Wolfstar Social Media News Room: Trafford chooses Fronter for its move into a digital era

Trafford Local Authority (LA), one of the highest performing local authorities in the country, has signed a contract with Virtual Learning Environment (vle) provider Fronter, allowing pupils across the region to benefit from the new online tool.

The Virtual Learning Environment will be available to all schools in Trafford allowing pupils and teachers to share and host learning opportunities and resources needed to help pupils learn and develop in education.

The new vle is part of Trafford LA’s education strategy to push the boundaries of learning through the use of digital classrooms that can be accessed by not only pupils and teachers, but by parents too. Parents will be allowed secure access to view their child’s attendance and performance and school events over the internet, allowing greater interaction with their child’s education.

The initial contract will run for two years and will see the vle implemented into 86 sites, including 68 primary, 12 secondary and four schools by September 2008. All Trafford’s teachers and teaching assistants will be members of the LA wide portal, allowing for collaboration between all schools.

One of the key advantages of the Fronter platform is that the vle can be used from any computer with internet access, in school or off-site. This allows pupils to access the same information at home and in the classroom. Pupils will be able to communicate with friends and teachers, access virtual learning resources, including audio and visual material and discuss topics with other pupils outside of school hours.

Bill Gayler, Fronter’s UK managing director, commented: “We are very excited about working with Trafford to implement the Fronter learning platform to schools in the region. We feel that the vle will be of great benefit to both students and teachers and will allow parents to play a greater role in their children’s education.”

Margaret Woodhouse, director of education and early years service for Trafford comments: “Fronter was chosen for Trafford after an in-depth analysis of learning platform providers. After looking at our school’s needs and the tools provided by Fronter for education, it was clear that the vle was the right choice for our teachers and young people.”

Fronter operates within its core values of openness, simplicity and pedagogic focus which are applied not only to the vle but the entire work ethos of the company.

Roger Larsen, international managing director at Fronter said: “Because Fronter is an open company, it develops its learning platform in partnership with its users. We work closely with schools and LA’s like Trafford to ensure the implementation of the platform is correct. This allows the system to be used easily and it can then be embedded into everyday school life.”

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For more information please contact, Sebastian Mysko on 0113 3947960 or email sebm@wolfstarconsultancy.com Skype: sebastianmysko

Notes to Editors

Roger Larsen is Fronter’s founder and international managing director· Fronter was founded in Norway in 1998 and is now used by more than four million users in nine European countries· Fronter is used by the National College for School Leadership (NCSL) for their talk2learn platform and work with a large number of UK schools, colleges and local authorities.

· Fronter is a 3^rd time winner of the European Seal of E-Excellence in Gold

· Becta is the Government's lead agency for Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in education, covering the United Kingdom. In March 2007, Becta was given an enhanced remit by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) to lead the co-ordination, development and delivery of the government's strategy to harness the power of technology to help improve education, skills and children's services.

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