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CDSM Exhibiting at Learning Disability Today, Manchester - 14/07/2009

People & Places will be exhibiting at the Learning Disability Today Exhibition, Manchester Central, Manchester on Tuesday, 14th of July. If you would like to find out more about the Community Portal please visit us at stand 22.

Social networking via the web is now widely available using sites such as Facebook and Friends Reunited and is gathering momentum every day. These public service websites are sometimes not the right social environment for adults with learning disabilities or other communities with needs.

But users with learning disabilities benefit and enjoy being part of an online group that provides access to a community with the obvious features of ownership, identity and belonging in a safe, effective and managed environment.

People & Places provides this environment.

We will be demonstrating the technology at the heart of the service and provide case studies of clients and Service Users who already benefit from using People & Places. The information will allow colleagues to evaluate and understand how the service can be adopted and supported in their own area with their communities.

To find out more about the Learning Disability Exhibition, you can view the newsletter here.

Find out more about People & Places or if you would like to arrange an appointment please email debbie.marshall@cdsm.co.uk or telephone 01792 463865.

CDSM at the BETT Show 2009 - 22/12/08

CDSM Interactive Solutions Ltd, will be at the BETT Show 2009 from January 13th to the 17th at the Olympia in London.

You can find us at stand S86 in the Grand Hall Gallery. Look for our colourful "engage - enable - evolve" stand.

If you're at the BETT Show, come over and meet the CDSM team and have a chat with us about:

My Learning Space - a cutting edge learning platform already being used in several areas of the UK. It provides every students a personal web space, tools for learning and creativity and a safe environment for communication and collaboration.
Pedagogue - the eLearning content authoring tool. Pedagogue will let any teacher harness the power of their school's learning platform and create engaging, dynamic content for their students.
People & Places - a unique and accessible ePortfolio portal designed specifically for users with Special Educational Needs.
Teacher Share Zone - an educational platform component based on the requirements of Harnessing Technology and Children's Services to allow teachers to share resources and information with students and other teachers.
GCSE English Online - a flexible and comprehensive, Curriculum Online accredited eLearning resource covering the entire curriculum for Years 10 and 11, at Higher and Foundation levels.

We look forward to meeting you!

Find out more about CDSM's products and services or contact Dan Sivak at dan.sivak@cdsm.co.uk or 0870 904 1666.

People & Places West Midlands Event Being Held on 17th September

The City and Council of Swansea and CDSM Interactive Solutions will be holding a People & Places event in the West Midlands on the 17th September, 2008. People & Places is the safe and secure online communication environment for communities with needs.

Social networking via the web is now widely available using sites such as Facebook and Friends Reunited and is gathering momentum every day. These public service websites are possibly not the right environment for adults with learning disabilities or other communities with needs.

This is not to say however, that users with learning disabilities would not benefit and enjoy being part of an online group that provides access to a community with the obvious features of ownership, identity and belonging in a safe, effective and managed environment.

People & Places provides this environment.

We will be demonstrating the technology at the heart of the service and provide case studies of clients and Service Users who already benefit from People & Places. The information will allow colleagues to evaluate and understand how the service can be adopted and supported in their own area with their communities.

The West Midlands People & Places Event is being held at the Gainsborough House Hotel, Kidderminster on 17th September 2008. It begins at 11am and finishes at 1pm.

To find out more about the West Midlands event, you can view the event newsletter here.

Find out more about People & Places or, if you would like to attend, please email debbie.marshall@cdsm.co.uk or telephone 01792 463865 to reserve your place at the event.

People & Places Exeter Event Being Held on 22nd July

The City and Council of Swansea and CDSM Interactive Solutions will be holding a People & Places event in Exeter on the 22nd July, 2008. People & Places is the safe and secure online communication environment for communities with needs.

People & Places provides this environment.

The Exeter People & Places Event is being held at Great Moor House on 22nd July 2008, starting at 11.00am finishing at 1.00pm.

To find out more about the Exeter event, you can view the event newsletter here.

Find out more about People & Places or if you would like to attend please email debbie.marshall@cdsm.co.uk or telephone 01792 463865 to reserve your place at the event.

CDSM Exhibiting at Special Needs North - 18/04/08

CDSM Interactive Solutions will be at the Special Needs North exhibition at the Manchester Central on Friday, 18th and Saturday, 19th of April.

Special Needs North is major exhibition for the North of England. It aims to bring together thousands of teachers and support staff to discuss and raise awareness about growing inclusivity in schools and how to support pupils with special needs.

CDSM will be exhibiting at stand GE25 and will be demonstrating People and Places, an online portfolio and portal especially designed for users with learning disabilities, and Pedagogue, the accessible eLearning content development tool.

If you're planning to visit the exhibition or are looking to learn more about supporting special needs in your school or local authority, come down and talk us about how CDSM's products can make a difference to your learners.

More information about the Special Needs North exhibition can be found at: http://www.teachingexhibitions.co.uk (This link will open in a new browser window).

Find out more about CDSM's products and services or contact Dan Sivak at dan.sivak@cdsm.co.uk or 0870 904 1666.

CDSM at the BETT Show 2008 - 08/01/08

CDSM and their partner, Salford Education Authority, will be at the BETT Show from January 9th to 12th at the Olympia in London.

CDSM's stand at the BETT Show (this is the caption for the image above).

You can find us at stand S86 in the Grand Hall Gallery. Look for our colourful “engage - enable - evolve” stand.

If you're at the BETT Show, come over and meet the CDSM team and have a chat with us about:

My Learning Space - a cutting edge learning platform already being used in several areas of the UK. It provides every students a personal web space, tools for learning and creativity and a safe environment for communication and collaboration.
Pedagogue - the eLearning content authoring tool. Pedagogue will let any teacher harness the power of their school's learning platform and create engaging, dynamic content for their students.
People & Places - a unique and accessible ePortfolio portal designed specifically for users with Special Educational Needs.
Teacher Share Zone - an educational platform component based on the requirements of Harnessing Technology and Children's Services to allow teachers to share resources and information with students and other teachers.
GCSE English Online - a flexible and comprehensive, Curriculum Online accredited eLearning resource covering the entire curriculum for Years 10 and 11, at Higher and Foundation levels.

We look forward to meeting you!

Download CDSM's BETT Brochure (880kb) (This link will open in a new browser window).

Find out more about CDSM's products and services or contact Dan Sivak at dan.sivak@cdsm.co.uk or 0870 904 1666.

Liverpool LA Joins Pedagogue Community - 20/10/07

CDSM is proud to welcome Liverpool Learning Authority (LA) to the Pedagogue Community.

Liverpool LA are a BSF Wave 2 authority and will be delivering the SCORM conformant content created by their teachers in Pedagogue to learners via their Ramesys Assimilate Learning Platform.

The Pedagogue Community is a fast-growing grass-roots movement of teachers producing quality, accessible and standards conformant learning content. The community is built around Pedagogue, CDSM's eLearning authoring tool.

Using Pedagogue, teachers can utilise the power of their Learning Platforms by creating the content that they need in the classroom. They can do this easily, quickly and collaboratively with their peers in the LA and the wider community.

Find out more about Pedagogue and Pedagogue Community or contact Dan Sivak at dan.sivak@cdsm.co.uk or 0870 904 1666.

Blogging About People & Places - 05/10/07

Sean O'Sullivan from the Frank Wise School in Banbury recently visited the Service Provider Forum Group in Swansea.

Sean has blogged about People & Places, CDSM's SEN portal, which the City and County of Swansea uses for their service users, carers and staff. You can read the blog account of his visit here: http://www.parkroadict.co.uk/Site/Blog/Entries/2007/10/1_Swansea_People.html (this link will open in a new browser window).

You can also see a video of two service users using People and Places (this link will open in a new browser window) and their opinions about the software.

People & Places is a portal and online portfolio that promotes communication, interaction and evidence collection amongst its community members. It has been specially designed for users with learning disabilities and is being used in Learning Authorities throughout Wales, including Swansea, Carmarthenshire, Neath and Port Talbot, Powys and Denbighshire.

Find out more about People & Places or contact Debbie Marshall at debbie.marshall@cdsm.co.uk or 0870 904 1666.

Pedagogue Community Takes Off - 06/08/07

The first meeting of the newly formed Pedagogue Community was held on Friday 27th July at Buile Hill CLC in Salford. This new collaborative project is based around members' use of CDSM Interactive Solutions' eLearning content development tool, Pedagogue.

Pedagogue allows teachers to rapidly develop high-quality content with a minimum of ICT skill. It is fully online, allows collaboration between users and produces accessible multimedia content that is SCORM 2004 conformant.

The meeting was attended by

The two Salford City Learning Centres
Three of the four Manchester City Learning Centres
The two North Tyneside City Learning Centres
Ealing City Learning Centre
Sheffield East City Learning Centre
Doncaster South City Learning Centre
Runcorn City Learning Centre
Teachers TV
CDSM Interactive Solutions Ltd

At the meeting, the community agreed to a new model of sharing practice and resources which includes

An agreement by all members to generate 100 learning content items a year for sharing in a digital repository
An agreement to share good practice based around Becta's Quality Principles for learning content
An agreement to share development resources and methods to ensure best possible outcomes for learners across England
A chair for the community was elected by its members to guide it for the next 6 months

The community is set to grow from its current membership of around 16 City Learning Centres, Local Authorities and other learning institutions to more than 30 by Christmas 2007, and is committed to presenting its efforts at the BETT show in London in January 2008.

“This new project is of massive significance for us in Salford, and I hope will be equally significant to other community members,” said Dr Kevin Palmer, Salford CLCnet Director and current Chair of the Pedagogue Community. “Through the methods we adopt as a community, we will considerably increase the range of learning resources available to teachers in our areas, and measurably improve the quality of resources we can make available through our new Learning Platforms. Our CLC and teaching staff now know that for every learning resource they create, they are contributing to a shared pool of learning resources from which they will in turn be able to draw in the future. As we get this project under way and improve the methods we use to plan and deliver resources to teachers, we have no doubt that we will add significant value to the lives of schools, teachers and learners in our city. The involvement of Teachers TV, Becta and other agents of development and change in our community is already further enhancing this work, so that by the time we come to BETT in January 2008 we will be able to demonstrate the value of collaborative working across the country.”

Find out more about Pedagogue and Pedagogue Community or contact Dan Sivak at dan.sivak@cdsm.co.uk or 0870 904 1666.

Microsoft Spread the Pedagogue Message - 22/06/07

Pedagogue, CDSM's collaborative eLearning content development tool, has recently been featured in the “Microsoft in Education” newsletter which is distributed to thousands of Microsoft partners.

Built with Microsoft's .NET2 technologies, Pedagogue is an online eLearning content development tool that enables teachers to rapidly develop high-quality content with a minimum of ICT skill.

Around Pedagogue, CDSM have worked with a number of innovative City Learning Centres to build the “Pedagogue Community”. Pedagogue Community is an active community of educators generating and sharing their content with one another. Participating CLCs then distribute content to their partner schools, providing great value and benefit to their learners. The community's shared expertise and collaborative exchange model is designed to enable community members to cover more parts of the national curriculum, quicker.

City Learning Centres in Manchester, Salford, Tyneside, Halton are currently participating in the community and new members are being added every month. The sharing of content is allowing teachers to increase the quality of eLearning content being provided to their learners.

The first Pedagogue Community event is to be held in Salford on Friday, 27th of July. At the meeting content gaps in curriculum areas will be identified at Key Stages 3 and 4 and working groups of teachers and CLC staff will collaborate to generate content to meet these requirements.

Examples of content created in Pedagogue will be made public in October to showcase what CLCs are doing with this effective, simple-to-use technology.

Find out more about Pedagogue and Pedagogue Community or contact Dan Sivak at dan.sivak@cdsm.co.uk or 0870 904 1666.

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