A suite of applications designed to help school students from primary to Leaving Cert level has been launched by Microsoft Ireland.
The Microsoft Learning Suite for Irish Schools has been specifically tailored for the Irish primary school, Leaving Certificate and Junior Certificate curricula and brings together 25 different packages including Microsoft Office Professional, Student 2007, Children’s Encarta and the Irish language packs, according to Microsoft.
The software collection is being offered to schools at a price of €75 per PC under the Microsoft School Agreement license programme. It also includes 10 instructional videos designed to guide Irish teachers in the use of ICT to create top-quality learning resources.
Dr Kevin Marshall, academic programme manager at Microsoft, said: “The Microsoft Learning Suite is designed to help students maximise their potential by encouraging them to discover and research individually or in groups.
“It is intended to support teachers by making it easy to organise, schedule and set exciting and stimulating lessons while meeting the needs of the curriculum. Interactive research and learning features means that teachers can spend less time instructing at the front of the classroom and more time coaching individuals and smaller groups of students.”
As well as incorporating numerous software packages to aid study and teaching, it includes filtered web search facilities and anti-spyware tools to protect students online.
The package includes Word Research Tool, Children’s Encarta, World Atlas, Student 2007, Photo Story 3, Visio, Front Page, Publisher, Producer, Movie Maker, One Note, the Irish Language versions of Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows, Outlook, Messenger and Windows Desktop Search.
Teachers can also opt to join the Microsoft Innovative Teachers Network online community by registering at www.teachnet.ie.
By Niall Byrne
