The ambition to provide every learner in the country with a personal online learning space was outlined in the central government's recent e-strategy white paper. Oxfordshire's implementation is via a partnership with Digitalbrain.
Here, Greg Stragnell (Senior Advisory Teacher for ICT) outlines the latest development of this Virtual Learning Environment.

Digitalbrain Has Landed

The Oxfordshire Digitalbrain Portal, the personalised online learning space for all pupils and teachers, is now available to schools across the county.

Following the successful pilot phase involving twelve schools and the development of the Single Sign On process, the service has been launched to schools through a series of presentations around the county in May and June.

Digitalbrain provides access to the Oxfordshire Resource Management Database (RMD) and a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) for all pupils and teachers and anticipates the developments outlined in the government's e-strategy paper Harnessing Technology: Transforming learning and children's services published in March 2005. The paper outlines ways in which technology can transform learning and teaching and, in particular, sets out that, over the next five years, every learner should have their own, "personal online learning space … where they can store electronically everything related to their learning and achievements, course resources, assignments, research, and where they can plan their next steps, and build links for professional advice and support. And being online, it will be accessible from home, from school, and, in the longer term, from each new organisation as they progress." Digitalbrain provides all these facilities for teachers and pupils today.

The Resource Management Database is a virtual library for all Oxfordshire schools which is accessible anytime, anywhere. Teachers and pupils can search the database for learning and teaching resources and teachers can share resources across their school, across their partnership of schools and, with the approval of a curriculum adviser, across all schools. These resources could be external web sites or other online resources or they could be resources which teachers have created themselves. This will help reduce teachers' workload and, support home/school links as pupils access the learning platform from home.

Every school will have its own Digitalbrain portal and teachers and students will have their own personal portal within their school portal. This provides each user with their own personal web space where they can store work and learning and teaching resources. The portal also provides links to a user's OCN e-mail account as well as an online calendar which students and teachers can use to set reminders and deadlines.

Users can create Communities or groups of users with a common interest and membership to Communities is not confined by school or partnership boundaries - any Digitalbrain user can be invited to be a member of any Community. Each Community has its own online calendar and users can share resources with other members as well as engage in online and threaded discussions.

Digitalbrain also provides virtual courses which can be populated from data exported from SIMS. Teachers can create assignments online, upload resources for students to access, provide online feedback and assign deadlines as well as maintaining an online markbook.

How to access Digitalbrain

Teachers and students can access their Digitalbrain account by entering the URL http://schooldomain.oxon.digitalbrain.com into the address bar of an Internet browser where schooldomain is the same as the school OCN domain. From the school portal, users should click either of the two Login icons and, from the Single Sign On screen users should enter their OCN username and passwords.

To access your personal portal on Digitalbrain click the Smiley face icon or select Go to and My digitalbrain from the Digitalbrain menu bar.

Training and Support

The ICT Advisory Team is running a number of training sessions relating to Digitalbrain during Term 6.

Web Authoring with Digitalbrain - Wednesday 8 June (9.30 - 12.00) and Wednesday 22 June (9.30 - 3.30). This session will help those responsible for maintaining the school portal gain the skills, knowledge and understanding necessary to customise the school portal in order to provide a public-facing presence on the internet.

Digitalbrain Virtual Learning Environment Management - Thursday 23 June (9.30 - 3.30). This session will help colleagues acquire the skills, knowledge and understanding necessary to manage their Digitalbrain portal. This session will cover customising portals, managing one's personal web space, creating Digitalbrain Communities and creating Digitalbrain Virtual Courses.

In addition, schools and/or partnerships can arrange individualised Digitalbrain training sessions through Traded Services. Contact the ICT Advisory Team for further information.

Technical support for Digitalbrain will be provided by the School Support Desk (0845) 0521000.