From December 2004, BECTa will be managing CURRICULUM ONLINE.
My Geography Department made a bid for more than our fair share of the e-credits - make sure you do this or you'll lose out.
We got some Channel 4 TV ROMs and various other software - some of it rather dodgy. We also got AEGIS 3, more on this on the AEGIS 3 page HERE, plus MEMORY MAP, some videos on various Geography Topics etc.
The current NATIONAL CURRICULUM site is here.
The BBC are also putting some effort, and £150m of licence payers' money into putting the curriculum onto the internet so that teachers and pupils can have free access at school and home. This will be called the Digital Curriculum, and was set for launch in Autumn 2004 - something tells me that the launch has been delayed - will we see this product ?
Materials which are available are suggested by the Digital Learning Alliance (DLA) who have the aim of:
"to work with teachers and students to produce the best teaching and learning software possible now, and over the full life of the COL initiative"
Suppliers of Geography materials include:
Primary (these have materials available NOW)
Channel 4
Espresso
Granada Learning
OUP
RM
Secondary (these have materials available NOW)
I've seen several packages and options recommended. E-credits are also apparently worth less than real money: software packages cost more in the e-credits than the same piece of software could be obtained from AMAZON or some other source.
Some schools are asking departments to bid, and others are allocating certain amounts to departments. One local Geography department received £60 worth (wow - don't spend them all at once...) MAKE SURE YOU GET YOUR SHARE!!
Some colleagues recently went on INSET relating to COL and E LEARNING. As well as getting some nice Curriculum Online sugar free mints, they passed on a few other pieces of information.
If you want any publications, you need to log on to the site HERE to request them, having REGISTERED.
Also some CD ROMS with an introduction by Charles Clarke which you can replay if you like, or pause, or....
UPDATE 2004
A lot of e-Learning credits weren't spent last year. Around £75 million worth were wasted apparently.
We're into the next tranche.