Helping district staff, parents and students take full advantage of ERAC's agreements

Many learning resources and software products that ERAC has negotiated over the past few years offer discounted purchasing or allow home access. While ERAC's focus is fixed firmly on the needs of schools and educators, we also recognize that the classroom walls have expanded; students need to be able to access valuable learning resources from their homes. Students and teachers also benefit from acquiring the same tools they use at school for their home computers.

This access can provide profound educational opportunities for students by giving them time to play around with software and to explore the depth and breadth of online resource. It also encourages parents to become partners in their child's learning by seeing and understanding the types of resources available for projects, homework and other school assignments. It's no longer necessary for parents to rely on Google: licensed learning resources contain text, images, audio and video materials that are age appropriate and safe for children of all ages. Many could even serve as great resources for family games nights!

ERAC agreements come in all shapes and sizes. Please read below to discover all of the ways that working and learning at home can be supported.

Agreements available to ERAC members as a membership benefit: ERAC's agreement with the National Film Board of Canada makes the videos in the NFB's Online Screening Room available to educators for in-school use. Students and parents can also access the collection from home at www.nfb.ca.

Agreements in partnership with others: IBM Canada's K-12 Division, the BC Ministry of Education, and ERAC worked together to provide The Edmark House Series software. The series helps to assist Pre-Kindergarten – Grade 2 children in building basic skills, both prior to their entering the school system and throughout their primary years of learning development. Access to these resources is available on the LearnNowBC website, www.learnnowbc.ca, at no additional cost to parents and children.

Subscription agreements: ERAC's Online Resource Database Bundle offers an extensive EBSCO collection, World Book's complete reference suite, Encyclopedia of BC's entire database, the Canadian Periodical Index (CPIQ), LegalEze (a legal research website providing access to the current and archived laws of BC) and 12 Gale Virtual Reference Library e-books that ERAC has purchased. A majority of ERAC's member districts, representing 90 percent of BC students, have subscribed to the bundle; students in subscribing districts may obtain home access to all of these resources at no additional cost. A student's school can provide a user id and password so students can access the resources from home.

Other ERAC agreements that include home access but have lower district/school participation levels include the following. (Please note that the student's district or school must have purchased or subscribed to the software or video streaming service for it to be available for home use. Parents may check with their child's school to see if their school or district is participating in the agreement. Schools or districts that are unsure whether or not they're participating in the agreement may check with their district's ERAC District Software Contact.)

• TumbleBooks: Animated, talking picture books that help develop students' reading skills. TumbleBooks are created by adding animation, sound, music and narration to existing picture books, in order to produce an electronic picture book. A great resource for ESL students and their parents.
• netTrekker: A standards-based educational search tool providing safe, fast and easy access to standards-based, educator-selected, online learning resources.
• Gale: Student Resource Centre Gold and Biography Resource Centre databases.
• Discovery Education streaming Canada: This streamed video service includes more than 5,000 titles.

Agreements offering parents and students the opportunity to buy resources at discounted prices:

• Adobe: This agreement offers discounts of up to 85 percent on some of Adobe's most popular products such as the CS4 versions of InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash Professional and Contribute, as well as Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro, Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows. Click here to enter the storefront page. You will need your child's PEN number from his or her report card to access the discounts.
• All The Right Type 3 Plus: The whole family can learn to type – properly. This is available for half price through ERAC's discount.

Agreements offering teachers the opportunity to buy resources at discounted prices:

Teachers in districts that have participated in ERAC's Provincial Microsoft Licensing (PML) agreement have the opportunity to purchase work-at-home rights for Windows 7 for just $10 per license.

If you are not sure if your district participates in this agreement, or to get more information about this opportunity, please get in touch with your ERAC District Software Contact.

For more information on all of these agreements, please contact ERAC's Barb Hyde at 604-713-5920 or bhyde@bcerac.ca.