MyGardenSchool^®

My name’s Duncan Heather and along with my co-founder Elspeth Briscoe, we’d like to thank you for visiting our website. It’s not often you can say something’s unique but currently we are the first and only online gardening school to offer a classroom learning experience from the comfort of your own home. You get exactly the same video presentation delivered via the internet, as you would if you were sitting in the classroom. You can listen to your tutor, ask them questions via MyClassRoom and even chat to your fellow classmates online. We’ve gathered together some of the world’s leading experts, to bring you a fantastic opportunity to learn from people you’d never normally get access to. Over the coming year we’ll be adding new courses each month, from roses to bee keeping, treehouses to chickens; in fact if you think of a course we haven’t yet included please send us your suggestions. Join us on one of our gardening courses and start using this library of knowledge found nowhere else in the world.

Every Saturday morning you will wake to find a new video tutorial waiting for you. These can be viewed whenever and wherever you want… and as many times as you want. If you have a mobile phone* you will be able to watch and listen while on the move. Alternatively you will be able to view your tutorials via your home computer. If you are interrupted during your lecture, you can pause the video, if you miss important information or need further clarification, you can rewind, and play it again. The real benefit of MyClassRoom is that you can store your videos and revisit them at your leisure**… Even after the course has finished.

Having enrolled and logged into MyGardenSchool the MyClassRoom tag will appear on the top menu bar; this is the gateway to your virtual classroom. This is where you will find a list of courses you have enrolled on, both past and present and will also contain a wish list of courses you are interested in. Once enrolled on a course, your course will appear in MyClassRoom where you will be able to meet and chat with fellow students, watch your weekly video tutorials,upload your assignments for marking and chat with your tutors. The opportunity to have direct access to some of the world’s top authors is probably the most important benefit of MyGardenSchool. Nowhere else would you be able ask direct questions and get personal answers from some of the leading lights in the horticultural world and this all happens within MyClassRoom.

Accompanying every lecture is a set of student notes set out in full colour, which are downloadable and yours to keep and print off. These contain a transcript of the tutorial as well as some of the photos and illustrations contained within the video.At the end of these notes you will find your assignment giving you instructions on what you are required to complete and upload as homework for marking by your tutor.

Each week after your lecture,you can download your student notes and find your assignment for that week. This varies depending on the type of course, but could comprise of online questions and answers, a short essay or garden plan, a project to complete such as growing seeds, making a vegetable garden, or even designing a tree house or photograph a flower or garden border.Once your assignment is completed, you will be asked to upload it to MyClassRoom so your tutor can give youpersonal feedback and in some cases you will be able to view your fellow students work and comment and encourage each other.