tutor2u, the leading digital education publisher for Business, Economics & the Humanities, has agreed to take a substantially increased stake in zondle, the fast-growing specialist in games-based learning.
zondle is managed by Wayne Holmes, Doug Lapsley and Ben Barton (ex Pearson, Granada Learning, Rising Stars & Harcourt) and has seen huge growth in users and traffic (doubling both since January 2013) and has begun generating revenues in the UK.
Commenting on tutor2u's investment, Jim Riley (Managing Director, tutor2u) said:
"We are delighted to take advantage of the opportunity to invest further in zondle which has developed hugely since we first took a stake in the business. zondle's innovative games-based learning platform has already enabled tutor2u to broaden our offer to teachers and students in our core subjects and we are now rolling this out across a wider range of curriculum areas."
“zondle’s platform is a core part of our investment in teaching & learning resources that can be accessed and delivered via mobile devices. We have also commissioned zondle to develop a new student portal within the tutor2u website”.
"The UK educational system faces significant and disruptive curriculum change over the next two years and our teacher and student community will look to partners like zondle and tutor2u to support them as the changes take effect.. Many of the larger print-based educational publishers are still struggling to meet the needs of digital education and the combination of tutor2u and zondle will enable us to continue to grow rapidly through outstanding innovation, quality and value".
“As the tutor2u and zondle teams have worked closely together over the last 18 months, it has become clear that we share the same core values. Both tutor2u and zondle love education – wherever it takes place – and we are both committed to working directly with teachers, students, parents and other educational stakeholders to improve the quality of teaching and learning.”
Ben Barton from zondle commented:
“We are so pleased that our partner, tutor2u, has agreed to significantly increase its investment in zondle at this time. tutor2u are clearly market leading in developing content that teachers actually use to support their students and the growing tutor2u team understands technology and the new landscape of education which will help zondle build on its early successes.”
“The closer ties with tutor2u and the increased investment mean a step change for both our organizations as we take on the more established resource providers in the UK and abroad and continue to deliver fantastic support for teachers and students.”
We've recently moved over to a new service which allows you to have daily digests sent from any of our subject blogs. This is a great way to keep in touch with new resources as they are added and to get first news of student and teacher events. To sign-up for this service, please complete the form below and then reply to the confirmation opt-in email that will be sent to you.read more...»
A quick reminder about our collection of revision toolkits for pre-released case studies and stimulus materials. These are popular support materials in the run-up to exams this summer and many are now available. We're working hard to complete the remaining toolkits by the end of March.read more...»
Jon Clark, our Head of Innovation, has been hard at work creating this new resource which is likely to be useful to and shared by all the departments in our school or college!
Of course, you could just keep it a secret to yourself!
Super Teacher Utility Belt comprises four easy-to-use and quick PowerPoint utilities to help teachers in make their lessons more interactive.
These are a:
- Random Name Generator: allows you to randomly pick a name from your class
- Scoreboard: a simple scoreboard to add up scores for any team-based exercise in your class
- EggTimer: uses a Powerpoint slide as an egg-timer for any activity in class
- Countdown Clock: gives a simple on-screen message about how long there is left until a significant event (e.g. deadline for assignment or exam date)
Teaching and Practice Resources from zondle and tutor2u
Are you looking for great resources to help your Year 6 children achieve their potential in the new Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling test?
zondle and tutor2u have been working with primary teachers across the UK to develop a comprehensive set of resources to help teachers deliver a structured programme of preparation for the Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling Tests being held for the first time in May 2013.
Together, we’ve created two flexible resource packages which will keep your students motivated as they prepare for the test and will keep you informed about your students’ progress.
Most importantly, these resources will save you lots of work!read more...»
tutor2u has today launched a new collection of games-based learning resources which use editable PowerPoint files as the basis for engaging and effective classroom learning.
The first three game formats are:
Bingo! - The classic bingo format with a neat educational twist! In our version, students match the definitions given to them as part of a ‘bingo card’ with key phrases shown on the randomly drawn ‘bingo balls’ on screen.
Hangman - Another classic format given a shake-up by allowed you to determine how many incorrect guesses are allowed before grisly gallows are completed!
Memory Blast - a new memory-straining format which helps students test understanding of key definitions. Can they handle duel task of identifying the definitions of key phrases whilst remembering where those definitions are placed on the screen?
Millions of teachers and students use PowerPoint everyday in the classroom and tutor2u's PowerPoint games-based learning collection is being developed to provide schools and colleges with cost-effective ways of making learning more engaging and effective.
Each PowerPoint game is provided as an editable PowerPoint file. All you need to do is add some content suitable for the topic or lesson you are teaching. Some of our game formats are designed to support definitions and/or key terms. Others use multiple-choice questions. They are ideal as lesson starters, group activities or even whole-lesson resources.read more...»
Welcome to 2013! We hope you had an enjoyable and relaxing break and that your students put in some suitable revision during their holidays too!
We're now hard at work preparing for our busiest-ever programme of CPD and Student Revision Workshops this term. I thought I would drop you a note with a quick summary of the programme together with links for more information if there is something of interest to you and colleagues.
Here are the upcoming diary dates and links:read more...»
We’re fast approaching a well-deserved break for all Economics & Business Teachers everywhere! We’ve had quite a few calls into the office recently asking for suggestions for CPD courses in the New Year so I thought I would highlight the courses that we are running early in 2013.
Places at all our CPD courses in 2012/13 are priced at £190 (+VAT) for a single delegate and £125 (+VAT) for departmental groups of two or more delegates.read more...»
Bring your Economics Classroom Right Up-to-date with the UK Economy Chart Room 2012
An updated and thoroughly revised UK Economy Chart Room poster set is now available for immediate dispatch
The aim of these posters is to provide teachers with a set of colour A3 data charts offering students a sense of how the figures have moved over recent years but also bringing them up to speed with the latest developments.
The sixteen charts in the latest edition of UK Chartroom cover the following data series:
- Tracking the Economic Cycle
- Components of Aggregate Demand
- Base Rates, GDP growth and Inflation
- Real Value Added in Selected Industries
- RPI and CPI Inflation rates
- The Cost of Borrowing in the UK
- Sterling Exchange Rate and the Trade Balance
- Household consumption and the savings ratio
- Unemployment rates - claimant count and LFS Regional unemployment rates in the UK
- Unemployment in selected OECD countries
- UK Fiscal Balance and Economic Growth
- UK Bonds, Government Borrowing & the Output Gap
- Yields on 10 Year Bonds - A European Perspective
- Balance of Payments on Current Account
- Estimated Trend Growth Rates
These posters make an ideal classroom resource and can be referred to many times during an AS or A2 macro course.
A complete set of A3 posters together with a digital copy of each is available for just £20.
Many tutor2u regulars will know that there is a connection between Tadcaster Grammar School (located in a leafy part of the lovely North Yorkshire) and Eton College (in a similarly beautiful part of Berkshire). Geoff is a Master at Eton, whereas my offspring (Miss T2U and Master T2U) attend TGS.
A couple of weeks ago, the boys at Eton launched what turned out to be a viral hit version of the gangnam dance - Eton Style.
But now Tadcaster has hit back with a typically gritty, northern version (i.e. telling it as it really is).
So, in the interests of balance (and family harmony), we proudly present the two videos...read more...»
We know our teaching colleagues love
to have great resources to help make lessons more engaging and
revision more effective.
So, we've decided to build a comprehensive suite of multiple-choice questions and topics, across a wider range of subjects, to support our major investment in games-based learning.
- Could you be a subject expert and leader in the tutor2u team?
- Do you have the skills and experience to help us build a fantastic collection of high-quality questions that would be ideal for revision and classroom learning?
At this stage, all you need to do is fill in this short form linked below and I will reply with more information on how you can get involved, the benefits to you and the next steps.
For the right candidates, we're offering a generous payment option and we'll also ensure that your school or college benefits appropriately from the teaching resources you help us create.
For Phase One of this project, we are specifically looking for experienced contributors with expertise in one or more of the following subjects at Level 2 (e.g. GCSE, BTEC First) and Level 3 (e.g. GCE, BTEC National):
Accounting | Business Studies | Economics | Politics | Mathematics | English Literature | English Language | Law | Sociology | Psychology | History | Geography | Chemistry | Biology | Physics | MFL
Please follow this link below to show an interest in joining the team. And don't forget to pass this opportunity onto colleagues in other departments who you think might be suitable and interested in getting involved.
You may remember that this time last year we took a stake in a games-based learning platform called Zondle, with the aim of developing resources for mobile learning.
Well It’s here! Version 1 of our new revision app. Details below about the new App, how to get hold of it, what you can do with it and our development plans.
The app is available right now from for Android and Apple device users: download it from:
We’re now busy adding content that can be accessed via the mobile app - you’ll see this appear in the tutor2u resource folder structure when you access the app. This content includes the weekly Biz Quiz and Economics in the News quizzes.
Please note; you'll need a free Zondle user account to be able to access all the app resources.
We've been grateful to receive many positive testimonials about tutor2u in recent years, including several hundred when we were named as the Smarta 100 winners in 2011. Here are some of the comments which we've received which makes us all proud of what has been achieved to-date and also determined to continue improving and expanding the tutor2u service.read more...»
A quick note to let you know that Mark Tottman’s superb strategic analysis of Supergroup is now available.
Mark has provided a comprehensive analysis of the pre-release material on Supergroup, taking each piece of evidence in turn to help explain to students the key issues raised. The strategic issues facing Supergroup and the options available to them are then analysed and evaluated in some depth.
We’re also maintaining a section on the Business Studies blog which provides updates on developments at Supergroup as we go through the period up to the exam.
Here are 3 suggested lesson activities to get Economics students up and running this term…
The Economics blogging team are fired up and raring to go, with the aim of supporting you and your students throughout 2012/13.
As we start a new school year we thought you might like a selection of lesson activities that could help engage your students with our wonderful subject…
Do you have a resource or teaching activity that you find works really well with returning or new class sets? If you do, we’d love to share it with thousands of colleagues around the world via the Economics Blog. Get in touch if you’d like to get involved [http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/site/contact-us/] and join the Economics blogging team.
...and don’t forget that there are now almost 300 Economics & Business teachers over in our Linkedin Teacher Community sharing ideas and resources. You are particularly welcome to join the community
Just 4 weeks to go until our first student event of the new school year - EntrepreneurLIVE! 2012.
This year we visit:
London (Fulham Broadway) on 1 October 2012 Birmingham (Star City) on 2 October 2012 Manchester (Salford Quays) on 3 October 2012
The event will follow a similar format to the one which has proved so popular with teachers and students in the last two years. Students will get the opportunity to hear from a superb selection of entrepreneurs who will tell their story, provide insights highly relevant to every business studies course and then, most importantly, take questions from our student audience.
We’ve lined up a superb team of speakers for the three events who we’re sure the students will love - and gain so much from too!
Fraser Doherty - Founder of SuperJam - one of the best-known and loved young entrepreneurs the UK has ever produced - and with good reason! Fraser will take students through “the next chapter” talking about his new product Superhoney and his strategy of expanding to the USA
Vincent McKevitt - describes himself as the “Top Tosser” and the man behind the restaurant business Tossed. A fantastic entrepreneurial story from a smart, switched on young businessman
James Eder - The Beans Group - James is the entrepreneur behing studentbeans.com and is also now doing a lot of work with Startup Britain - the Government-supported programme to encourage more startups
Mike Longthorne - one of the three founders of the Wedge Welly business that starred in Dragons Den. Mike is the marketing genius behind Wedge Welly - not to be missed. Rachel Bridge - perhaps the UK’s leading expert on enterprise and startups - and a huge supporter of enterprise education. Rachel has met hundreds of the UK’s most successful entrepreneur and, by drawing on real life examples, she is the ideal person to talk about the common traits they share and look at what we can learn from them.
We’ll also be running the highly popular Student Enterprise Challenge where student teams pitch their solution to a business challenge, competing to win some attractive cash prizes!
Details of the Student Enterprise Challenge for 2012 are now available here
Student places at the event cost £20 (+VAT). Bookings for EntrepreneurLIVE! 2012 can now be made using this online form
You can read a report from the 2011 event by Stoke Sixth Form College who brought students to Manchester (Salford Quays)
We do hope that you and your students will be able to join us.
A new academic year starts for most of us this week. So here are three new business studies lesson activities that might help get the students thinking about the real world of business.
Each time you launch this interactive quiz, ten well-known business people are drawn from the quiz database. Can your students work out who they are?
A relatively simple (and easy?) task of spotting the business brand, part of which is displayed on the worksheet.
Which businesses decided to become sponsors of the London 2012 Games and which did not take part? Our PowerPoint Wipeout format is used for this quick activity.
We’ll be adding lots more resources to the Business Studies blog over the next week - so do keep visiting regularly.
Don’t forget that we also now have a growing Business Teacher community over on Linkedin (200+ colleagues have joined this week alone) - another great way of sharing ideas and resources as we begin a fresh school year.
Jim & the team
Something new from tutor2u for 2012/13 and already this is proving a popular feature for our growing network of enthusiastic Economics & Business Studies teachers!
Our Economics & Business Teacher Community over on Linkedin is a very much like a virtual departmental staffroom. No students. Just time to read, discuss topics with like-minded colleagues and share ideas and resources.
If you’d like to get involved, please do come over and join the group.
Lots of interesting topic discussions already, not the least being some disquiet over the standard and method of exam paper marking this summer. I’m sure you and your colleagues have a view on this too - come over and share it.
The tutor2u Business Studies team are hard at work creating loads of new teaching & revision resources for 2012/13.
Just uploaded to the Business Studies Blog are some additional revision quizzes. Here are the links:
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.
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:
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!
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
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:read more...»
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.read more...»
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.read more...»
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.
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
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.
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:
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.
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).
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.read more...»
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!read more...»