Wednesday, 13th January 2009

Students are being encouraged to improve their ICT skills after Viglen, a leading British manufacturer and provider of IT solutions, launched their sunflower competitions for schools.
 
Schools will go head to head to grow the tallest sunflowers, which will draw onto remote and innovative learning such as creating video presentations from their greenhouses or garden.
 
As a ‘hands on’ competition, it also hopes that students will learn new ways of working together in different environments. Schools who register for the competition will receive a packet of seeds from Viglen and will be encouraged to post their videos/presentations/photographs of their sunflowers onto www.viglen.co.uk/seeitgrow.
 
Across spring and summer 2010, Viglen The See IT Grow competition is open to every primary and secondary school in the UK, both state-funded and private, and has two categories; to grow the tallest sunflower, and the sunflower with the largest head diameter. Schools can register at www.viglen.co.uk/seeitgrow.
 
Various prizes will be up for grabs including Toshiba, Microsoft and Viglen branded items. Smaller prizes will be awarded throughout the spring and summer culminating in a grand prize for the leading primary and secondary school in each category — a total of four national winners.
 
Across five months schools will go head-to-head, sowing their sunflower seeds provided by Viglen in late March and regularly monitoring progress, updating a special website enabling them to show off not only their ICT skills but also their horticultural prowess.

“The See IT Grow competition is a hugely exciting project for engaging pupils and teachers alike. It is also an opportunity for cross curricular and mobile ICT to truly be a part of schools participation. I’m looking forward to seeing many schools taking part and I wish all who do the very best of luck”.

 
About Viglen: Viglen has been, and continues to be, a leading British provider of innovative IT solutions to the Education and the Public Sector. With a pedigree second to none, Viglen is today one of the fastest growing IT solutions organisations, offering a totally integrated end-to-end service.
 
About See IT Grow::See IT Grow, a Viglen initiative, will be launched in January 2009 at the BETT Show. Packets of seeds and instructions will be provided to schools during the show and mailed out to all existing Viglen schools customers.
 
Planting will begin in March with the final measurements for winning entrants taking place on 16th July with the winners announced following week. To register schools need to go a dedicated microsite www.viglen.co.uk/seeitgrow which also enables participating schools to update their progress and post reports and images of their developing sunflowers.