Promethean Gets The Scottish Vote

Released on: February 17, 2010, 10:13 am
Author: Promethean
Industry: Education

Following the implementation of Promethean's ActivExpression learner response system, an innovative handheld voting device, Students in Scotland are getting the vote early at the Scottish Parliament's on-site education centre in the Holyrood building.

ActivExpression is being used to enhance the Parliament's education programme, by making activities more interactive, engaging and relevant to the young visitors. Using ActivExpression, students are given the chance to 'vote' on key political issues and their responses provide education staff with opinions to encourage, debate and enhance review sessions at the end of the visit.

Alongside ActivExpression, Scottish Parliament chose to implement additional ActivClassroom solutions, including Promethean's ActivBoard interactive whiteboard solution and accompanying interactive whiteboard tools and ActivInspire software. Bringing topics to life, education staff have used the technologies to create lively resources on the history of Holyrood and daily duties of parliamentary members, incorporating a variety of multimedia, including images, videos and sound.

Margaret Allen, head of European market development at Promethean, commented: "This is a fantastic example of how the ActivClassroom is being used in an alternative learning environment to promote participation and collaboration in a way that appeals to today's digital learner."

Beyond the Parliament's on-site education centre, ActivClassroom technologies have been integrated into Holyrood's 'chat room', a space where visiting students get the chance to question Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs). To ensure the effectiveness of these questioning sessions, Parliament staff decided to implement Promethean's ActivSound audio enhancement system, to make sure that students are fully engaged and involved in the experience.

Commenting on the arrival of the Promethean ActivClassroom technologies, Rosemary Everett, Head of Education and Community Partnerships at Scottish Parliament, said: "The technologies were implemented at Holyrood in September, yet have already been praised by Parliament staff and visiting schools alike. Since the arrival of the ActivClassroom, the education team has witnessed improvements in student involvement, with young people more animated and eager to take part in activities."

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About the Scottish Parliament Education Team
The Parliament's Education Team provides resources and education sessions for young people, teachers and other educational groups interested in learning about the Parliament, in line with A Curriculum for Excellence. The team has recently increased its capacity for education visits to Holyrood by 97% (2008-2009 compared to 2007-2008) enabling 11,320 young people and teachers to visit the Parliament. Staff also go out to visit schools, and in 2008-2009, met with 7,749 young people – an increase of 29% over 2007-2008.

About Promethean - Lighting the flame of learning
Promethean's aim is to unlock the potential of human achievement in education and training at all ages around the world. It does so by creating, developing, supplying and supporting leading edge, interactive learning technology, such as interactive whiteboards, and by encouraging the growth of the world's largest online teacher community in this field. In these ways, Promethean is helping bring to life the promise of 21st century learning, improving engagement and results for learners and teachers alike.

Beyond the classroom, Promethean provides comprehensive training and support and, with over 500,000 members, the rapidly growing Promethean Planet is the world's largest online community for users of interactive learning technology, providing user-generated and premium content and is a forum for teachers to exchange ideas and experience.

Press enquiries:
Tracey McLaine
Head of Global PR
Promethean
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