tutor2u News

tutor2u adds 9 million unique user visits in 2011

2011-12-23T09:32:53Z

tutor2u has recorded a 9 million increase in unique user visits to www.tutor2u.net, rise of 64% over 2010.

In the twelve months to December 2011, unique user visits are expected to reach 22.5 million compared with 13.6 million in 2010.

The tutor2u website continues to draw visitors from a broad range of international schools, colleges and other educational institutions. Whilst the UK continues to be the leading source of visitors (38% in 2011), significant user growth was sourced from India (8.5%), Malaysia (3.3%), Singapore (1.9%), Hong Kong (1.8%) and the UAE (1.8%).

A noticeable feature of the user growth was the growing use of mobile devices to access the tutor2u teaching and revision resources. Visits using smartphones and tablets increased by 332% in 2011 and now represent over 5% of visits.

The user statistics exclude traffic for tutor2u’s other family of websites including the Moodle VLE which currently hosts over 5,000 A Level students and teachers.

The most significant growth in user visits has arisen in the current academic year (2011/12) and, as a result, it is expected that traffic in 2012 will exceed 35 million visits.

Coming soon from Zondle - our new Phonics resource

2011-12-19T08:24:37Z

The team at tutor2u’s sister firm Zondle have been hard at work developing a superb new resource for primary phonics teaching and learning. Watch this space in early 2012 for the launch. Here is a sneak preview:

Zondlescape 05

2011-10-18T08:16:17Z

Welcome to zondlescape 005, more ideas, news and links from the team at zondle!

Primary/elementary ideas of the week:
@Primarypete_ has written an excellent blog, explaining how he’s very successfully using zondle in his classroom!

Secondary/middle/high topic of the week:
Review your ‘German Greetings and Polite Phrases’ whilst playing Crystal Canon! Thanks to Frau Mahler for this superb topic!

Did you know…

You can create your very own zondle! Make your own personal zondle avatar, to represent you on zondle! Choose colours, clothes and bizarre hair!!

Zondle Connect of the week:

‘Is it a noun? Is it a verb?’ (created by jejal) in Penalty Shootout, embedded into the ‘Student Vocabulary Study Room - roots, prefixes, suffixes’ page on Mr Tedesco’s - English Class blog by apprentice zondle power user joetedesco!

Other stuff:

A balanced view of games-based learning in the Huffington Post. An easy and informative read.

Please don’t hesitate to let us know how we can make zondle better for you!

Doug and Ben

ZONDLE

Zondle - Some Great New Functionality for Games Based Learning

2011-10-14T20:36:16Z

You may remember that tutor2u recently announced it had invested in Zondle.com, a provider of free games-based online learning. We caught up with the Zondle team and it’s fair to say that we’re even more excited than ever about how Zondle is progressing and growing.

Doug, the ace developer at Zondle has been been hard at work adding new features, including one suggested by a tutor2u blogger (Gareth Williams!). I have described these upgrades further below and also used the excellent Zondle video guides which show you the new features in action.

If you have a moment, please do go over to the Zondle site. Its a terrific platform to enable you (and your students) to create and share lesson activities. Zondle topics and quizzes are ideal for revision too. Best of all, Zondle is free!

Here is the link:

www.zondle.com

New features on Zondle
————————————————————-

How are my learners doing?

This feature enables you to very quickly see learner progress for a particular question in a zondle topic. Simply click on the number of questions displayed by topic, click the progress icon next to the question of your choice and you will see a list of progress for your learners.You can filter by teaching group to see exactly the learners you need.The players who are struggling the most are listed first so you can quickly see who in your teaching group is having problems with a particular question and focus on helping them to understand it.

Zondle Gradebooks - All Your Student Data in One Place!

The grade book shows a list of all the learners in a teaching group, all the topics that they have played and details the learner progress for those topics.This gives you a much quicker way to see an overview of the progress for a teaching group in multiple zondle topics and quickly see who is falling behind and may need extra support.

Teaching Group Leaderboards

Now when you are viewing learner progress by locating a topic and viewing the learners who have played it you can click the new “leaderboard” button and zondle will generate a leaderboard for your learners with Gold, Silver and Bronze cups awarded to the top 3 learners.Why not have some fun and maybe run your own little in-class competition to see who can get the highest scores!

tutor2u scoops Marketing Prize and 4th place in Smarta 100

2011-09-22T13:00:00Z

tutor2u, the provider of online resources for teachers and students, wowed the judges of this year’s Smarta 100 with its innovative marketing strategies and canny use of social media to scoop the Special Award for Marketing.

tutor2u topped a shortlist including hair salon Charlotte Murray, Gower Cottage Brownies, games developer Neon Play, and natural gum makers Peppersmith in this year’s Smarta 100 Awards. Over 500 companies were nominated in the awards with the final shortlist of 100 coming together for a star-studded awards evening at the O2 Arena in London.

The O2 Smarta 100Special Awards were decided by a judging panel consisting of King of Shaves founder Will King, Bebo founder Michael Birch, PR guru Lynne Franks, TV’s Sarah Beeny, creator of MySingleFriend.com and Tepilo.com, Smarta’s Shaa Wasmund and O2’s Simon Devonshire.

Smarta.com and O2 named tutor2u as the winner of the Special Award for Marketing 2011. tutor2u was also placed 4th out of the top 100 UK small businesses in a national vote.

At a glittering awards ceremony at the IndigoO2, Dragons’ Den investor Deborah Meaden, King of Shaves boss Will King, PR guru Lynne Franks, Smarta founder Shaa Wasmund, and O2’s Simon Devonshire took to the stage to recognise the most enterprising firms in the UK.

Commenting on this year’s Smarta 100 winners, Dragons’ Den star and Smarta board member Deborah Meaden said:

“The fact that firms like tutor2u, with only a few employees, can achieve such incredible exposure, is inspirational.”

tutor2u was formed in 2002 by twin brothers Jim and Geoff Riley. The business has grown rapidly and is now recognised as one of the most popular global websites for online learning with over 25 million unique user visits each year.

tutor2u is based in Boston Spa (Yorkshire) and, in addition to a head office team of four employees, has a network of over contributing 150 teachers around the world.

How Should Exams be Run? A New Investigation

2011-09-13T10:46:00Z

An important announcement from the House of Common Select Committee on Education yesterday which I know will be of interest to many colleagues and departments. Details below if you wish to get involved.

New Inquiry: How Should Examinations for 15-19 Year olds in England be Run?

The Education Committee is announcing an inquiry into the administration of examinations for 15 to 19 year olds in England.

The inquiry will consider the benefits and drawbacks of having several awarding bodies for qualifications taken by 15 to 19 year olds and the extent to which the current system delivers the best and fairest educational outcomes for young people.

Written submissions are invited, addressing the following points:

• the arguments in favour of and against having a range of awarding bodies for academic and applied qualifications (including A Levels, GCSEs, Diplomas, BTECs and OCR Nationals), and the merits of alternative arrangements, such as having one national body or examination boards franchised to offer qualifications in particular subjects or fields

• how to ensure accuracy in setting papers, marking scripts, and awarding grades

• the commercial activities of awarding bodies, including examination fees and textbooks, and their impact on schools and pupils.

This inquiry will not examine the design or merits of particular qualifications, or scope for change to the range of qualifications offered. The Committee may undertake further work on different aspects of the qualifications system at a later date.

The Committee asks for written submissions in accordance with the guidelines below by noon on Monday 7 November 2011.

Please note

A copy of the submission should be sent by e-mail to educom@parliament.uk and marked “Examinations inquiry”. The Committee’s strong preference is for submissions in electronic form, although hard copy originals will be accepted. Submissions should be sent to Caroline McElwee, Committee Assistant, at:

Education Select Committee House of Commons 7 Millbank London SW1P 3JA

Each submission should:

• be no more than 3,000 words in length;

• have numbered paragraphs; and

• (if in electronic form) be in Word format or a rich text format with as little use of colour or logos as possible.

A personal request from Geoff and Jim at tutor2u

2011-09-08T14:43:01Z

As you may have heard, the hard-working team at tutor2u were sent some good news – we’ve been shortlisted for The O2 Smarta 100 ‘Business of the Year’ award.

Almost as soon as the news broke, an amazing, switched-on flashmob of tutor2u supporters raced over to the Award Voting page and left some lovely messages about us – we’re still gobsmacked by how supportive these messages are. They mean the world to us - every one of them.

Will tutor2u beat the other 99 candidates to win the title in 2011? It’s down to you, because it all boils down to a public vote. Like X-Factor. But luckily without Louis.

Please vote for tutor2u by clicking here.

You just need to register first but it’s simple and quick, and you don’t need to sign up for the organiser’s email newsletters. You can leave a comment too – the judges will read them all and they might make the difference! We’re loving reading what you have to say about tutor2u and our team - please do take a few seconds to sign the guest book!

Now, some of you may be thinking - how can we really get behind tutor2u in the voting process? The answer is - help spread the word! We’re up against some very impressive and effective PR agencies who currently top the leaderboard. your help in encouraging people to vote for tutor2u really will make the difference.

1. Ask your friends, family, fellow students, everyone in the staff room, the Headmaster, the dinner ladies, any visiting Ofsted Inspectors etc to vote. Send a text; email them; post a tweet.

2. To become our special hero, please update your Facebook status with this link http://www.smarta.com/smarta100/2011-winners/tutor2u

Thank you so much for supporting us. We find out on 21st September so we’ll let you know how we go.

And many thanks for your continued support…

Geoff and Jim

Introducing Give It A Go!

2011-08-02T10:53:00Z

We’re thinking ahead to school year 2011/12 right now and we’ve got a new resource for you which we hope will support your teaching in the months ahead.

Give It A Go! is our new teacher resource blog - and this one is a little different. It is designed to provide support for the whole school in terms of ideas, approaches and resources which can be used across the curriculum and shared between departments. The focus of the blog is on creative teaching - ways to engage students, encourage participation and make learning memorable.

The Give It A Go Blog is now up and running with an initial selection of ideas - come over and take a look.

http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/giveitago/

You can keep up-to-date with the latest Give It A Go resources by following the blog on Twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/t2uGiveItAGo) or by opting to receive the email digest whenever new materials are made available to download or try. To receive this digest, please follow this link:

http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=tutor2u/giveitago&loc=en_US

We hope that you find the teaching ideas on the new blog useful. Please let your colleagues know about it - particularly in other deparments who you think might like to try some new approaches to creative teaching and learning.

TBBLE on the road to Scotland and Northern Ireland!

2011-08-02T10:16:14Z

TBBLE 2011/12 - our most popular Business Teacher CPD event - is now coming to Scotland and Northern Ireland!

In additon to the London (4 October 2011) and Manchester (13 October 2011) dates, we’re bringing the course to Belfast on 16 January 2012 and Glasgow on 23 January 2012.

(probably) The Best Business Lesson Ever (“TBBLE”) 2011 follows the same format as the sell-out course in 2010. The aim is simple - to pack as many new business teaching ideas into one day. Starters, main lesson activities, plenaries and more - all into one CPD day, with four presenters battling to win the best approval rating of the delegates! This course is suitable for every business teacher.
The London and Manchester events are now both more than 50% full, so please do get in touch with the office asap to organise some places for yourself and/or your business teaching colleagues.

To make a provisional booking, please use the form below, or in the tutor2u office

Book places on TBBLE 2011/12: Glasgow | Belfast | Birmingham | London

Best wishes

Jim

tutor2u enjoys record visitor growth for 2011

2011-08-01T09:12:00Z

tutor2u has recorded record visitor statistics for the year ended 31 July 2011. In the 12 months to July 2011, the main tutor2u website (www.tutor2u.net) received 18.4 million visits, a 65.3% increase over the previous year.

The number of visitors referred by tutor2u’s daily blog digest system increased by 45.6% in the year. Over 14,000 teachers now receive a daily update of new teaching and study resources as they are added to the 12 subject blogs maintained by tutor2u.

Social media also played a key role in the website traffic growth. tutor2u’s Facebook page added 19,500 fans during the year resulting in a 368% increase in visitors directly from Facebook. Visitors from Twitter also increased, by 167% compared with 2009/10.

An increasing number of visitors found tutor2u using their mobile devices. Visits from the Facebook app, for example, grew by 4,755% Almost 100,000 visits came from iPad users (a 3,171% rise) and 175,000 iPhone users logged into the blogs during the year (a fourfold increase).

tutor2u’s 18.4 million visitors came from a total of 232 countries/territories. The top countries were UK (7.4m), USA (2.6m), India (1.5m), Malaysia (0.6m) and Australia (0.5m).

School Year 2011: The End of Year Wrap

2011-07-07T13:05:00Z

We’ve just returned from our two Economics & Business Studies conferences with memories of some fantastic speakers and meeting so many colleagues over the two days (300 in total!). The session presentations are available now on the blogs below together. We’ll be adding further reflections on the sessions and follow-up blogs over the coming days.

http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/economics/comments/etnc-2011-speaker-presentations/

http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/business-studies/comments/activities-that-mean-business-lord-sutch-at-the-btnc-2011/

http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/business-studies/comments/innovation-and-persistence-holds-the-key-for-king-of-shaves/

http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/business-studies/comments/lessons-from-the-tesco-growth-story-courtesy-of-sir-terry-leahy/

Our thoughts turn now to an intensive summer of new resource creation. We’ve identified several major projects to extend and improve our website and blogs (in particular, much better navigation) and to focus on resources which encourage collaboration, sharing and networking. Stay tuned to our subject blogs for developments.

Our autumn series of Teacher CPD and student enrichment and revision days is booking fast and Janet and the team are in the office during the summer to handle your bookings. Links to details of the events between September - December 2011 are provided below.

ECONOMICS
CPD: TeachEcon 2011: http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/economics/comments/9904/
CPD: Essential Economics 2011: http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/economics/comments/9928/
Revision workshops: http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/economics/comments/9796/

BUSINESS STUDIES
Entrepreneurs Live! 2011: http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/business-studies/comments/entrepreneurlive-2011/
CPD - New to teaching AQA GCE Business: http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/business-studies/comments/9934/
TBBLE 2011: http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/business-studies/comments/10136/
AQA BUSS1/BUSS3 workshops; http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/business-studies/comments/9772/

With our best wishes to you from the entire tutor2u crew for a relaxing summer break

Jim

Write for tutor2u - revision questions for games based learning

2011-06-22T09:44:00Z

The Summer of 2011 will be busier than ever for tutor2u as we expand into new subjects and, particularly, into games-based revision & learning. We recently announced that tutor2u has become a shareholder in Zondle - an innovative e-learning start-up which we’re really excited about. Zondle will provide the platform for us to develop a comprehensive and, most importantly, FREE collection of revision and other learning games.

Now all we need is to build curriculum content to make these games come alive!

Over the coming weeks and months we want to bring together a team of talented and enthusiastic teachers to write the quiz content for their own, specialist subjects. There is no need for any technical expertise, except for the ability to type questions and answers into simple Microsoft Excel templates. However each author WILL need to be an expert in their subject, with a keen eye for accuracy and an ability to write short, accurate and relevant questions that will help students in their learning.

Initially the content of our new learning games collection will focus on the following subjects (GCSE and GCE):

Business Studies
Law
Sociology
Economics
Psychology
History
Geography
ICT
Religious Studies
English Language
English Literature
Physical Education
Maths

Initially we’ll build the content for each of the above subjects by focusing on core topics. Then, to make the games more specification focused, we’ll group each topic into Unit and exam-Board collections which will make it easy for teachers and students to track their progress during revision and learning.

We are now recruiting authors for each of these subjects, to help us build a bank of questions for learning games which will be provided FREELY both on tutor2u and our new investment Zondle.com.

Please note that, initially we are looking for volunteers to help us get this project up and running. Once we have identified suitable authors for each subject, we will be able to offer a suitable remuneration deal to those who want to commit to topic authoring and editing. In the past we’ve offer free INSET, discounted resources and even good old cash to teaching colleagues who have supported the creation of our digital learning resources. We’ll be as generous as we can be for colleagues who are as excited as we are about this development for tutor2u.

If you would like to get involved, please email for further details. If you are new to tutor2u, then please add some brief details about yourself in the email!

tutor2u joins forces with Zondle

2011-05-29T22:08:00Z

We’re excited about the news that tutor2u has agreed to take a shareholding in Zondle, a fast-growing specialist in games-based learning. The press release is provided below.

Zondle was formed in 2010 by Wayne Holmes and Doug Lapsley and the business added Ben Barton (ex Pearson, Granada Learning, Rising Stars & Harcourt) to its Board and management team later that year.

Commenting on tutor2u’s investment, Jim Riley (Managing Director, tutor2u) said:

“We are delighted to take advantage of the opportunity to invest in zondle which we believe is one of the most exciting e-learning start-ups to have emerged in recent years. Zondle’s innovative games-based learning platform provides us with an opportunity to develop a much wider range of e-learning resources for our existing subjects and also to expand the range of qualifications which we support.”

“The UK and international education market continues to change rapidly with the major print-based publishers struggling to meet the needs of a digitally-engaged customer base. The combination of tutor2u and zondle will enable us to continue to disrupt the incumbent market leaders by focusing on innovation, quality and value”.

Ben Barton from Zondle commented:

“The growth of zondle has been exciting over the past five months but we realised that to increase that growth we needed a partner. tutor2U is clearly market leading in developing content that teachers actually use to support their students. The tutor2u team understands technology and the new landscape of education which will help Zondle build on its early successes.”

“This is an exciting time to be in education with curriculum change, technology and tight budgets combining to create a vibrant market where the larger incumbents can be challenged by small, fast moving organizations. We are very excited to be working with tutor2u to help grow their business and ours in the UK and overseas.”

Notes for Editors:

tutor2u (www.tutor2u.net) is one of the world’s most popular e-learning brands, serving over 2.6 million unique website visitors every month. tutor2u provides a wide range of free subscripton-based learning materials to over 90% of the UK’s secondary and tertiary educational institutions, and exports to schools and colleges in over 130 countries.

Zondle (www.zondle.com) is an early stage education start-up founded by Doug Lapsley and Wayne Holmes. Doug and Wayne have created a unique website that allows teachers to create topics that their students can play in games. Zondle has grown rapidly in 2011 and has users in over 50 countries including the UK and USA.

Ben Barton has worked in education for 20 years including time at Pearson, Granada Learning and Harcourt. As well as his involvement in zondle, he also co-owns Rising Stars; specialising in books and software for children of all abilities. He is also a trustee of Catch-Up a second chance literacy program for schools.

tutor2u Backs Junior Cricket in Yorkshire

2011-05-24T10:46:00Z

tutor2u has agreed to sponsor the Wetherby Junior Cricket League (WJCL) for the 2011 season.

The WJCl is one of the most active junior cricket leagues in the UK with teams competing at all age groups from under 9s to under 17s. A total of over 1,000 junior cricketers are registered with the league in 2011, participating in over 650 league and cup fixtures.

Commenting on the league sponsorship deal, Jim Riley (Managing Director of tutor2u) said:

“We are delighted to be associated with the WJCL and to have the opportunity to support such a superb example of how to encourage youngsters to get involved in sport. The standard of cricket in the WJCL is improving and we are impressed with the dedication and enthusiasm of the junior team coaches who help young cricketers gain so much from a wonderful sport.”

Tom Kilby, Head of Junior Cricket at the WJCL commented:

“The support we receive from tutor2U is vital for the development of an improving league, not only financially in providing coaches and equipment, but also the genuine interest and enthusiasm shown by tutor2u for local sport within the area. With the improvement being seen the league are starting to provide players for county age groups, something almost unheard of a couple of years ago.”

Economics & Business Revision Workshops in 2011/12

2011-05-19T10:51:00Z

The dates and venues for our main programme of Economics & Business Studies revision workshops in 2011/12 are now available from the links below. Details of the workshop content/programme will be added to these links once confirmed.

Economics workshops;
http://tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/economics/comments/economics-revision-workshops-in-2011-12/

Business - winter 2011
http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/business-studies/comments/aqa-buss1-buss3-revision-workshops-winter-2011/

Business - spring 2012
http://tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/business-studies/comments/aqa-buss2-buss4-revision-workshops-summer-2012/