Schoolzone Evaluations
The largest independent teacher research community in the UK, has reviewed and evaluated our secondary school teaching and learning resources.
Testimonials
Secondary Schools
"ECDL fitted our requirements for an ICT course. It was more skills based than many alternatives. Teachers really like the modular structure and the ThirdForce teaching and testing resources."
Neil Carey, Joint Head of ICT, Sharnbrook Upper School, England
"The level criteria for ICT at KS3 are very vague. With Level Tracker for ICT we now have two indications of a Level - the test Level and the teacher assessment of the work. The feedback has been very useful in refining lesson planning and teaching."
Mark Harrison, Head of ICT, Sinfin Community School, England
"I found Level Tracker for ICT was ideal for accurately levelling the pupils at the start of year 7. It also enables me to measure their progress through year years 7 to 9. We have a limited amount of time for ongoing assessment so Level Tracker for ICT was a fast, accurate solution to our needs."
Leon Oxenham, Director of ICT, The Latymer School, England
"The course was labour saving for me because the students were able to work at their own pace and take responsibility for their own learning. Students were motivated by the exercises built into the programme."
Schoolzone Evaluator
"The students are very happy to have a facility that tracks and updates their training and assessment progress at their workstation available for viewing and printing on demand. I used to rely heavily on paper based methods for monitoring my students progress. All of that approach has now changed with the installation of the ThirdForce package."
Ger O'Sullivan, Sacred Heart Secondary School, Cork, Ireland
"From the admin point of view it has eased the burden considerably in managing the records of all our students. Students have greater flexibility in the speed at which they progress and can refer back easily to brush up."
Teresa Hennessy, Tallaght Community School, Dublin, Ireland
"The EP ECDL for schools offering from ThirdForce provides an efficient, pain free way to train large numbers of pupils, thereby significantly reducing the resources necessary to administer the training and testing. With the EP solution the quality of teaching increases as there is more time available for individual student attention."
John Hartery, CBS Tramore, Waterford, Ireland
"As a first timer introducing the ECDL certificate to the school I found the programme to be very timesaving - the automatic correction is a total 'godsend'. The students quickly became 'independent learners' - taking control of the speed and responsibility of their learning - allowing me to target and focus on those students experiencing particular difficulties. I love it."
Clar Ni Mhadoige, IT Teacher, Loreto Secondary School, Wexford, Ireland
"The key benefits of using the ThirdForce e-learning solution are the consistency of approach and greater guarantee of complete coverage of the ICDL syllabus. It allows for ease of testing and, especially for the teachers, significant saving of time in marking. We have found the solution very good and superior in functionality to a number of other e-learning solutions we have tried."
Paul Herring, Head of Computing, St Peter’s Lutheran College, QLD, Australia
"We tried out many products and decided to adopt the ThirdForce ICDL training CD-ROM as it is an excellent product that not only meets our needs in terms of content delivery but is very competitively priced. It was important that all 1200 staff had the opportunity to become involved in the program at a time that suited them and their work schedule."
Paul Davis, ICLT Education Officer, The Diocese of Broken Bay, NSW Australia
"Technology is now more integrated into subject areas. Using the ThirdForce solution, students can learn at their own pace and non-computer trained staff can quite comfortably teach and assess ICT. The tracking software allowed for excellent control over the management of student progress and the recording of their results."
Paul Dave Kermode, Computing Studies HOD, Trinity Grammar School, NSW, Australia
"We have been using ThirdForce’s Cert 1 in IT courseware for many years and found it to be the most cost effective and time saving learning solution ever produced. Hundreds of students and staff have attained their qualification. I highly recommend this solution to all."
Deborah Farrell, Lecturer, TAFE SA - Tea Tree Gully Campus
"ThirdForce’s Cert 1 in IT resource is excellent. It allows our distance education students to learn in a supportive environment. Our teachers acknowledge that Skills Suite for Cert 1 in IT encourages study and reinforces the learning."
Donna Playford, Distance Learning Coordinator, Moreton Institute of TAFE (Mt Gravatt Campus), Australia
Lifelong learning
"Choosing ThirdForce for both courseware and testing products was a smart move. The products are excellent and the ThirdForce team supports our needs and continually checks to ensure that we are happy. Our students have also been really enthusiastic about the materials."
Christine Talbot, Programme Area Coordinator, Bedford College, England
"The latest version of AutoTest is delivering what we have been waiting for - robust access to online ECDL testing. It has significantly reduced our administration workload and overheads."
Lorraine Dowd, ECDL Centre Manager, Halton College, England
"We invested in the EP ECDL automated testing software from ThirdForce in 2002 as a platform to improve the efficiency, effectiveness and integrity of our examination processes. Prior to the implementation of this platform, testing of all staff and student ECDL trainees was a labour intensive, paper-based task prone to human error and very quickly deemed unacceptable in an institution where the use of ICT is in it's very culture.
The entire turn key experience was a good one culminating in 600 examinations taking place within the first 12 months, a number which could never have been achieved using the previous paper-based process. Since then the benefits of the system for ECDL Administrators and Students alike are tangible for all to see and these together with the excellent support and customer service of ThirdForce has ensured that the ECDL experience has been a tremendous and ongoing success."
Luke Feeney, Information Systems Manager, Dublin Dental School and Hospital, Ireland
"I have found AutoTest for ECDL brilliant. After so many years administrating examinations I found the new system so easy to run. The examination office has changed from piles of files, folders and floppy disks to just one computer with everything stored on it and a few hard copies of reports.The motivation for the students is greater with such instant feed back on results. Initially some of our students were nervous taking an examination on the computer but after the first examination they actually began to enjoy it! It also motivates students to complete the seven modules."
Una Mc Elwee, Dundrum College of Further Education, Ireland
"ThirdForce products are invaluable in relation to timesaving. As the AutoTest software marks the paper on termination of the exam, tutors have more time to deliver the course. I found ThirdForce’s products easy to use and a real benefit as current information is available at the click of a button, whether it’s printing out exam results, bringing student records up-to-date or updating the bank of exams."
Ashlene Kinnear, ECDL Co-ordinator, Cavan College of Further Education, Ireland
"Overall very good. AutoTest for ECDL has saved hours of tedious administration work particularly in the areas of test set-up, correction and results catalogue."
Joe English - ECDL Tester, Cavan College of Further Education, Ireland
"From an administrative point of view we no longer have to keep exam printouts or students' disks for each exam. Everything is stored on ThirdForce's servers and accessible via the web. In all our dealings with ThirdForce, staff have been really helpful and are regularly in touch to enquire if everything is running smoothly. Adopting AutoTest really is a case of the 'paperless office' in action."
Anton Barrett, Head of Lifelong Learning Department, Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland
Government
"ThirdForce has been very helpful and quick to respond to queries. All queries have been answered efficiently. Our experience to date is very positive."
Kerry Hawkins, IT Training Officer, Social Services Department, Somerset County Council, England
"We have been using ThirdForce's CD-ROM for some time now and have found it to be very user friendly. It provides a comprehensive coverage of the ECDL programme and is an essential aid for our trainees."
Evelyn McCullagh, ICT Training Manager, West Dunbartonshire Council, Scotland
"Milton Keynes Council chose ThirdForce after IT staff spent many months analysing the market place to find the best solution for offering a blended approach when studying for the ECDL. This involved visiting exhibitions, hours of studying the materials available from the suppliers and, of course, the costs."
Sue Knightsbridge, IT Training, Milton Keynes Council, England
"ThirdForce's experience and knowledge has been fundamental to the smooth development and implementation of our ECDL project. We enjoy working with ThirdForce as they have been extremely helpful in finding solutions to fit our working environment."
Elaine Morris, National ICT Project Manager, OLSU, DfES, England
Care
"We have achieved everything we wanted quicker than we thought. We have reached almost 100% compliance across 10-sites in less than 6-months. The courses remain in place for new starters and we are now working with ThirdForce to develop a new range of courses in line with the Government’s Skills for Life programme. Whilst cost was not the key issue, as investing in our people is a business imperative, the fact that we could deliver the training for less than half the cost of putting people into classrooms was a major factor as it now allows us to deliver over twice the amount of training within the same budget."
David Cole, CEO Castlebeck, England
"We want our front line carers to be devoted to their service users and patients. But we also want to give them all the opportunities to develop their professional confidence and competence. Thanks to e-learning solutions from ThirdForce we can now reach out to a disparate, widespread workforce, with engaging learning that can be accessed at work, in bite size chunks, during downtime, without it impinging on cluster activities during the day. The rollout of the first phase of the new training programme to care and healthcare assistants as well as support carers started in September 2006."
Tony Hosking, Care UK Managing Director, Residential Care Services, England
Hospitality and Leisure
"We’ve found interactive computer-based learning to be one of the most powerful tools we have to achieve our objectives. We are able to make sure all our staff receive the same quality of induction and training, and their progress through the courses is monitored via the internet.
Because of the modular structure, we find that knowledge retention is much higher. With classroom training we were finding that, six weeks later, many of our kitchen assistants couldn’t remember anything they had learned. E-learning has cut the cost of providing mandatory training on health and safety and food hygiene."
David Hoare, Retail Director, Hall & Woodhouse, England
"We chose to work with Thirdforce as we needed to partner with a fun, interactive and forward thinking training provider that matched the company’s aims and objectives for business and employee development. Over the past year and a half, 100 per cent of our employees have completed the induction ‘welcome’ course.
With a cleverly animated design, our entire workforce has commented on the highly interactive and motivating nature of all of the courses provided. At any one time we have recorded 300-400 of our employees accessing the e-learning courses, many from the comfort of their own homes, this we feel is a huge roll-out success!"
Sarah Miles, Training and Recruitment Manager, Hall & Woodhouse, England