The Educational Company of Ireland (Edco) was founded in 1910. Since then the company has grown to become one of Ireland’s leading educational publishers both in traditional and digital formats.

Edco has been to the forefront of the digital revolution in Irish education and has invested heavily in these new technologies to create engaging and user friendly platforms and content for both students and teachers.

edcoDigital.ie was launched to schools in 2009 and is an online e-Learning platform for teachers in Primary and Post Primary schools. The platform allows teachers to view and interact with a range of textbooks in a digital format and access to a wide range of teacher-friendly curriculum focused resources, which aim to enhance the teaching and learning process.

Entirely produced by Irish authors, designers and developers these e-books can help create a more interactive learning experience with over 14,000 resources including videos, e-tests, animation and podcasts.  edcoDigital.ie  is being used by nearly 30,000 teachers nationwide.

With the rapid growth in the use of tablets and other hand held devices Edco has worked closely with leading IT company’s, including Apple, Microsoft and Samsung to develop a world class digital education platform – edcoebooks.ie. The platform offers inter-operability across a range of devices as well as online and offline access. It is all cloud-based and the comprehensive tools allow students to highlight text, search and make notes, assisting them with their own personal revision plan.

Edcoebooks contains over 9,000 interactive videos, animations, PowerPoints and audio clips and are being used by over 20,000 students and teachers in over 100 schools nationwide.

Edco is constantly updating and improving it’s product offering to the education sector. One of the company’s latest innovations is the  Leaving Cert Answer App for iPhone. According Julie Glennon, Sales and Marketing manager with Edco: “The App contains over 1,000 sample answers, hints and tips for Leaving Cert English (H), Biology (H), French (H), Geography (H), Irish (O) and Business (H). Students can search for content by year, answer, paper and topic and can access high-quality sample answers anytime, anywhere. To date we have over 10,000 downloads and we expect that number to rise as the Leaving Cert quickly approaches.”

Edco has won several awards for its digital innovation including the Best e Learning Award for edcoDigital  at the annual Digital Media Awards 2010 and was shortlisted for the edcoebooks in 2014.  The e Learning Award recognises the provision of unique interactive learning experiences, demonstrating innovation and excellence in the use of digital technology to deliver e-leaning.  Edco was also shortlisted  for best Educational App,  Leaving Cert Answer App,  in the Appy Awards 2013.

Edco are continuing to invest in their digital platform and as new technologies come on stream you can expect many more exciting developments from this highly innovative Irish company.

The Education Matters blog will be managed by two students from the NUIG MA in Journalism program as part of the Masters work placement program.

Caroline Duggan, mum of four and small business owner is passionate about education and enterprise, and is looking forward to a long and fruitful career in this field. She can be found blogging over here at Cast a wide eye and is also on Twitter .

Mona Wise, mum of four, has a fondness for writing about all things food and family related. She has just finished a five year stint as a mature student and has lots of stories to tell. She can be found blogging at Wise Words and is also on Twitter.