James Rennie School VLE

James Rennie School use Point in Moodle

The James Rennie School in Carlisle is offering the support of Widgit Symbols in its Moodle Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).

The James Rennie School is a maintained co-educational Community Special School, whose primary specialism is Special Educational Needs (SEN) communication and interaction. The school has approximately 130 mixed pupils, ranging from 3-19 years of age.

The school created its Virtual Learning environment using Moodle – an open source, free web application that educators can use to create online areas, such as VLEs, for students.

The James Rennie School’s VLE is a place for students to work and learn, with the support of the Widgit Symbols that they are already familiar with using in the classroom environment. By adding the Widgit plugin, Point, to the Moodle VLE, students who struggle with reading written text are able to feel a real sense of independence. They are able to access text on their own more easily, through having the option of being able to find the meaning of words that they are struggling or unfamiliar with.

The option of turning the Point symbol support on and off also allows more confident readers to access the VLE without seeing symbols.

Simon Thomson, Business Development Manager at Widgit said, "The first Moodle based learning platform released with Widgit's Point product in the UK. Widgit were delighted to see this project completed really efficiently and the reaction we have received has been unanimously positive. We expect James Rennie to be the first of many projects using open source platforms to integrate Widgit's online products".

To try the Symbol Supported version of Moodle you can by visiting our demo page.

If you would like further information about any of the VLE plugins please contact simont@widgit.com