BSEC Review
A global solution
Promethean announced thatmembership of Promethean Planet had passed the halfmillion mark, doubling in only one year. Promethean Planet was launched in 2006 and in less than four years has become the world’s largest online community for users of interactive learning technology. Available in ten languages withmembers in over
Within the education sector specifically, the
company says building design should be flexible, allowing for a variety of uses and activities in different spaces; with sufficient generosity tomake future changes relatively easy; teaching areas and other spaces that are adaptable to suit a variety of activities; internal spaces that can be adapted for use outside school hours; and external spaces utilised where possible to increase the potential of teaching areas. Not only domoveable walls sub-divide classrooms
to cater for fluctuating class sizes, these highly acousticmoving partitions dividemulti-purpose halls for drama, PE, assembly and dining.What’smore, acoustic absorption boards can be used to increase intelligibility in large spaces, while folding glass screens provide a link between classrooms and outdoor space with year-round comfort. “Withmany individual projects complete, our
movable walls are now being used in classrooms, multi-use halls, drama studios,music rooms and auditoriums across the country with excellent feedback fromboth teaching and facilities management staff. Completed projects include: Lancashire BSF, Leeds Schools PFI, BirminghamBSF, Knowlsley BSF, Bassetlaw Schools PFI,Manchester BSF and Academies, Sunderland BSF, Islington BSF and NottinghamBSF,” said a spokesperson.
Technology for the environment
“The wind is free” said VerticalWind Energy, explaining that customers get themaximum amount of energy out of a turbine, while it pays for itself as quickly as possible. It adds that customers know in advance the level of performance they can expect froma VerticalWind Energy turbine on their site: “Almost uniquely, we assess each potential site before every sale – tomake the whole process of buying and installing a turbine professional and easy,” said the company’s Chris Kelsey. Responding to a question about the financial
benefits of installing a wind turbine, Chris explained that the Government had recently announced Feed-In Tariffs (FITs) which will start in April at a rate of up to 34.5 pence for 1 kilowatt hour (kWh). The FITs will be paid for 20 years. These are payable to anyone who owns a renewable energy system(e.g. a wind turbine or photo voltaic panels), regardless of whether they use all the electricity themselves. Customers selling excess power back to the National Grid can claiman additional payment of 3p/kWh. “By installing a vertical wind turbine schools
would be instantly creating a new revenue stream,” Chris explained. Savings will accrue fromthe FITs, fromreplacement of purchased electricity (typically around 13p/kWh) with own generation and from sale of any surplus generation to the National Grid, possibly during the 18 weeks of the yearwhen the school is closed. Customers pay off their initial
April 2010 www.education-today.co.uk
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investmentwithin 5 to 10 years. After that all revenue fromFITs and excess power sold back to the grid is profit for the school. The educational benefits are also substantial,
Chris said: “By installing a VerticalWind Energy Ltd (VWE) turbine at a school, the school is giving a clear visual statement of the school’s commitment to carbon reduction and the environment. A VWE turbine is a useful teaching aid, cutting across subjects such as science (climate change and the global impact in terms of crop growth and rain fall); technology;maths; history (windmills and industrial revolution) and geography (visual impact; local planning issues; human development needs and the standard of living in countries in different regions). “There are also opportunities to teach
economics, both atmicro scale regarding the return on investment to a turbine owner, and at themacro scale, that is, what the impactwill be if lots of people put up turbines on energy imports, equipment imports, investment needs for power stations; and GDP and balance of payments. In terms of international politics, it raises questions around the impact of renewables energy generation in developed countries on oil producing countries and under developed countries and the influence this will have on international politics and the eradication of poverty across the globe,” he added. Another great example of sustainability, the stand
was busy throughout the duration of the show, suggesting increasing interest in whatwill hopefully become a common sight on school playing fields across the UK. Sharing the stand, Abacus Lighting explained that
it supplies themasts for the VerticalWind Energy turbines. Both reported a very positive show, with ample opportunities to explore themarket.
150 countries, Promethean Planet is free to join and enables teachers fromaround the globe to exchange ideas, share new and innovative lessons and have access to a wide variety of professional developmentmaterials. The site contains over 16,000 fully customable lesson resources for all ages, representing over 225,000 pages of teaching material, and includes premiuminteractive educational content fromleading publishers such as Dorling Kindersley, National Geographic, Scholastic, Waterford Institute, Harper Collins and Oxford University Press. Promethean Planet received theWorlddidac
Foundation Award for Excellence in Education in 2008. Recentmonthly statistics show that there weremore than 250,000 unique visits, 5million page views and over 550,000 downloads on the site. Planet is currently supported in English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Kazakh and Arabic. Brent Taggart, Chief Strategy Officer commented:
“Promethean Planet’s growth has surpassed all our expectations and has become the world’s leading online community of its kind. As well as providing an unrivalled resource base, helping teachers to prepare andmake lessonsmore interactive, it is also a global forumformembers to interact and share ideas. Its success plays a key role in helping to bring learning to life in the classroom.” “The show is very good for networking. A lot of
the supply chain come tomeet us here,“ said Promethean’s Director of UK Business Development, Alistair Hayward. Promethean encourages architects and teachers to talk to themwhen undertaking building projects. It offers solutions on how and where to place technology in new buildings, for example:Will this wall hold the weight of a smart board? Is the quality of sound in the roomhigh enough? How can we get electricity to this piece of equipment? Itsmobile solutions also ensure that there are no issues with doors! A fantastic show, full of fresh ideas, itwill be
interesting to see what happens after general election in terms of funding initiatives.
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