Toronto, Ontario. (March 1, 2010) – Canada’s leading distributor for educational resources Visual Education Centre (www.visualed.com) announces that it has signed a three-year contract with the Ontario Ministry of Education on behalf of its interactive educational media-on-demand service, Learn360 TM (www.learn360.ca). Now, more than 2 million students in Ontario’s publicly funded schools and school boards, First Nation schools, as well as faculties of education will have access to Learn360 TM’s robust educational content and online learning tools.
“The Waterloo Region District School Board (DSB) has been working with the Learn360 TM team for a couple of years now,” said Kelly Fahlenbock, Waterloo Region DSB. “The content is vast and spans all grade levels. The searching and management of material is very user-friendly. We are all going to benefit thanks to the OSAPAC initiative.”
The agreement is a result of an Ontario Software Acquisition Program Advisory Committee (OSAPAC) recommendation to the Ministry of Education to evaluate video streaming vendors and assess which vendor’s service best meets the needs of Ontario publicly funded schools.
“Visual Education Centre has been working with educators across Canada for 40 years. We are very excited to be able to offer Learn360 TM to teachers with the support of the Ontario Ministry of Education,” said Suzanne Hitchon, General Manager, Visual Education Centre. “We recently launched Learn360 TM Version 3.0, which increased the quality and size of our content inventory while simultaneously expanding the foundation and user capabilities. With Learn360 TM’s ease of use and vast library, we’re proud to help educators do what they do best: educate the next generation.”
Learn360 TM’s new content database offers more than 7,000 digital video titles, as well as speeches, images, articles and audio files from top educational publishers. These publishers include trusted resources such as Encyclopaedia Britannica (over 25,000 articles); AETV, which includes A&E, Biography and The History Channel; TVOntario, Nelvana, Cookie Jar, PBS, WGBH, Sunburst Visual Media and National Geographic.
In addition to Learn360 TM’s rich content, Ontario educators have access to a number of new features that allows users to create quizzes and assignments, as well as easily upload and share custom content and podcasts. Learn360TM makes these digital assets even more accessible and easy to share in online environments, including virtual classrooms that can be accessed from home. All of Learn360 TM’s content and user-created content can be integrated into podcasts, presentations, learning-based activities and quizzes both inside and outside of the classroom.
About OSAPAC
The OSAPAC Committee (Ontario Software Acquisition Program Advisory Committee) is composed of English and French representatives from across the province who advise the Ministry of Education on the acquisition of provincial software licenses for publicly funded schools in Ontario. For more information visit www.osapac.ca.
About Visual Education Centre and Learn360TM
With over 7,000 titles, Learn360 offers Educators engaging programs from trusted and award-winning educational content partners such as the Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, TVOntario, A&E, Nelvana, Cookie Jar, WGBH, National Geographic, PBS and Sunburst Visual Media. Setting a superior standard of quality for video streaming, Learn360 TM delivers the rich resources educators and students need to meet and exceed 21st century educational expectations. All programs are correlated to Provincial standards. Learn360 TM is exclusively distributed in Canada by Visual Education Centre, the country’s leading audio-visual educational resource distributor. For more information visit www.visualed.com.
For more information about Learn360™ or to book a free 30-day trial, visit www.learn360.ca.