Ministry funding pushes Ultranet into schools

Learning management support system sees growth

Demand for the Ultranet learning management system has grown massively thanks to Ministry of Education funding support, says Peter Nelson, CEO of education IT specialist company Edtech, which builds and distributes the software.

Nelson says a recent Ministry of Education decision to fund implementation costs and the first six months of a licence and service costs for Ultranet and three other MOE-approved learning management system solutions has caused a spike in demand.

Ultranet allows parents to quickly and securely log on through the internet and keep in touch with their children’s school progress. A caregiver has to be invited by the school to become a user and he or she can only access their own child’s information.

The schools using the learning management system solutions aggregate all the digital resources used for teaching and learning in each school, ranging from providing a safe social networking space and sending school notices home, to online discussion forums and the provision of links and resources for learning.

The Ultranet Learning Management System has been developed locally by Edtech over the past five years and is now live at a total of 152 schools around the country serving around 85,000 pupils. The solution runs in the cloud and costs on average around $10 per student per year.

Founded in 1992, Edtech is a private company with the majority ownership held by Nelson, with equity participation by key members among the 110 staff. It is based in Auckland, and has branch offices in Hamilton and Palmerston North.