A North Wales internet company is set to release the latest version of a web-based application it believes could revolutionise education and training.
Bangor-based Achnack Ltd announced the imminent arrival of Version 1.7 of its ground-breaking Pagesend application at a seminar at Coleg Harlech to explore the use of digital mobile technologies in new business.
Pagesend, which has been developed to work on the market-leading Apple iPad, enables different people in different places, even in different countries, to watch, record and share ideas as well as collaborate with each other online in real time.
Acknack Director Rhys Jones said that it effectively turns the iPad into a whitescreen that any number of people can collaborate on and contribute to.
It has been largely developed by award-winning programmer Tom Beverley whose Pagesend Version 1.6 is currently in use and he said: “This has really useful application in business and education where we are also developing interactive teaching programmes but it can equally well be used in workforce training.
“We are working with people across the world on this and it can be exported and shared around the world.
“It’s about creating the same lesson with different learning techniques so that people with different abilities can reach the same level.”
Rhys Jones, who has launched and sold two web-based companies, told the seminar held at Coleg Harlech on Creative Technologies Within The Welsh Environment that he believed that mobile technologies lead to exciting breakthroughs in education and training through the use of collaborative software to enable more effective and thorough teaching.
He said: “We need to think about the interaction of mobile technologies because it is there that the real opportunities lie.
“We need to think about the disruptive change that new technology can bring to industry and education in the way that on-line credit card transactions have changed shopping.
“Now there is electronic invoicing and lots of that is now done from Bangor and the really interesting business opportunities lie in using new technology to change how we do things in business.”
He said that North Wales was a good place to exploit new technology in business because of the lack of geographical limitations on on-line business.
Tom Beverley, a 23-year-old Bangor University Computer Science graduate from Benllech who has worked with Google Maps and with Apple, is developing Acknack’s Pagesend application to transform teaching and training.
He said: “If there are 30 students being taught by a teacher then at the end of a lesson maybe only half understand the topic but you need to make sure that everyone understands.
“You could teach the lesson again or risk leaving half the students behind.
“There are nearly 4,000 secondary schools in the UK and 15,000 lessons on the same topic are taught each year – there are much better ways of doing this.”
Rhys Jones added: “The greatest technological change currently happening in industry is the use of electronic books through Kindle and Apple iBooks which is bringing about disruptive change.
“The number of electronic books sold has now overtaken paper books and the reason is that you can easily carry all the books you need on one mobile device and they won’t break your back.
“That means you can cram all that information into one small portable device and the book is also becoming a multi-dimensional interactive text rather than one-dimensional and non-interactive.
“We’re passionate about what technological change can bring and the internet means that whatever is created now can be shared and sold worldwide.”
The seminar is part of the Creative Hubs project, supported with Welsh Government funding to promote youth entrepreneurship. It is a partnership between Coleg Harlech WEA (N),Coleg Llandrillo, Coleg Powys and Coleg Ceredigion, and aims to raise awareness of business start up opportunities for learners and the advantages of engaging with new technology.
The speakers also included Coleg Harlech lecturer Ian McNeil, waste management expert Rebecca Colley-Jones, of Bangor University, and innovation strategist Martin Owen, of Inventorium, based at Parc Menai, Bangor.
The event was organised by internet entrepreneur and Coleg Harlech Creative Technologies lecturer Chris Headleand, an IT and innovation consultant who graduated from Bangor University in 2008 with a degree in design and has since managed his own web development business.
He said: “Social networking and new media mean you can get your message or your product out there very quickly.
“The aim of the seminar was to show people where we are with mobile technologies within the Welsh environment and how they can make use of them.
“They can appear a bit scary but we want to show how young businesses can learn to use these technologies and leverage them into business opportunities.”
The seminar also featured workshops for attendees conducted by Coleg Harlech on problem solving in web-based business and by Martin Owen on encouraging innovation in the use of mobile technologies in business.
Martin Owen said: “The ideas that make money can be incredibly silly so we encourage people to be as daft or strange as they like – sensible doesn’t come into it.
“There just has to be something special about the idea at that time. The rules are that there are no rules.”
Chris Headleand added: “The whole purpose has been to encourage young people to set up in business by taking advantage of the mobile technologies that are out there and to show how we can help them here at Coleg Harlech and elsewhere in North West Wales.”
