Broadband for Brum and Brighouse!
irmingham Education Service and Espresso announce wide-ranging partnership
Britain's largest metropolitan authority has joined forces with Britain's leading provider of broadband curriculum material in a partnership to bring the best of digital media to the Birmingham learning community. From nursery to A-levels, from local library to the home, Espresso and Birmingham will collaborate in providing digital learning material for the people of Birmingham.
 Espresso teacher Mandie Dickinson introducing Prof. Tim Brighouse, Birmingham's Director of Education, to the Espresso characters Sal and Ash. |
The partnership could eventually encompass a vast arena - an integrated, wide-ranging approach to lifelong education, delivered to schools, libraries, new learning institutions and the home. Birmingham and Espresso plan to work together in developing content which will engage, inform and teach through the versatile new medium of digital media.
Specific partnerships will include:
- Espresso for Schools - the phased introduction to Birmingham primary schools of the unique broadband weekly updating news and curriculum service.
- Your Espresso curriculum modules built around local resources. Birmingham Grid for Learning are basing a series of resources around the City's extensive Soho Archive which traces the development of the Industrial Revolution through the achievements of City fathers, Matthew Boulton, James Watt and Joseph Priestley. Following the original work on Soho House (see below), Espresso are in a leading position to offer its digital internet formats and curriculum expertise to create original content and course work from the Soho Archive.
- Teacher Training - starting with New Opportunities Funded ICT training for teachers, Birmingham and Espresso are planning to partner across a range of training initiatives, with Espresso providing illustrative digital media and distance learning, and Birmingham and its academic partners delivering face-to-face course work and mentoring.
- Future developments may include on-line content services for the new network of City Learning Centres under the Excellence in Cities initiative which are designed to provide state of the art ICT- based learning opportunities for pupils and teachers and the wider community.
We are impressed by the innovation and quality which Espresso offer, and welcome their joining the partnerships Birmingham is establishing to harness ICT to learning and the management of learning.
Espresso Managing Director Tony Bowden commented: We are delighted that Birmingham - one of the country's pathfinder authorities - shares our vision of the future.
 Prof. Tim Brighouse, Birmingham's Director of Education, visited the Espresso stand at the BETT 2000 show. He's seen here with (l-r) Editorial Director Lewis Bronze, teacher Mandie Dickinson, and Managing Director Tony Bowden (far right). |
Espresso and Birmingham have already collaborated over the trials of the satellite delivered Espresso for Schools service, which have been going on in a number of Birmingham schools during 1999. In addition, Espresso has also built a Key Stage 1 and 2 history resource around local museum Soho House, a focal point in the development of the Industrial Revolution.
For further press information or paper versions of this release please contact:
Espresso Marketing, Riverside Studios, Crisp Road, Hammersmith, W6 9RL
Tel: +44(0)20 8237 1200
Fax: +44(0)20 8237 1201
Email: info@espresso.co.uk
