First Thoughts on Studywiz

Disclaimer
I am only on the pilot so some things may change when it is fully released in September.
I have only been using Studywiz since 6th June and this article was written on the 11th of June.
Any mistakes on the page are caused by my speedy enthusiasm and I apologise in advance.

Virtual learning Background
I built a Moodle two years ago and used it with one class for about half a year. I then built a whole school moodle for all staff and 620 pupils. For staff and pupils it has been a good experience. For me the management aspect of this has taken up a lot of time. From the beginning, I was aware that the Vanilla version of Moodle I was using was not designed to be used with our age pupils, and although they have coped well we have always wanted more. Please don't take this a knock on Moodle which is open source and championed by a lot of great people who give of their own time freely. It was just that we wanted something that would be easier for teachers and students to use.

Studywiz
Comes in three skins. At the moment they are called early, middle and standard, but the names could change. Children can choose to use the one they feel most comfortable with. Most of my Year 4 class and Year 4 maths set have chosen the middle one with a few choosing the standard (more complex) skin.

Early front page looks like this
The tool bar is always visible so it is difficult to get lost.

Middle skin front page looks like this

Standard skin front page looks like this

(The rest of my screen shots are taken from Early or Middle)

Classes & Groups

On the early and middle front pages there are groups that the children belong to. By default every teacher is set up with a class group where you can put resources and activities that only that class can get to. It is easy to set up other groups such as Year groups and Whole school groups as the administrator. The class teacher can also set up their own groups within the class such as table groups, assessment groups or in fact any group you want. You can call them anything you want and they can mirror real class groups.

On the early and middle view the groups are presented like this

You can see that you can get to the class page where all the class work is stored or go straight to the highest priority lesson by clicking on the lesson in the book. This is a great feature that reduces the time students take looking for something.

If you click on View class page it looks like this

You can see that I have featured activities on the right hand side.

I am logged on as a teacher so you can see an edit page button at the top
If you click on this it looks like this

The text editor is easy to use and works like word

If I click on View all lessons it looks like this

I am logged on as a pupil here so I can't see all the editing tools. I love the sequence tool which allows the teacher to say in what order you want the work to be done although the clever among you will notice that I set the order up wrongly. Oh well I'm still learning!

If we look at the food chain assignment it looks like this

One of the features of marking work is that you can choose to publish some work so that the rest of the group can see it. Here Callum has created a great food chain so I have published it so others can see it.

Pupil Tools

Calendar
All users have access to a calendar. This is like a series of transparent overhead projector sheets overlapping and can have multiple calendars feeding into one calendar view. Every user has their own calendar and the school can set up a whole school one. I have also set up a staff calendar that only staff will be able to see. The calendar view looks like this in the Early years skin.

Internal e-mail
Each user has access to internal e-mail which they can use within their school. It also includes user search to help you find someone.

eLocker
This is a personal space where you can store your own files and access them wherever there is an internet connection. You can also export lessons you make and share them via your eLocker. Pupils also have their own eLocker which looks the same.

E-Portfolio
I haven't looked at this yet but the overview page looks like this

Work Creation Tools

Studywiz has a good range of tools

The gallery is a great tool allowing lots of users to upload pictures and then comment on them.
The multimedia worksheet allows you to upload and use sounds and videos.
The game tool gives you different games that you set the speed and type of questions.

I hope this has given you a flavour of Studywiz

Phil Bagge
11th June 2008