberg and Sandvika Upper Secondary School represented by Åsmund Hanevik. The winners are invited to participate in the Microsoft Innovative Teachers Conference in Moscow in 2011.

12th April 2010, Bergen, Norway – Microsoft and itslearning, an international learning platform provider, today signed a Memorandum of Understanding to improve products and services that will transform teaching methods and advance next-generation learning. The agreement represents the first Education Partner Alliance where the Microsoft cloud computing services are adopted to develop a fully cloud based, integrated offering to the education sector.

Under the agreement itslearning will integrate Microsoft Outlook Live, SharePoint Online and Office Web Applications into their education platform. This means itslearning can now deliver the best suite of online communication tools to improve productivity and collaboration in education. Students and teachers will be able to securely upload, easily share, and collaborate on Office documents from anywhere with internet access, including mobile devices.

Arne Bergby, CEO, itslearning said “itslearning has chosen Microsoft's cloud services for education. All future customers will benefit from Outlook Live and Microsoft’s web applications and we will build a migration plan for existing users to move to the Microsoft solution over the coming months. We took this decision because students and teachers are familiar with Microsoft’s rich, high-quality communications products which will keep up with their changing needs. Microsoft not only provides the best platform, but is the best partner for itslearning because it is an enterprise company which has experience with large organizations and has a strong heritage in working with local authorities and school districts.”

Mark East, General Manager, Microsoft Education said “We are delighted that it's learning have decided to integrate the Microsoft platform and partner with us to provide future customers the best learning experiences. As students become increasingly tech-savvy at a younger age and demand more technology services from their schools, we believe that our technology offers the familiar, rich solutions and flexible platform that will best prepare them for the workforce.”

About it’s learning

itslearning is an international learning platform provider with over two million users in primary and secondary schools, as well as Further and Higher Education. The company is represented in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and USA. With more than 40% of its resources involved in design and development, itslearning invests in the future. The company's goal is to offer the best learning platform worldwide and to be the most innovative organisation within the educational market.

Contact

Microsoft: Matthew Fox, Western Europe Education, +44  118 90 94 929, mfox@microsoft.com

PR Conatact: Charlie Meredith-Hardy,Webershandwick, +44 (207) 067 064, cmeredith-hardy@webershandwick.com

itslearning: Arne Bergby, CEO, +47 971 57 095, arne.bergby@itslearning.com

What is Outlook Live?

Microsoft Outlook Live is based on the Microsoft Exchange Online, the market-leader in business email, calendaring, and voicemail. With Outlook Live, teachers and students get the familiar, intuitive Outlook user experience, whether on a PC with the Outlook desktop client or through a browser with Outlook Web Access, or on mobile phones.

Live@edu currently serves more than 30 million users in 129 countries.

What are Office Web Applications?

Microsoft Office Web Applications are new web-based tools that extend the Microsoft Office 2010 experience to a supported browser. They are online companions to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote that enable users to view, do light editing, and share Office documents from virtually anywhere.

“The recognition of our first BESSIE Award suggests that our individual learning platform will have a powerful impact on both teaching and learning in American schools,” said Jon Bower, President of itslearning, inc. “Our platform provides uniquely easy-to-use tools and resources to deliver personalized learning experiences. When we provide a platform for educators that allows them to individualize instruction, we expect that their students will become more engaged and achieve greater academic success.”

The BESSIE Awards target innovative and content-rich programs and websites that provide parents and teachers with the technology to foster educational excellence. Winners are selected from titles submitted by publishers around the world. “We are very pleased to announce itslearning as a winner in this year’s award program. Our organization provides the finest computer education services and product recommendations for students and educators and we believe that itslearning has proven itself as a stand-out product,” said Marie Karr, Editor of ComputED Gazette.

A complete list of the 2010 BESSIE Award Winners can be found at http://computedgazette.com/page5.html.

We are also proud to release a brand new attendance system for all customers, a new progress report and a number of new features and improvements to the dashboards. Click the links below to read more about the news!

• We make the start of the school year easier!
• New attendance system
• Dashboards and parents – new features
• New progress report and completion criteria
• Miscellaneous other news and changes