Over the last few years, the RSPB has seen an increased interest in birds and wildlife. Its new Learn Birds course will help adults develop new skills and knowledge and guide them through the early stages of their interest.

This increased interest is reflected elsewhere with the growing popularity of TV nature programmes like BBC Springwatch. This year the programme attracted an average of four million viewers a night who tuned in to watch the daily lives of nesting birds, foxes, and badgers. Its presenters, Kate Humble and Bill Oddie, are now household names.

Mark Boyd, RSPB LearnBirds Coordinator, said, "We sought a means of providing recreational learners with a broad and thorough introduction to birds and bird-watching that they could dip in and out of and learn at their own pace".

In MyKnowledgeMap, the charity found a solution provider with a proven record in web-based learning for a wide range of audiences. The York-based company provides eLearning content and delivery systems, skills analysis software, and is the UK's leading supplier of infrastructure systems for national skill eAcademies. It has established solutions in UK food- and-drink manufacturing, sport and active leisure, care, and retail sectors.

For the RSPB, MKM has devised a ten-hour course that takes learners on a journey into and through the world of birds. The course begins with the fundamentals of bird-watching, moving to bird anatomy, before looking at conservation issues.

The course is broken into twenty topics that use a wide range of texts and images in online interactions and offline activities. Online interactions include building habitats, quizzes, and matching birds with sounds. Offline activities include field tracking, silhouette identification, and bird hunts.

The course makes use of extensive and detailed bird illustrations, as well as bird call soundtracks within ambient sound backgrounds (sea, wind, trees, and tractors) to provide a more authentic listening experience.

A&C Black, the third partner in LearnBirds, provided artwork from some of its hugely successful books and sourced authors for the project. Along with video clips from the RSPB film library, these help provide a rich and enjoyable learning experience.

Printable workbook and birdwatcher logbook are provided in the course. Each learner is assigned a mentor to answer questions and has access to a community discussion forum. Learners can track their own progress through the course.