DB Swimathon!

So we were all talking one day and many DB Primary team members decided they'd like to do something for charity, making an achievement at the same time....

= SWIMATHON!

On Saturday the 9th of April, 11 DB Primary staff members took to their local swimming pools. Between them they formed 3 teams and each had to swim a total of 5km in order to complete their swimathon challege. Here's two of our teams post swim...

 'Operation Float Like a Brick'

'Poseidon's Floaters'








Collectively we raised almost £1,000 for Marie Curie Cancer Care and the event was a great occasion to be a part of - we'll certainly be swimming again next year!

To see a bit more, click on this link to watch us in action!

Where is DB Primary?!

At the moment, everywhere!

The sun is shining and temperature is getting warmer so staff at DB Primary thought it was time to get out and about:

• Oxfordshire Headteachers' Conference 23 - 25 March 2011: We'll be at this conference and happy to answer any questions about DB Primary so why not come and say hello to learn more about what we have to offer your school!
• Norfolk ICT Conference 23 March 2011: Nightingale First School in Norfolk will kindly complete a demo of DB Primary - complete with pupil assistance! - as well as presentation. If you'd like to see how DB Primary is actually being used within schools then being in the audience is the place to be...
• Surrey ICT Conference 31 March 2011: we'll be offering advice about learning platforms, education and talking about DB Primary's application to primary schools and its beneft

The rest of us are all over the UK, visiting schools and helping where we can with e-learning and using it to aid education.

Fancy a visit yourself? Or like to find out more? Visit www.dbprimary.com or email info@dbprimary.com and we can organise something.

Education! Education! Education!

What is one of the most common requests/feedback/requirements/necessities for schools when looking into learning platforms? TIME SAVING. We're always asked if DB Primary will cost teachers extra time and effort in getting their school up and running...the answer is no.

To keep the focus on education and learning, rather than admin and setup, we've been working hard producing template communities for our learning platform, DB Primary. These can be copied directly into a learning platform, lessening the time teachers need to spend lesson planning, finding resources and adding it to their school's vle.

From Space to Roald Dahl, Times Tables to Ancient Egyptians, there's something for everyone and every school.  All you need to do is tell us which you'd like and we'll copy them over for you within minutes. Using surveys, tasks, forums, quizzes and blogs, traditional curriculum topics can be learnt in a modern, 21st Century way.

Anything take your fancy? Anything we've done wrong? Any Suggestions for more?

If so, let us know at info@dbprimary.com.

World Book Day!

“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a  book.” 

^{- Groucho Marx}

 ^{We're gearing ourselves up for World Book Day and you should too! Designed by UNESCO, this year's worldwide celebration of books and reading will take place on Thursday 3rd March (not long we know) and it encourages children and adults around the world to explore books and reading.}

<sup>As well as reading, there's other fun things and games children can participate in and we've created a World Book Day community so if you'd like it for your DB Primary learning platform then please get in touch. Children can also receive tokens that are redeemable against books specially published for the event.

If you want to read more information about World Book Day then please click here

We're busy thinking about our favourite childhood books that we can recommend...How are you going to encourage reading where you are?</sup>

A newer and more improved DB Primary!

That's right, DB Primary has had a spring clean! Following yesterday's release there's been a few improvements made to DB Primary, such as:

• Adding a blog to a community
• Easier navigation through user accounts
• The ability to customise your links to the user navigation panel
• Ability to access chat logs
• Quick links to content providers from communities
• Embed video or audio located in the gallery to forum posts and community pages
• Teachers can now arrange icons on their homepage
• Improved organisation of bulk uploads to the gallery

Here's a community blog example for the Celts and Romans community:

Please let us know how you get on and if you have any other feedback about how DB Primary can be improved - comments welcome!

World Maths Day!

Surely we all want to be better mathematicians?

Well, guess what everyone, World Maths Day takes place on 1st March 2011!

Entry is free and it means that pupils can play at home and school, against other students around the world, at mental arithmetic.  There's great prizes so DB Primary wants to encourage all school's to get involved!

Check out the World Maths Day website here.

If you have a learning platform in school, or use DB Primary, why not create a Maths Day community? Include games, quizzes and anything else to make learning about maths fun!

Look out for tomorrow's installment to include more useful information about learning....

Welcome to DB Primary's blog!

Education and learning that's engaging. How? With our learning platform! 

Yes, welcome to DB Primary's world of learning, one that is bright, colourful, user friendly and safe. DB Primary has been designed specifically for primary school pupils so that they can be a part of the e-generation that is our current 21st Century.

We hear you asking: How have they done this? Aren't pupils too young for this? Well, after asking ourselves these same questions we have developed a virtual learning environment that 1000s of pupils are using in and out of school right now, in various countries. The following features incorporate educational material that pupils can learn, collaborate and communicate about...

• Email
• Blog
• Quizzes and surveys
• e-portfolio
• Forum
• Communities
• Tasks

If you want to learn more about DB Primary, just check out our website: www.dbprimary.com.  We'll be talking about e-safety, how to make the best of a learning platform, new features and so on in forthcoming blogs so keep following to find out more about online learning and how to make the best of it!