"Your Espresso" local resource service launched with Birmingham Grid for Learning
1st October 1999
Soho House Museum at forefront of second Industrial Revolution!The Soho House Museum in Birmingham has already played a central role in one Industrial Revolution. Now it is at the forefront of another one!
Espresso Productions - leaders in broadband educational media - have used Soho House as the basis for the first Your Espresso resource bank - an integrated electronic library of local resources, combining original video footage, websites, worksheets, photographs and pictures based on Soho House and the wider Industrial Revolution. It is a resource that supports the teaching of History for both Key Stage 1 and 2 and provides an excellent starting point for local study focused on the Soho/Handsworth area. It also contains teachers' notes that list the contents and explain how they fit in with the History National Curriculum.
 Soho House in Handsworth, Birmingham, formerly the home of Matthew Boulton, now a museum of Birmingham's role in the Industrial Revolution. |
As the home of nineteenth century entrepreneur Matthew Boulton, Soho House was where some of the central figures of the Industrial Revolution met, talked and exchanged ideas. Men like James Watt, Joseph Priestly and Josiah Wedgewood, together with Boulton, formed the Lunar Society which met on the night of the full moon. Boulton became a highly successful factory owner - perhaps the Bill Gates of his day - as he pioneered the new methods of manufacturing.
At the invitation of the Birmingham Grid for Learning and the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, Espresso filmed at Soho House and developed extension activities to support teachers and children planning visits to the Museum. But the module ranges far wider than that.
 The opening screen of "Espresso visits Soho House, Birmingham", the first "Your Espresso" Resource Bank. |
Educational Producer Catharine Slade explains: "We spent some time researching the Web for excellent sites to pull into the resource bank. We found them not only in Birmingham, but also in London and in Sydney, Australia, where the Powerhouse has a Boulton and Watt Engine with a full description on their website. So we've built a resource bank which not only shows Birmingham children the importance of their home city but places it in an international context.".
The Soho House resource bank is a prototype of what can be achieved all over Britain. Already, Espresso has received keen interest from other LAs and Library Authorities in creating "Your Espresso" resource banks based on their own local collections and needs.
Editorial Director Lewis Bronze comments: "What we have here is a viable way forward for digital media, something that you can see and immediately place in your own context. It's breathing life into the notion of digital media, which can sometimes seem nothing more than a mirage on a distant technological horizon".
If any Local Education Authorities want to explore producing cost-effective and dynamic local resources for use in their schools, and to share with others, they should email us.
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
