Educational apps get top marks at the Windows Store

The Windows Store is introducing a whole range of new educational apps to support teachers, parents and students alike. The online world and apps are changing the world of education like never before, engaging students and driving greater collaboration, both virtually as well as in the physical classroom.

Say hello to Skoolbag, 3P Learning and LearningField!

Parents now in the know with Skoolbag

Maybe you remember when you were a kid and your parent would get frustrated with finding permission slips or report cards crumpled up in the bottom of the school bag.

Well, Skoolbag has set out to revolutionise communication between parents, carers, teachers and students. The Skoolbag Mobile app – now available at the Windows Store – has the sole purpose of allowing schools to communicate anything and everything to their school community. The Skoolbag School Mobile app is very flexible, allowing schools to create customised content while also providing a great alternative to school SMS alerts by using Free Push Alert Notifications directly to parent smartphones.

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As a parent, around three years ago Skoolbag Co-Founder Andrew Tsousis saw a need for a better communication system. “I was dropping my kids to school and as they were getting out of the car, one of them handed me a permission slip that was overdue. I thought that with the current state of technology, there had to be an easier way to communicate with our school – which is how Skoolbag was born.

“I thought with the current state of technology, there had to be an easier way to communicate with our school – which is how Skoolbag was born.”

“The key benefit of Skoolbag, is that everything is in one place at one time. The school directs information straight to it, providing a single point of reference for anything and everything you need to know as a parent.

“The key benefit of Skoolbag, is that everything is in one place at one time… providing a single point of reference for anything and everything you need to know as a parent.”

“One of our schools had several parents who were visually impaired, so they had kids record podcasts on the weekly newsletter to share with the school community,” Mr Tsousis said. ”Also, back in the day, if kids were running late from a school camp, parents would be waiting around without any idea of what was happening – now the lines of communication are completely open.”

More than 2000 schools in every state around Australia are using Skoolbag. So what does the future hold for Skoolbag? “We want to continue to evolve the app feature set, from both a parent and school perspective,” Mr Tsousis said. “We want to continue to add to the application, to make it indispensable, with greater integration options. We look forward to working with Microsoft to continue to grow Skoolbag and extend its capabilities.”

Discovering a love for learning with 3P

3P Learning is the force behind much-loved educational apps such as Mathletics, Spellodrome, Intoscience and Reading Eggs. Andrew Smith, Chief Executive Officer, 3P Learning Australia, said 3P is migrating to the Windows platform to give students great access to their resources.

“We want to ensure that 3P resources are available on all platforms, giving learning access to our students regardless of what device they’re using. We’re migrating our apps and bringing everything that we do over to Microsoft’s Cloud Azure. By partnering with Microsoft, we want to learn and grow together and continue to provide the world’s best resources to our kids and to our schools. The love of learning is crucial to us; we talk about it all the time and at 3P we live it,” Mr Smith said.

(L-R) Andrew Smith, CEO, 3P Learning, Tim Power, Managing Director, 3P Learning &

“We’re allowing students to collaborate and work together either virtually or in the classroom on a joint problem or piece of work. The internet is bringing students together much more readily than would have been possible before. No longer do students need to be in the same classroom, they can be virtually connected; home to school, school to school, or school to home,” he said.

“If you mention ‘Mathletics’ to any parent, they will say: “Mathletics! My son has it and he absolutely loves it. The feedback that we’re getting from parents is invariably positive and often an emotional response. At the end of the day, parents love to see their children responding well to learning.”

“The feedback we are getting from parents is invariable positive and often an emotional response. At the end of the day, parents love to see their children responding well to learning.”

Parents often struggle to provide real value when it comes to homework. With 3P, parents are finding it easier than ever before to get involved and support their child where they need it the most.

“Our resources are very simple to navigate and there is a support mechanism built around each of the content areas,” Mr Smith said. “The parents can see instant feedback coming through, so they feel much more engaged in their children’s learning, rather than their child sitting and doing a sheet of questions on a piece of paper or in the textbook.

“Online education and apps have the power to revolutionise the way students learn, and we’re excited to see this change in motion as students discover a love for learning.”

LearningField solves a weighty problem

“We’re excited to offer LearningField through the Windows Store – and we’re looking forward to continuing to work closely with Microsoft to evolve the LearningField eReader application, driving further engagement in schools across Australia,” said Ben Heuston, Director at LearningField.

LearningField, now in its third year of operations, is at the centre of the digital classroom. Backpacks are no longer laden with heavy textbooks, as students can now download chapters straight to their device. The subscription service is currently used in 48 schools around Australia and is providing teachers and students with an unlimited choice of over 7,000 chapters from Australia’s leading publishers.

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As education evolves, so does the way a student learns and absorbs information. Most importantly, LearningField is bridging the gap between information and knowledge, allowing students to be 21st century thinkers in the new digital world and helping them to draw on reputable resources to easily navigate through research.

“LearningField is bridging the gap between information and knowledge, allowing students to be 21st century thinkers in the new digital world…”

A single log-in to this large textbook library provides seamless access for all students and teachers, regardless of what device they are using. Students can access LearningField anywhere at any time, from home, or at school.

“Students now have the resources they need, when and where they need them. We are seeing that students are really starting to engage with their own learning, which is incredibly exciting,” Mr Heuston said.

“As we embrace the digital classroom, teachers now have the opportunity to tailor work according to a student’s individual ability – instead of blindly targeting the middle of the class. Students can go back and refresh on particular topics, or read ahead – pulling individual chapters from textbooks from higher year levels.

“As we embrace the digital classroom, teachers now have the opportunity to tailor work according to a student’s individual ability – instead of blindly targeting the middle of the class.”

“Students and teachers can collaborate about the content within the apps themselves, share notes and have discussions, and teachers can pose questions directly inside the chapter. Students are telling us that they love that they don’t have to speak up in the class, that they can simply share their thoughts or ask questions via the eReader app, without feeling self-conscious about doing so,” Mr Heuston said.

LearningField also offers schools the opportunity to view the usage data from the service within their school via the purpose-built Insights Dashboard. This data provides a useful snapshot into how students are engaging with the content, to find out if they’ve read their homework or if they’re falling behind.

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