Announcing eLocker 2 for iOS

Upcoming Studywiz product developments

Our programmers are going full steam ahead, with lots of new Studywiz developments on their way.

Last month we released Studywiz 9.4.5 which included improvements to the Assignment and Resource Activities, and introduced a new time saving feature called Quick Create. We also introduced the first iteration of our marking interface module for tracking and sharing assessment information.

9.4.5 has been a major release and the feedback we’ve had is that users really like the new usability and tools. However our developers are not slowing down and we’re now in the final stages of testing a new update which will, amongst other things, introduce Quick Create to Studywiz Primary so that educators using those interfaces can also enjoy the new time saving way of authoring Activities.

For those using iOS devices, you’ll want to check out our soon-to-be-released update to the Mobile eLocker app. This update will bring native iPad support and a number of improvements such as the ability to open files in other applications and send files from supported 3rd party apps to your own eLocker and Shared eLockers. Studywiz eLockers are a great way to share learning materials with students on a class and personalised basis. Whether you’re using iOS devices in a 1-1 environment or simply making use of your own personal device, this app is well worth installing. Follow us on Twitter to be notified when this free app is available for download from the Apple App Store.

Finally, our marking interface module is being updated and will be available after summer with new features making it possible to use it for parental reporting. As part of this we are working with Bryanston School to develop a meaningful interface to make it easier for teachers to write formative and summative comments whilst having historical data and dialogue readily at hand. We’re very excited about the possibilities that this new marking interface version will offer schools for assessment, feedback and parental reporting.
2011 is turning out to be an exciting and productive year at Studywiz and we hope that you enjoy the new tools and products.

Season’s Greetings from all the team at Studywiz!

We have been extremely busy over the past six months, and are all looking forward to a very exciting 2011. The team has been working overtime to put the finishing touches on 9.4.5, and the response to our new marking module has been fantastic!

It’s still not too late to order the marking module and receive the bundle discount/priority update, so if you are interested, please let us know!

Our move to the new office in Melbourne is also complete, so please note our new address AND our new Accounts / General Enquiries number:

Suite1, Level 2/55 Walsh Street
West Melbourne VIC 3003
ph: +61 3 9328 8237
fax: +61 3 9329 0193

We have some very exciting new development initiatives planned for the new year, and are looking forward to continuing to work with and support your school!

Wishing you all a happy and safe new year!

All the best from the Studywiz Team.

Handheld Pilot Program Shows Early Success with Studywiz!

Fulton County Schools, USA are piloting a handheld computing program using the iPod touch combined with Studywiz Spark and are already seeing the benefits. “Handheld devices reach children where they are and engage their playful nature while in the classroom,” said Kathy Politis, Director of Instructional Technology “We’re seeing improved student engagement”.

The pilot program gives students access to iPods during class time, and Studywiz allows teachers to distribute content to the students for different classes. “We believe the students will study more if they find it enjoyable,” said Teacher Mark Schuler of Roswell High School “We’re  designing – not re-inventing – the wheel for this generation of learners. It’s the way these kids are wired.”

Fulton County Schools now have a third school getting involved with the program and many more of their schools are now interested in joining the program.

Original Article: Handheld pilot program shows early success.

Studywiz 9.4.5 coming soon to a school near you!

The Studywiz developers are working furiously to get the finishing touches ready for the release of Studywiz 9.4.5 in October!

With this release come some features requested by our long time users, including Quick Create and Crumbtrails, and overhauls of existing features such as FastFile and Assignment.

Quick Create – Users can now create new activities from any screen in Studywiz and your choice of activity is never more than one click away. Quick Create remembers your location and creates the new activity there by default, but also allows you to change the location as required. Quick Create dramatically speeds up the time it takes to create a Studywiz Activity so if you need to get a quick eBulletin out to your class, with Quick Create your students will be reading it within just a few seconds.

Crumbtrails – Crumbtrails help you to navigate through your class folder hierarchy and ensure you will never get lost again. Even when you are editing an activity you can see exactly which class and folder it is assigned to and you’ll be able to easily jump back to the class page.

FastFile – Upload any file quickly and easily in just two steps. Plus FastFile now gives you the ability to upload multiple files simultaneously.

Assignment – Improvements to the Assignment feature include

• a new interface, making it easier for teachers to manage and students to use
• better submission process for students
• improved tracking of student submissions
• easy and quick submission grading and commenting
• integration with Studywiz marking module

Studywiz marking interface

The big news though, is that with 9.4.5 comes integration with Studywiz marking interface. Set to revolutionise grading throughout schools, the marking interface is an add-on feature that can be purchased to work in conjunction with Studywiz. For those wanting to see it firsthand there will be demo accounts available shortly, so email your interest to clientservices@studywiz.com and we’ll get back to you with more info.

Geelong College share their Studywiz experience!

By Kim Johnstone, Prep School eLearning Leader, and Kristina Zeravica, Year 7 & 8 Studywiz Support Staff

In today’s classrooms, technology plays a major role in engaging students in learning. The Geelong College Middle School has introduced virtual learning environment, Studywiz, to enrich its teaching and learning programs, with the intention of engaging the entire school community in learning. Studywiz is a contemporary, portable, personalised Learning platform that provides benefits for students, teachers and parents. Studywiz gives students all the tools they need to succeed in the classroom and provides an efficient and effective means for distribution and collection of student work. Collaborative learning is a major focus of Studywiz, with teachers able to engage students using features such as calendars, chats, discussions, games, and galleries.

It can auto-grade certain activities and records all student interactions with the program. Studywiz can be accessed from any internet connection in the world, and parents are notified electronically when their child logs on. These features and functionalities make it easier for parents to take an active role in their child’s education.

Coordinator of E-Learning at the Preparatory School, and Year 6 teacher, Miss Kim Johnson, said Studywiz makes connecting home and school easy, with students able to share their work with parents and family members. “My Year 6 students, undertaking the Media unit, find Studywiz extremely important and useful,” Kim said. “They can share the radio stories they create at school with their family, as well as the stories created by students in the other Year 6 classes. The feature of sharing and then adding a comment has enabled the students to see other ways of completing their work, It also gives them an authentic purpose for their work.” she said.

Years 7 and 8 Studywiz Support Staff Member, Mrs Kristina Zeravica, said Studywiz has opened up a new world of instant and easily accessible resources and information for classes and groups of students. “I use it with the Debating Team and students have benefited from having a forum to share resources and their ideas with their group members regardless of where they are, in an efficient and effective way.” she said.

The College implemented Studywiz as a trial in 2009 with the aim to fully embed it in our curriculum from Years 6 to 12 over the next two years. We look forward to using this progressive elearning platform to enrich the learning experience of our students and encourage parents and family members to learn about Studywiz by discussing and viewing it with your children.

Activities available on Studywiz:

Calendar

Calendars are set up for various user groups. Users can add homework, assessment tasks and school related and personal events.

eBulletin

A simple way to post news, messages or announcements for other Studywiz users.

Gallery

Allows students to submit files (with a particular focus on multimedia files) for discussion with other users via online forums. Gallery files can be copied and downloaded by any user, tagged for search purposes and rated by others.

Assessment

Assessments allow teachers to set up comprehensive tests for students and report on our students’ results.

Fast File

Allows teachers to load files on to Studywiz which can then be downloaded by users.

Assignment

Allows teachers to upload a worksheet or task for students to download and complete. Students can submit their completed assignment through Studywiz for private teacher comment, cycles of revision and online assessment.

Chat Room

Provides a virtual location that allows approved users to have ‘real-time’ conversations through the Studywiz interface. Chat logs can be viewed at any time by teachers, providing the potential for assessment.

Grace:

‘I Like that you can share your work on Studywiz. Miss Johnson makes a bulletin telling us what’s happening the next week and we can go home and check it so we can prepare. My favourite activity so far was a Discussion where we had to enter our favourite holiday destination and we had to say why we liked it.’

Ellie:

‘The thing I like best about Studywiz is that you can put all your homework on it. It makes it easy to see what you have to get done for the week. My favourite activity so far was when we all had to add a baby picture of ourselves to the Gallery. You could see what other people looked like when they were young and make comments.’

Maddie:

‘I like that you can access Studywiz from home. You need to spend some time exploring Studywiz to learn where everything is, but once you are familiar with it, it is really easy to use. My favourite activity so far was the Vote activity where we had to vote on our favourite season. I voted for Summer and it won the vote!’

Studywiz Communication Update

We’ve introduced some new Studywiz phone numbers, to help you contact us more easily. We understand that there has been some frustration involved in knowing who to contact and how, and we are confident this will make future communication easy and effective. These numbers are active from Monday 2 August 2010.

Contact Details

Call this number for accounts payable/receivable and any general enquiries.

Call this number to speak to an Account Manager, for more information about modules, booking training, quotes, renewals and anything regarding your Studywiz usage.

Call this number to escalate your support query – please have your incident number ready.
*Make sure you check the online Service Desk for updates before calling.

These numbers are available during regular office hours EST. For customers with Premium Support packages, please continue to contact Studywiz on the same number for Priority 1 incidents.

New Support Process

In addition to the new numbers listed above, we’ve revamped processes for contacting Support. After receiving feedback from our customers we have created an online Service Desk. To access, visit https://support.studywiz.com and login using your account details. By default your user name and password will be your email address. If you do not have an account set up, please email us at livetime@studywiz.com. This address is purely for Service Desk account queries, and not Studywiz queries. Studywiz queries should be submitted through the Service Desk.

When you log a query with the Service Desk, it will ask you to select a priority for the query – Urgent, High, Medium, Low. We have clarified how we classify priorities, to assist you in selecting the right option.

Urgent (Priority 1) Studywiz is completely inaccessible to all users.

High Lessons are disrupted, but there is still access.

Medium Something needs to be fixed, but you are still able to continue on as usual without too much disruption.

Low You are not prevented from using Studywiz in any way, but would like to request an additional feature (for example).

If you have a problem, the first step is always to log the incident with the Service Desk. If you don’t hear back from us in a reasonable time, or the situation escalates, please call our Studywiz Helpdesk. If you call, please make sure you have your Service Desk incident number ready for reference.

We look forward to continuing to work with you!

Life is easier with the Studywiz Attendance Module!

Studywiz is pleased to announce the release of the new Studywiz Attendance Module. Available from 1 July, the Attendance Module is designed to work in conjunction with Studywiz to simplify and ease the workloads of teachers and administrators. Here’s how:

• Teachers can record attendance daily, in advance or retrospectively and the results can be viewed quickly and easily.
• The Attendance Module uses the data already in your system – there is no need for a separate attendance database.
• You don’t need to import timetable information – the module works intuitively around the existing Studywiz framework.
• The back end comes with default settings, but is also extremely easy to configure. Standard absence descriptions are
  provided, but schools can edit existing descriptions or create new ones.
• Reporting is extremely flexible – use default reports or have a customised report designed for your school.

For more information about pricing and how to get the Studywiz Attendance Module working for your school, or to request a trial account, contact us at info@studywiz.com

Studywiz 9.4.4 is scheduled for release this June!

Gallery, ILPs, Test, Messaging and Reporting are just a few of the enhanced features in the new and improved Studywiz 9.4.4.

Studywiz 9.4.4 enhancements focus on providing an even better online learning experience for users, by making Studywiz more flexible, dynamic and intuitive, and building on the core capabilities which distinguish Studywiz as a market leader for innovation.

Key Features in Studywiz 9.4.4 include:

• Updated user interface.
• New filter options and comment capabilities in the Student-Rated Gallery.
• Import tool now available for Individual Learning Plans.
• New Test activity matching question layout with improved usability and a more precise point scoring system.
• Improved appearance and usability in the Messaging interface.
• New Reporting tool for Mega Money & PopnGlobs Games

Start the ball rolling on your Studywiz 9.4.4 upgrade, contact Studywiz Support via the Web Portal at https://support.studywiz.com/

Louise Duncan – Revolutionising Mobile Learning

Read how Studywiz Mobile and the iPod Touch helped Louise Duncan revolutionise teaching and learning at Shepparton High School, Australia.

The Innovators – 16 Louise Duncan
11 April 2010
By Bob Harrison