Device means students can stay in bed and learn (From York Press)

Device means students can stay in bed and learn

10:45am Monday 12th February 2007 in

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UNIVERSITY students no longer have to force themselves awake to attend early morning lectures.

Now, thanks to an award winning product by a York audiovisual firm, they can stay in bed and keep pace at the same time.

The new product, an American invention called Mediasite, is being marketed by AVQ Ltd of the Bull Commercial Centre in Stockton-on-the-Forest which was the winner of the 2006 Press Business Of The Year.

Mediasite facilitates e-learning distribution, by being installed into lecture theatres so that the presentation can be distributed on the internet.

AVQ claims that the learning solution device has great potential to reduce costs and improve knowledge retention.

Universities and colleges can now make their lectures available for non-present students around the world.

And, it claims, revision for exams will be more thorough. Tests have shown that up to 95 per cent retention is possible on second viewing.

What is more, lectures can now easily be marketed commercially, and each one can be updated, modified or edited at a later date.

Geoff McAuley, AVQ's chairman and founder, said; "The benefits of the device extended beyond educational establishments to any company, or commercial organisation, governmental body or health authority that has a need for continuous training such as safety, new legislation or company procedures.

"They can now significantly reduce their training costs while at the same time improve quality and accuracy."

Richard McAuley, Geoff's son, who is the newly appointed managing director of AVQ, said: "We are working with Business Link York and North Yorkshire to roll out product trial partnerships with local universities through the Knowledge Rich scheme.

"We want to provide an opportunity for educational establishment to understand how best they themselves can benefit from what are becoming known as Virtual Learning Environments'."

AVQ demonstrated the device at last week's Venturefest.

Geoff McAuley said: "It created quite a stir, and at the same time lots of business representatives beamed in on our stand to congratulate us for winning the Press Business Of The Year title."