Virtual RuckSacks are the perfect solution to the demands of a Personal Learning Environment. A Virtual RuckSack is a product developed by 8th Day Studios Ltd that allows the user to upload and store any type of electronic document or item therefore creating an e-portfolio of their work.
Parents
-
Has your child ever left his or her homework at school?
-
Does this cause upset and worry when they fail to hand in their homework on time?
-
Are you sometimes unsure exactly how much homework your child is being assigned?
-
Would you like to see some pointers to resources that can help your child research for their homework?
Teachers
-
Do you have to prepare multiple copies of homework assignments?
-
How do you track who returned their work on time?
-
How long does it take to mark work and give feedback?
Imagine each child in a class having a Virtual RuckSack. The class teacher can, with a single click, post a homework assignment into each child's Virtual RuckSack, or perhaps a number of differing tasks for children of varying ability. Each child can see his own homework, but nobody else's. The child accesses his or her homework from home, and when he has finished he posts his finished work. The teacher, from home or school, can immediately see which children have posted their assignments and can mark them. As the child progresses through his education, he carries his Virtual RuckSack with him. Despite the fact that it holds a copy of all his assessed work, it never gets any heavier.
The Virtual Schools Platform has a great deal of flexibility in defining how individual users can or can not access specific folders, and so Virtual RuckSacks is just one of their many applications.
Different schools will want an application like this to behave in a way that works with their established practices. If you have some good ideas about how you would like Virtual RuckSacks to work in your school, please let us know.
