Sunday 7 April 2013

Liber Espresso


What the resource is, how it works and what you need to make it work:
Liber Espresso is a multimedia archive with different pedagogical material like pictures, movies, interactive exercises and texts about all kind of topics. It is original from England so you can find material in English (on the English pages) that are all in English.
It is an Internet learning material and it covers all the subjects from preschool to school year 6 and the content of the resource is connected to the curriculum LGR 11.
The requirement to use the resource is that you have to have access to Internet. It does not matter if you have a PC or a Mac – computer because Liber espresso is built on flash.
It is not for free, the school can subscribe the resource Liber Espresso at a fee of 129kr/year/user. The users are the teachers and the students within the school.
Liber Espresso works splendid with a Smart Board for example, then you can watch the movies and do the interactive exercisers together as a group or the whole class. It is at the same time a recourse that one student can use by one computer. They can listen to facts, read and do the exercisers for themselves. It can be used as a starter of new topics or as a “on the side” material, with extras. If you are a teacher in a school that subscribe the resource you will get a password so you can make it work at home also. If you are interested to learn more about Liber Espresso it is possible to ask the staff from Liber to come to your school and give you a demonstration. The best way of learning to use the material is to book an education for the teachers when you decide to try this ICT –recourse.

How teachers can use the resource:
The teachers can use Liber Espresso to create whole lessons/themes using the films, exercisers, texts and so on. There is a special tool called the presentation creator to help you to do that. It is possible to just pick some of the numerous ideas from the material as a starter for a new topic. It can be provided for the pupils who need some individual practise/challenge. The resource can also be used to find new articles (the archive is being updated every week), find different topics that can be discussed. The teacher can also see the connection with the syllabus for each area.
To use the English pages are contributing to develop the language because you can find good materials for the actual group you are teaching in within all kind of school subjects.
  
How pupils can use the resource:
The pupils can use this in their own levels. If you have difficult with reading, you can easily get the text read to you with a simple button click. There are figures at the top of the exercisers that can give you as a student an explanation how to do. The pupils can use the presentation creator and make their own presentation to report what they have learnt or show a work that they are going to share with their classmates. It is an excellent “on the side” material also for extras if you are done with your exercise and want to know some more. They can work with it one by one or in pairs watching and reading and practising the topics we work with.

Other considerations when using this resource:
This ICT- recourse is very popular among the children and the teachers at the school I am working at. The material is easy to find and the site is friendly for both students and teachers (even if you are not so familiar with Internet learning materials). If you are going to use this it is saving a lot of time as a teacher. You do not have to look for all the material from so many places, it is all in one place. It cannot, in my opinion, be the only material to use in the education but it covers a lot if you use the English pages. The English site has more material than the Swedish and even if your student do not know the English language that much yet, the content in the site is useful.
If you or your pupils chose to make your own presentations with Espresso it is good to know that you cannot save it on the resource, you need to save it on a USB – stick or on your server. It could be some questions that you want to know more about, then you can visit www.liber.se/espresso. There you can also find the contact to order the resource or to get someone out to your school to give you a demonstration of the product. Good luck! / Kristina William

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