ITWorx Social Learning Platform & Teacher Authoring Tool to Transform Education at Norwegian Schools

Jan. 12, 2012 - PRLog -- ITWorx announces today that its popular social learning platform – the Connected learning Gateway (CLG) – and content authoring tool AuthorExpert™ have been selected by Nordfjord to be implemented across seven municipalities in the region. Nordfjord selected the Microsoft-based solution through a strategic partnership between ITWorx and Oppad AS, one of Norway’s leading vendors of School Administration Systems (SAS).

Located in western Norway, Nordfjord is an early adopter of e-learning solutions having previously deployed a Learning Management System in its schools. Given this experience, Nordfjord sought an e-learning solution that would offer a “fun” learning environment, where students can learn in a more social context, simplified work processes for teachers, and strong after-sales support.

An engaging and multilingual social learning platform built on SharePoint 2010, CLG is intuitive for teachers, attractive for students, inviting for parents, and a decision-enabler for principals, as well as easy-to-handle for administrators. Flexible, customisable and accessible for all in classrooms, at homes and on hand-held devices, it combines social networking with an array of interoperable and easy-to-use tools for teaching, learning, management and administration. Through CLG, Nordfjord students will enjoy a quality educational space enriched with collaboration, personalisation, interactivity and real-time feedback and assessment.

Hatem Sallam, Education General Manager, from ITWorx explains: “Our education products portfolio is designed with the future in mind. In an evolving global economy, it is imperative that students reach their full potential and learn the right skills to cope with this changing world. This not only requires changing the way students learn, but also helping teachers and school administrators to do their jobs well.”

CLG integrates with Oppad’s TeacherWeb to provide a central location from which information can be easily accessible; while integration with the Oppad SAS guarantees data consistency. CLG also draws upon Microsoft Live@edu technology, rendering the education process cost-effective. e-Content from leading educational content providers will be incorporated in the future to provide a comprehensive e-learning solution.

“Our partnership will help us initiate a new era of education sector development. ITWorx advanced e-learning products present us with the right tools to provide end-to-end enriched educational experiences to all stakeholders starting from school managers to students, teachers, and parents,” added Ketil Haaheim Syversen, Oppad Managing Director.

Nordfjord school teachers can create learning content in a short time and at a reduced cost using AuthorExpert. A desktop tool, it provides easy-to-use templates which can be used to produce original interactive teaching material and create stimulating e-lessons. It allows teachers to enrich lessons by embedding documents, images, multimedia files, or graphical annotation. Following Microsoft Office 2007 guidelines teachers are provided with a familiar and intuitive user interface which enables them to use AuthorExpert with a virtually zero learning curve.

“We studied a number of globally adopted learning platforms and selected CLG for its rich features, attractive interface, and integration with our School Administration System. We are very eager about moving to the next level with our schools and we are sure this step will transform the quality of our education,” commented Frode Vik, Nordfjord region. “AuthorExpert will make our teachers’ jobs much easier and help them to truly deliver a world-class education.”


About Nordfjord

The Nordfjordregion is a cooperation of  the 7 local municipalities Hornindal, Eid, Stryn, Vaagsoy, Selje, Gloppen and Bremanger, all located in the county of Sogn and Fjordane in Western Norway. Kommunenett Nordfjord is the ICT cooperation between the 7 municipalities.  Kommunenett Nordfjord is a large public net with 1,200 PC-users in administration, schools and healthcare. The region has 40 schools and 30 kinder gardens with 4,700 students and 300 teachers in the 1-10 level and 2,800 PC’s attached to the network.”


About Oppad

Oppad is Norway’s fastest growing provider of MIS systems for the educational sector.  With 71 local education authorities on our customer list. Our employees’ background is varied, with a mixture of teachers, headmasters, programmers, system engineers and ICT operators. The company is based in Kongsvinger with a branch office in Oslo.

The company is dedicated to supporting our customers and growing our customer base through:
•the continuous development of our current MIS platform, including tools for teachers
•design and development of our coming .net based new MIS generation
•integrations to other relevant  ICT systems in our customers platforms
•first class training and support on our systems and integrations

With partnerships with Tieto – Sweden's leading provider of MIS solutions for the Education environment – and Microsoft Norway’s Education team, we have gained a reputation for having our niches most happy customers. Our solution is the most frequently used MIS solutions amongst the Norwegian MLG customers, and growing.


About ITWorx

ITWorx is a market leader in software solutions that address the needs of K12 and higher education institutions worldwide. The ITWorx Education team has crafted award-winning, unique and user-centric connected e-learning solutions that employ the latest education methodologies and cutting-edge tools and applications. A Microsoft Global Strategic Education Partner, ITWorx Education holds an impressive track record in delivering customised e-learning solutions across the EMEA region, with deployment success stories in over 1,400 schools. For more information, please visit http://education.itworx.com and http://clg.itworx.com.

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A Microsoft Global Strategic Education Partner, ITWorx addresses K12 & higher edu institutions worldwide with award-winning, unique and user-centric connected e-learning solutions that employ the latest education methodologies, tools, & applications.