Easilearn: The Island

Working together in small groups, pupils learn from each other, the software and through experience. Each pupil has their own journal which captures everything that they have done whilst on The Island - teachers can easily access these journals to assess progress and give personalised feedback to individuals.

Easilearn: The Island encourages collaboration and helps to develop speaking and listening skills. It also has much potential for cross-curricular usage - visit the Features tab for more information about this.

To find out more about Easilearn: The Island, click on the demo links on the right. The Easilearn Taster CD has even more information - order it for free from the Pricing tab.

Learning through enjoyment and experience

The Island has been specifically designed to take advantage of the appeal of highly visual gaming software. It is engaging and fun for today's pupil, delivering serious educational outcomes in an innovative and stimulating way. The Island will draw your pupils into an absorbing new world as they carry out their missions.

You can see pupils at King William Street CE Primary School using Easilearn: The Island and hear their teachers talking about it by clicking on the demo link above but let's hear as well from a Year 6 pupil at Salterhebble Junior and Infant School:

He was struggling with geography because, in his words, 'I didn't get too involved because I didn't like it'. However, this changed when his teacher, Mrs. Brearly, introduced the class to Easilearn: The Island - 'I learned loads of things like co-ordination, how to use a map and that boosted my confidence to the max'.

This is confirmed by Mrs. Brearly who commented on the class in general 'Easilearn has motivated the children to develop their geographical skills and understanding with enthusiasm. The children have looked forward to their geography lessons'.

When her Year 6 pupil was asked to name a benefit of Easilearn: The Island, he said 'It can make you like geography and even become a journalist, explorer, travel writer, or a geography teacher.'

The Island is an enticing environment that pupils will want to explore. It has been designed with the help of acknowledged education and geography experts to give them a true experience of an authentic northern European island - it has rocks, soil, hills, lowlands and wildlife. It has springs, streams and a large river that shows the different character of upper, middle and lower courses. It has beaches and cliffs that provide evidence of the effects of erosion and deposition.

Read on to find out more about how you can use Easilearn: The Island both for teaching geography and as a basis for cross-curricular work.

• To read the landscape to see how people can use it for settlements.
• To interpret river and coastal features in the landscape.
• To understand the processes that formed the coastal and river environments.
• To relate maps and compass directions to what's on the ground.

Pupils work independently on the Island so, to ensure that teachers are able to review what their pupils have learnt and understood, Easilearn has built-in assessment opportunities through each pupil's personal journal.

Pupils' progress around the island is automatically recorded in each of their journals. They are also prompted to justify their decisions at significant points within each mission and given tools such as a camera to help with them with this.

Pupils can also use their journals to reflect back upon their learning both during and after the Easilearn experience. Posters of the island are included with Easilearn that can be used by your pupils to present findings from their missions back to the rest of the class.