TopClass to Power Special Needs Training

Dateline: 12 September 2002

WBT Systems announced today that the TopClass e-Learning suite has been selected by ProfExcel. Commissioned by the Irish Department of Education and Science, and partially funded under the National Development Plan, ProfExcel is a new online professional development service for teachers and allied professionals in Ireland.

“With the demand growing for special needs and psychological coursework amongst the Irish teaching community, ProfExcel was looking for an e-Learning suite that would quickly allow us to create, deploy and manage new e-Learning content for our customers,” said Henry McLoughlin, Technical Advisor ProfExcel. “One of the core objectives was to provide high quality content in special needs topics to teachers all over the country. By switching to e-Learning and providing coursework online through the TopClass customised environment, we are able to provide self-paced learning to our clients on an anytime, anywhere basis.”

"We are delighted with how TopClass has helped this business to get up and running in such a short time” continued Henry McLaughlin, ProfExcel. ”Within a matter of days we had a complete solution offering online training to teachers nationwide. The response so far has been overwhelmingly positive and we have exceeded all of our expectations."

“Teachers are working in a very stressful environment. With integration of children with various disabilities into mainstream schools more and more demands are being placed on teachers” says Dr. Moya O’Brien, ProfExcel. “We are providing access to research and models of best practise for teachers working with children with disabilities using TopClass. Discussion boards enable teachers to share their experience which enriches the training and the value of the courses” continued Dr. O’Brien.

”This is an extremely innovative move by the Irish Government, and we at WBT Systems are very proud to be the enabling technology” said Paul Dooley, COO, WBT Systems. “It demonstrates Ireland’s commitment to teacher development and support for special needs students in the classroom, and achieves this using the latest teaching methods. We are delighted to see TopClass being used for such a worthy initiative.”

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