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BBC Knowledge and Learning

I was interested to learn that the BBC is in the progress of re-organising all its educational content into a single website. Although, for financial reasons, they have produced no new modern language material in recent times, they have been organising their considerable archive matreial into easy to search clips. Previously this was called the Learning Zone, but this seems to be evolving into Knowledge and Learning.

Their thinking is explained here.

The French beta site is here.

They state that their aim is to "make the Knowledge and Learning Online feel like a single, unified place where users can learn more about science, nature, history, religion, arts and more."  To achieve this they say they will use a "web design technique called responsive web design, a way of enabling new content to adapt instantly to whatever device type or screen size it's being displayed on, smoothly reconfiguring and slimming itself down so it works optimally on tablets and mobiles as well as PCs."

In short, then, they are bringing together factual and education, and presenting it for all devices, especially one would assume ipads, which are becoming all the rage in schools.

This seems a very good idea and somewhat makes up for the fact that relatively little new material is being broadcast in these cash-strapped times.

In case you are not familiar with the BBC's French output, do have a browse of their beta site. Although much of the video material is several years old, it is often very usable in the classroom and I have already dipped into it for new listening resources on frenchteacher.

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