The pros and cons of document cameras Ten Top Tips for Teacher Trainers VOLUME 30 NUMBER 11
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WHO ARE THE MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE IN EDTECH? TURN TO PAGE 31
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5 Tips for Grant Writing Strategies
Education Grants 2010–2011 Deadlines
by the Tech&Learning Grant Guru Gary Carnow Appendices Be careful with the use of appendices. Some proposal writers try to use the appendix to place information that should have been included in the body of the proposal. The appendix should not be used to get around any page limitations stated in the RFP. In general, the appendix might include: résumés of key personnel that will implement the grant; endorsements and letters of support; verifications; assurances; and diagrams or illustrations. It is not uncommon to supply documentation of your non-profit status. Some proposals will ask for you a list of collaborating partners. Do not put new information in the appendix. Your grant application must stand on its own. Any information in the appendix should further verify or backup the text of your application.
Grant Forms The forms that are part of the RFP guidelines will often serve as an outline for your grant narrative. Most RFPs will also include a procedure for the application submission. These directions will guide you and help you plan ahead. Additionally, the RFP will describe formatting issues. Follow all directions carefully. Many applications have additional components, usually a set of forms and assurances. It is imperative that you read all of the directions (several times) so that you can get going on these additional pieces.
Scoring Criteria, Rubrics and the Writing Process Scoring criteria are often included in the grant request for proposals. The scoring criteria is often further described in a scoring rubric. The rubric may further break down the criteria and provide the grant readers a score range on which to judge this element. Under each category in the rubric, a statement is provided as an example. This detailed rubric is both good and bad for the grant seeker. On the good side, the grant funder is telling you exactly what you need to do. What is bad is that you may be tempted to simply write the “Makes a Strong Case” statement without really describing what you plan to do. Be careful not to fall into this trap. For example, stating that the
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The National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year Program, sponsored by Dow Jones Newspaper Fund Inc. www.newsfund.org/ uploads/2010DJNFtoyform.pdf
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Ongoing DonorsChoose.org connects teachers who have approved funding requests that meet eligibility requirements with willing donors. www.donorschoose.org The Stuart Foundation’s focus on eductation includes informed public policy, exemplary districts and systems of schools, dynamic leadership, excellent teaching and engaged youth. Grants are made to groups, not individuals. www.stuartfoundation.org Beyond Words: The Dollar General School Library Relief Program, administered by the American Association of School Librarians (AASL), is sponsoring a school library disaster relief fund for public school libraries in the states served by Dollar General. www.dollargeneral.com
American Honda Foundation Grant http://corporate.honda.com/ america/ Toshiba Large Grants (Grades 6–12, more than $5,000) www.toshiba.com/taf/
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Ezra Jack Keats Foundation Mini-Grants www.ezra-jack-keats.org/ (Click on Programs)
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Captain Planet Foundation Grants www.captainplanetfdn.org
Ongoing Toshiba America Foundation accepts Grade 6–12 applications for $5,000 or less on a rolling basis. www.toshiba.com/taf/ Digital Wish is dedicated to helping schools gain technology access across all subject areas with grants awarded every month. www.digitalwish.com/dw/ digitalwish/grant_awards The Wells Fargo Foundation supports many k-12 initiatives in specific states the company serves. www.wellsfargo.com/donations
Northrop Grumman Corp. awards grants that address education-related initiatives that promote the advancement of science, technology, engineering and math on a national level. www.northropgrumman.com (Click on Corporate Responsibility, then Corporate Citizenship)
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Lowe’s Toolbox for Education* www.toolboxforeducation.com Scholastic Library Publishing National Library Week Grant* www.ala.org
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The International Reading Association Regie Routman Teacher Recognition Grant* www.reading.org
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The International Reading Awards • Eleanor M. Johnson Elementary Teacher Award • IRA Award for Technology and Reading • Nila Banton Smith Award www.reading.org
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Environmental Excellence Awards* www.seaworld.org
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NSTA Awards • Sylvia Shugrue Award for Elementary School Teachers • Robert H. Carleton Award for National Leadership in the Field of Science Education • Biotechnology Explorer Award • Maitland P. Simmons Memorial Award for New Teachers • Distinguished Teaching Awards • The Delta Education/FreyNeo/CPO Science Awards for Excellence in Inquiry-based Science Teaching www.nsta.org/about/awards.aspx
Ongoing NSPIRES is the NASA Solicitation and Proposal Integrated Review and Evaluation System. http://nspires.nasaprs.com Verizon Foundation Grants http://foundation.verizon.com
American Honda Foundation Grant http://corporate.honda.com/ america/
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The International Reading Association Ronald W. Mitchell Convention Travel Grant www.reading.org
Shell Science Teaching Award www.nsta.org/about/awards.aspx NEA Foundation Sponsored Grants • Student Achievement Grants • Learning & Leadership Grants www.nfie.org
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Do Something Grants for Community Building, Health and the Environment www.dosomething.org/grants Intel Community Grants (awarded quarterly in geographies where Intel has a presence) www.intel.com/community/ grant.htm
• Pitsco/Hearlihy/FTE Grant • Greer/FTE Grant • Program Excellence Award, sponsored by ITEEA and NASSP • Teacher Excellence Award www.iteea.org • World Book Information Literacy Goal Award • 3M Professional Development Grant www.ala.org Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) Awards • BWI Summer Reading Program Grant • Penguin Young Readers Group Award • Maureen Hayes Author/Illustrator Award • Bookapalooza Program • Distinguished Service Award www.ala.org National Schools of Character Program, sponsored by the Character Education* www.character.org
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The Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation Lindbergh Award www.lindberghfoundation.org
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Captain Planet Foundation Grants www.captainplanetfdn.org
*2010 deadline. Please check Web site for 2011 deadline.
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5 Tips for Grant Writing Strategies
Education Grants 2010–2011 Deadlines
by the Tech&Learning Grant Guru Gary Carnow Continued... narrative describes a comprehensive action plan to share successful program implementation strategies and outcomes with stakeholders at the conclusion of the program does not tell the grant reader how you plan to do this. It does not say how parents, community members, and school districts will actually be able to share in the lessons learned.
Grant Budget The criteria for a budget might be scored on a three-point scale or a fivepoint scale. Here is an example of a three-point scale: 1 The proposal’s budget is vague and/ or inappropriate for the project. 2 The proposal provides a budget that is appropriate in type and amount, but is lacking sufficient detail. 3 The proposal provides a clearly articulated and itemized budget that is appropriate in both type and amount.
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Planning ahead will give you the opportunity to rewrite. Wait two days to begin the editing process. Going at it with a clear mind will help you find what in your proposal works and what doesn’t. As you begin to edit, remember that this is the time to cut, not add. Most of us are too wordy in our writing. Use this time to get to the heart of what you are trying to say. Avoid prepositional phrases, and keep the language simple. Clutter is really the enemy. Why use assistance instead of help? Or why not try many instead of numerous or use do instead of implement? Cutting and simplifying will give your writing an economy and a tone that is sharp and focused. Show no mercy. After you have simplified, spell-checked, and generally cleaned up the final look, share the document with colleagues and ask for their insights and reactions. Particularly ask for their comments about clarity and content. For more information from the Grant Guru, go to www.techlearning.com
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Olympus America/Tool Factory Podcasting Contest* www.toolfactory.com/ olympus_contest/
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Lemelson-MIT Program’s InvenTeam Grants* http://web.mit.edu/inventeams
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American Honda Foundation Grant http://corporate.honda.com/ america/
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American Honda Foundation Grant http://corporate.honda.com/ america/ NEA Foundation Sponsored Grants • Student Achievement Grants • Learning & Leadership Grants www.nfie.org
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• ISTE Outstanding Young Educator Award* • Kay L. Bitter Vision Award for Excellence in TechnologyBased Pre-K-2 Education* • Outstanding Teacher/Leader Awards* • Sylvia Charp Award for District Innovation in Technology* www.iste.org
Toshiba Large Grants (Grades 6–12, more than $5,000) www.toshiba.com/taf/
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Editing is Everything A common saying among writers is that writing is rewriting. There is no good writing, only good rewriting. Great writers do this instinctively. The rest of us have to practice.
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ISTE Awards • Public Policy Advocate of the Year Award* • SIG Media Specialist Technology Innovation Award* www.iste.org
ING Unsung Heroes Awards* www.ing.com/us/unsungheroes Northrop Grumman Corp. awards grants that address education-related initiatives that promote the advancement of science, technology, engineering and math on a national level. www.northropgrumman.com (Click on Corporate Responsibility, then Corporate Citizenship)
ISTE/SIGOL Online Learning Award* www.globalschoolnet.org
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Olympus America/Tool Factory Podcasting Contest* www.toolfactory.com/olympus_ contest/ Dollar General Grants • Back to School Literacy Grants* • Youth Literacy Grants* www.dollargeneral.com Target Local Store Grants www.target.com (Community link)
Parent Group of the Year Contest* www.ptotoday.com/pgy
NWA’s Sol Hirsch Education Fund Grants www.nwas.org/grants/ solhirsch.php
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Gale/Library Media Connection TEAMS Award www.galeschools.com/TEAMS Invent America! Student Contest www.inventamerica.org
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Captain Planet Foundation Grants www.captainplanetfdn.org
Captain Planet Foundation Grants www.captainplanetfdn.org The Tech Awards program www.techawards.org
*2010 deadline. Please check Web site for 2011 deadline.
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Enhance education for the connected generation. Learn more at Dell.com/ ProfessionalLearning.
contents 8
JUNE 2010
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FEATURES
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Assessment
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By Sascha Zuger
The Tech&Learning 100@30 By Matt Bolch
As part of our 30th-anniversary celebration, Tech&Learning continues to compile a compendium of the most influential people affecting the advancement of technology in education. Our second group of honorees is plucked from the present: today’s leaders who are changing the landscape of edtech through innovation and vision.
SCHOOL CIO: The Power of Portals While the phrase “school portal” may sound as dated as “information superhighway,” in fact the idea is finally becoming an effective solution for schools. Many districts and states now are taking Web sites to the next level by developing portals that have customized content for teachers, students, and parents.
Document Camera— Now You See It Teachers at these schools say document cameras change the way they teach. Learn how these relatively inexpensive devices help manage the classroom and keep students engaged, which ultimately can leads to increased retention.
DON’T ASSUME; ASSESS Whether instructors face the challenge of teaching efficiently and effectively, have to define student needs and placement, or must spend more time correcting behavior than teaching, assessment tech can be a useful tool to finding success.
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PRODUCTS
SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT: BEGINS ON PAGE 23
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June 2010 What’s New The Academy of READING • Access for All • Acuity Online Community • Adobe Creative Suite 5 • Blackboard Learn 9.1 • Centricity • ClassMate with NOCTI • Corel Paint it! • Explore The Blue • Finishing the Dream • Kurzweil 3000 Version 12 • Microsoft Mouse Mischief • Nuance Speak & See • RM Easiteach Next Generation • Schoolnet’s Response to Intervention • SMART Response 2010 Software Upgrade • TouchMath • new classmate PC • Crestron QuickPacks • HP All-in-One 200 • Intel Reader • TI-Nspire with Touchpad • and more
By Pam Derringer
DEPARTMENTS & COLUMNS 6 Editor’s Desk The List Gets Longer
8 News & Trends • Next big thing: Cambridge Dictionaries Online • New STEM survey • Contests • Top ten tips for teacher trainers • The 10 Zens of tech planning • Tech Forum highlights • Sites we like • Back office business • iPad apps for school • News from the EdTech Ticker
74 They Said It: How to think (and act) global in the classroom Raising global awareness among your students does not happen by osmosis. You have to work hard to expose your students to multiple languages, cultures, geography, different customs and traditions. By Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano Tech & Learning (ISSN-1053-6728) (USPS 695-590) is published monthly by NewBay Media, LLC 810 Seventh Ave., 27th Floor, New York, NY 10019. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Tech & Learning, PO Box 8746, Lowell, MA 01853 Periodicals Postage Paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. Copyright ©2010 NewBay Media, LLC All Rights Reserved.
TECH & LEARNING
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[email protected] Professional development, funding, and free stuff: Check out our Web offerings from teachers, administrators, and tech coordinators.
CHECK OUT THE MOST-READ STORIES ON TECHLEARNING.COM Wonder of Wordles Jennifer Wagner posts the joys of Wordle for word lovers.
More Tools for Digital Storytellers Ozge Karaoglu lists more tools you can use in class to create Web-based digital stories.
Reframing Google’s Search Options: The Poster Joyce Kasman Valenza unearths some of beautiful, but buried, Google tools.
Some Google Search Engines You Might Not Know About Steven W. Anderson shares some really cool, specialized search engines that can narrow your searches and help you discover some nifty things about this world we live in.
Evolving the Virtual School Library Joyce Kasman Valenza discusses ways school libraries can further push their importance to 21st century learners using new, easy-to-learn building tools. She discusses the need to redefine what libraries look like both off- and online.
Color Your Digital Life with SlideShows Ozge Karaoglu shares her top tools for creating a dynamic digital slideshow.
ondemand Check out the following resources from our partner sites:
PARTNER RESOURCES Latest and Greatest in Classroom Projectors Sponsored by Epson and Mitsubishi
The Windows Optimized Desktop Sponsored by Microsoft
The Case for Automation Sponsored by Kaseya
ARCHIVED WEBINARS Convertible Tablets: The Best Choice for Teaching & Learning? Sponsored by K-12 Computing Blueprint
The Tech&Learning 100@30 As part of our 30th anniversary celebrations, Tech&Learning is compiling a compendium of the most important people in edtech. We add to this list each week, so check in regularly to back to see who else will be added. Did we miss someone? Leave your suggestion in a comment, or take our Reader Poll.
Follow us on TWITTER (techlearning) and FACEBOOK (Tech&Learning Magazine)
Learning from your Peers: 802.11n Wi-Fi for K-12 without the Headaches Sponsored by Aerohive
PC Double Duty for K-12: How two districts reach more students with fewer PCs Sponsored by HP Check techlearning.com for updates
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Publisher: Allison Knapp
[email protected]; (510) 868-5074; Fax: (650) 238-0263 EDITORIAL Editorial Director: Kevin Hogan
[email protected] THE LIST GETS LONGER Part two of T&L’s look at the 100 most influential people in EdTech has an interesting cast of characters (page 31). Some are obvious: DOE’s Arne Duncan and Karen Cator have at their disposal billions of dollars and an official dictum from the Obama administration to install data-driven decision making in public education once and for all. How that happens and to what effect, I’ll leave for debate on our advisor blogs.
Managing Editor: Christine Weiser
[email protected] Editorial Interns: Amir Hardy, Clea Mahoney Senior Art Director: Nicole Cobban
[email protected] Art Director: Annmarie LaScala Contributing Editors: Jeffrey Branzburg, Judy Salpeter, Gwen Solomon Custom Editorial Director: Gwen Solomon
[email protected] ADVISORS David Warlick, Ryan Bretag, Patrick Higgins, David Andrade, Dean Shareski, Scott Meech, Kim Cofino, Darren Draper, Terry Freedman, Cheryl Oakes, Bob Sprankle, Lisa Thumann, Jen Wagner, Lisa Nielsen TECHLEARNING.COM Web Production: Minnick Web Services Assistant Web Editor: Diana Restifo ADVERTISING SALES East Coast Sales Manager: Caliann Mitoulis
[email protected]; (215) 370-5813 MARKETING AND EVENTS Marketing Manager: Jared Stearns
[email protected] Director of Events: Diana Milbert
Some other folks may come as a surprise. For example, people of a certain age will remember junk bond king Michael Milken’s name. But I will venture that not everyone knows about his educator award, which has given over $60 million to innovative educators in the largest teacher-recognition program in the United States.
Production Director: Bill Amstutz
[email protected] Production Manager: Fred Vega
[email protected] CIRCULATION Group Circulation Director: Denise Robbins
[email protected] Circulation Director: Anne Drobish
[email protected] That this list is so comprehensive is thanks to you, the reader. Most, if not all, of these folks have been nominated by you here (www.techlearning.com/30thanniversary). I’m also happy to say that almost every response has been reasoned (with the one exception of “Your mama”).
REPRINTS AND PERMISSIONS
There is still time to participate. In our September issue, we will be focusing on the future: those thinkers, educators, researchers, and executives whose work now will have the greatest impact in the coming years. We want to hear from you about those grad students working on world-changing curriculum software; about that open-source app that has changed the way you teach; about that young administrator who has reenergized your school district. Join the conversation online or just shoot me an email at
[email protected].
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Wright’s Reprints: (877) 652-5295 EDITORIAL AND ADVERTISING OFFICES 810 Seventh Ave., 27th Floor, New York, NY 10019 Phone: (212) 378-0400; Fax: (650) 238-0263 For general editorial correspondence:
[email protected] President & CEO: Steve Palm Chief Financial Officer: Paul Mastronardi NEWBAY MEDIA K-12 EDUCATION GROUP Vice President, Group Publishing Director: Adam Goldstein Publisher: Allison Knapp Editorial Director: Kevin Hogan Editorial/Creative Director: Anthony Savona Web Editor: Rob Granger Web Production Specialist: Ashley Vermillion Web Director: Ragan Whiteside SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION $29.95 per year in the U.S. $59.90 for two years. $39.95 in Canada and Mexico. $69.95 in all other countries. To subscribe: (888) 266-5828 or www.techlearning.com
www.techlearning.com Kevin Hogan Editorial Director
N THE WEB
www.techlearning.com
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newstrends
by T&L editors
nextbigthing
Listen In Many times, audio features in education software seem forced—just bells and whistles that make noise but perform no actual function. Cambridge Dictionaries Online has figured out how to do it right. The company has added more than 40,000 pronunciations to its online definitions so that students can just click and listen instead of having to decipher those arcane phonetic codes. Kids should have fun with the British versus American versions, too. Cheerio!
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/
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newstrends
CONTEST NEWS
Peoples Education unveils sweepstakes
Writing contest for e-readers
Peoples Education announced its call for entries for the inaugural ePath Knowledge Platinum Sweepstakes. Educators and principals have the opportunity to win a free year of the new technology-driven program Practice Path, one of Peoples Education’s new online-learning tools in the ePath Knowledge series. Elementary- and middle-school classrooms in ten states (Arizona, California, Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia) can receive a oneyear subscription to Practice Path, a Flip Video for the teacher, and other bonus prizes. DEADLINE: June 30, 2010. Principals and teachers will enter to win a full year of Practice Path for the 2010–2011 school year. To register, visit www.epathknowledge. com.
iWriteIt.com is holding a writing tournament to kick off the launch of its new Web site, which provides free content to e-readers, such as the Amazon Kindle and the Apple iPad. To enter the first round, authors must submit an original short story. iWriteIt.com anticipates that the tournament will last eight to 10 rounds; the final winner will receive $30,000. DEADLINE: July 1, 2010. For more details, visit www.iwriteit.com.
See more polls at techlearning.com.
4.33%
None of the above.
2.40%
Yes, even if more than $20/year.
15.38%
Yes, if under $20/year.
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FLEXIBILITY: Always have a backup plan in case something is not working, such as the Internet. KNOWLEDGE: It’s important to have a vast knowledge of the topic you’re teaching. You don’t have to be a Jedi master, but at least be able to answer most questions.
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CONFIDENCE: Nothing is more uncomfortable for the audience than watching somebody who
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looks as if they don’t deserve, or want, to be there. INNOVATION: Use a variety of tools and present information in new ways to keep your audience engaged. ORGANIZATION: An organized presentation will make the presenter’s life easier. RESOURCES: Give the audience something tangible that they can take back with them or download (e.g., digital books, CD, etc.).
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CREATIVITY: The traditional PowerPoint presentation is not engaging for a 21st-century audience. HUMILITY: It’s good to know your subject, but don’t act like a know-it-all. We can always learn more from one another, so be open to constructive criticism and encourage teacher-students to develop personal learning networks. HUMOR: Nothing lightens a room more than a little humor. AVAILABILITY: Make yourself available for networking and answering questions even after the event is over.
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T&L ASKS READERS Would you pay for Ning?
Top Ten Tips for Teacher Trainers
62.02%
No. I would look for another free resource.
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—David Kapuler is the media and technology specialist at Greendale (Wis.) School District. Read his blog at http://cyber-kap.blogspot.com.
newstrends
THE 10 ZENS OF TECH PLANNING Your principal has drafted you to create a school-based technology plan. Now what? Try these tech-planning tips: Establish a committee with stakeholders of varying interests. Make sure to include a special-education teacher, an ELL teacher, a math teacher, a science teacher, and an administrator, as well as teachers of other subjects and interests.
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Conduct a hardware and instructional-needs inventory. The hard-
ware inventory catalogs equipment age, functionality, and condition. The instructional-needs inventory will determine the instructional focus of the computer hardware. Develop a long-term plan. Ask your committee: “In five years, what three technological milestones do we wish to achieve?”
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Develop a short-term goal. Ask your committee: “In five months, what one goal do we wish to accomplish?”
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Develop activities that will enable you to achieve the short-term goal. Create a mini timeline of when these activities must be carried out. Grants. These include funds avail-
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able from local politicians, private foundations, donations, and the public. Repair and repurpose technology. Older computers can often be nursed back to health by being reimaged. If a machine is beyond repair, use it for spare parts. Be wary of purchasing the newest tech toy. Brand-new products can
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have hardware problems and a limited number of applications and can involve prohibitive costs. Consider waiting for the second version and beyond before investing in what will then be tried and tested tech. Research software solutions. The best way to determine the effectiveness of a program is to test the software, so request trial versions, demos, and white papers documenting products’ effectiveness. Avoid drive-by PD. All too often, schools will conduct just one session of professional development. This is a recipe for failure, as several sessions are needed to see a cohesive improvement. Additionally, follow-up workshops are critical. It is also important to offer a menu of workshops, as the needs of adults learning to use technology vary greatly. —Jacob Gutnicki writes for the Innovative Educator blog (http://the innovativeeducator.blogspot.com) and serves as a Children First Network director in the areas of accountability, data, grants, and IT supporting New York City schools.
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newstrends MEETING OF THE MINDS Highlights from Chicago Tech Forum’s superintendent lunch At the recent Tech Forum in Chicago, seven area superintendents* gathered for an invitation-only luncheon to share their struggles and rewards in the pursuit of implementing tech at their schools. Some of the conversation highlights were: ■ Feedback on one-to-one: There was no consensus on which hardware device would work best for a one-to-one program, but many liked a combination of laptops and tablets for teachers and netbooks for students. ■ Several superintendents felt that students eventually would bring in their own, varied devices (smartphones, laptops, netbooks, etc.) and that current one-to-one programs open doors for teachers to begin teaching in a one-toone environment. Most believed that cloud-based content would be the ideal choice in this scenario. ■ Network security: There was disagreement on whether to filter Web content, but most superintendents felt that students know how to get around most Internet filters and that the better
security option is to teach them to use the Internet safely and to have an acceptable-use policy that includes social networking. ■ Content: Most superintendents are looking for flexible content from vendors that can meet their specific needs rather than turnkey packages. ■ Professional development: The superintendent from Avoca said that the district makes technology a priority and that it is no longer acceptable to think of PD as an add-on program. His school makes training mandatory for all teachers. For more resources from Tech Forum, visit www.techlearning.com/events/ techforum.
*Steve Griesbach (Gower School District 62) Steve Baule (CUSD 201) Tom Leonard (Barrington 220 CUSD) Mike Riggle (Glenbrook High Schools) Nanciann Gatta (Niles Township) Joe Porto (Avoca School District 37) Kelly Kalinich (Kenilworth School District 38)
PD KEY TO STEM FUNDING From the 2010 Survey of science and STEM leaders conducted by IESD, Inc., in collaboration with STEM market expert Daylene Long: 1. Professional development (PD) was a funding priority for most STEM leaders and was perceived currently to be insufficient. 2. A majority of respondents projected an increase in technology-delivered STEM PD and a decrease in faceto-face STEM PD. 3. STEM leaders wanted technology tools that would support hands-on science.
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Top Tweets from Chicago Tech Forum @RyanPete Learn about social networking in k-12 @ http://jakes.editme.com/dls
@drezac Open Source Desktop RSS reader for Mac. www.vienna-rss.org/ Don’t need a Google account to use this!
@mswanson Open source we use: tux paint, open office, open office 4 kids, tux math.
@kathysand Action must happen first before you can change beliefs. In too many districts, lack of action leads to a vacuum of vision.
@nharm Ask yourself, how can I change what I am doing 2 make positive change? Start small, take action, change behaviors, & take risks.
@musictechie mobile devices, by 2011 50% of student computers will be mobile. (American Digital School, the Hayes Foundation)
4. Most STEM leaders thought that simulation software should be used in conjunction with hands-on activities rather than instead of such activities. 5. A majority of STEM educators thought it was somewhat or very unlikely that eBook readers would be widely adopted in the next five years.
@nharm
The full report may be found here: www.selling toschools.com/products/education-market-researchstem-education
The roundtable on handhelds alone made this day worth the drive (lunch was awesome too)
Mandatory tech PD for every teacher— no option out anymore. Targeted & focus tech PD w/ focus on content & student outcomes
@kathysand Administrator panel Put right tools in the right place at the right time. Go to meetings and not talk tech, talk education
@mswanson
Learn more by following the new Tech Forum Twitter feed @tltechforum.
A DV E R TO R I A L
21st Century Educators A Professional Development Plan to Help Your Teachers Learn the Skills Phase 4 of 4: Analyze progress
Students need 21st century skills to succeed and compete in today’s global workplace. In order for teachers to help their students learn these skills, they need a solid understanding of the skills themselves and the ability to integrate them into their classrooms. The four phases of a professional development solution for 21st century teachers are to provide tech training and how-to support, understand gaps in the training, develop skills, and analyze progress. This series of guides addresses the four phases. Learning never ends. The goal for all of us — teachers, students, and administrators — is called lifelong learning, a process to improve ourselves and keep pace as new ideas, goals, and processes emerge. We ask how we know when we’ve achieved our current goals. With all the strategies in place, the final element for success in a professional development program is to monitor progress. By using a personalized learning path, you can engage teachers in their own learning process productively and meaningfully to optimize learning potential and success. By checking Improvement regularly, you can make adjustments to the training as needed and provide support. By engaging teachers in this process, you can help them internalize the goals and ensure success. PROCESS: STEPS TO SUCCESS Following these four steps will finalize the process: 1) Compare pre- and post-assessment results to determine overall progress. 2) Use progress reporting to evaluate completion of prescribed training. 3) Employ an online portfolio so teachers can demonstrate mastery of skills and classroom integration plans. 4) Provide individual access to personal progress reports and prescribed training progress. TECHNIQUE: MY TRAINING Participants can view their Favorites, Assigned Training, Assessments, ePortfolios, as well as your Recommended Training. ■ Favorites Teachers can click on the star next to a tutorial to make it one of their Favorites.
■ Assigned Training Teachers can see a summary list of the training assigned along with the due date and progress record. ■ ePortfolio Teachers can keep a record of their accomplishments and experiences as they progress. They can upload documents and images to a central location and track completed PD projects and store custom projects. ■ Recommended Training You can recommend specific training for teachers to follow. INTEGRAL: PROVIDE SUPPORT Throughout any professional development program, participants have questions as they learn new 21st century skills and how to use 21st century technology. It is important to have resources in place to answer these questions in a timely manner. These include continuous progress tracking and assessment and tech integration support
with 24/7 access to Atomic Learning’s short tutorials that use a show-and-tell approach to answering specific ‘how do I do that?’ questions about the most-used technology resources and applications, including assistive technology. RESULT: IMPACTING STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT A successful 21st century skills professional development program will empower educators with the knowledge, training and resources needed to integrate these skills into the classroom and ultimately impact student achievement.
LEARN MORE http://al.atomiclearning.com/analyze_ progress for more information.
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BACK-OFFICE BUSINESS: HOW SCHOOLS GET IT DONE Math scores rise with use of interactive programs CHALLENGE: Like many school districts across the country, Raytown School District, near Kansas City, Missouri, was experiencing a downward trend on state math assessment-test scores as students progressed to higher grade levels. SOLUTION: In 2006, the district expanded its use of Carnegie Learning Math Programs as part of its school-improvement effort, which is aimed at demonstrating AYP objectives.
Going mobile CHALLENGE: St. Marys City Schools in Ohio were trying to level the playing field in terms of technology for all students and educators so that all students would have Internet access, word processing-capabilities, and many GoKnow applications. The schools also wanted to expand their mobilelearning project. SOLUTION: Every thirdto sixth-grade student in the school district uses a smartphone for their mobile projects in every subject. After the students complete an assignment on their smartphones, they are able to sync their work so the teacher can grade it. Next year the district will have more than 900 mobile learning devices and will expand the program to include seventh grade. At some point in the future, the school hopes to have a mobile-learning device in the hand of every student from third grade through 12th.
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Textbook deathwatch CHALLENGE: In light of extreme budget cuts, California introduced a free digital textbook initiative. SOLUTION: CK–12 (http:// ck12.org), a key supporter of the first phase of California’s initiative, now has nine books listed with the state. All five digital textbooks submitted by the CK–12 Foundation have met 100 percent of the California content standards. As the foundation expands the reach of its free open-source content across the nation, it has been working to align FlexBook content with the standards of many of the 50 states.
Preventing plagiarism, creating good writers CHALLENGE: The Millard Public Schools are home to Nebraska’s first International Baccalaureate curriculum. As part of this curriculum, they had to ensure that material turned in was the students’ original work. SOLUTION: The district began using Turnitin software, a service that determines the originality of texts by comparing them with an internal database and Net-wide searches. This led Millard to implement the same company’s WriteCycle to help students learn to paraphrase and cite sources. “Collaborative writing, supported by WriteCycle, gives them new motivation,” librarian Donna Helvering says. “Scores on standardized tests confirm how well our students are doing.”
newstrends
NEWS FROM THE EDTECH TICKER Projector reviews for education ProjectorReviews.com has released The Classroom Projector Report, a free report that examines digital projectors for the K-12 education market. Comparing more than 60 projectors, the report offers reviews, discussion of classroom defining features, and extensive full feature-benefit comparison chart. To read the full report, visit www.projectorreviews. com/classroom-projector/index.php
HP buys Palm On April 28th, 2010, HP announced that they would buy Palm, the maker of webOS and the Pre/Pre+ and Pixi/Pixi+ smartphones. HP is planning on keeping webOS and most of Palm’s team and running them as separate business units. They are planning to scale webOS across multiple platforms, and in interviews have discussed a webOS-powered tablet and slate. This could be good news for education, since Palm’s webOS is easy to develop apps for, has a solid Web browser, supports Flash, supports 3D graphics, and already has thousands of apps (many a good fit for education).
Guidelines for educational technology research The Software & Information Industry Association released a new report: “Conducting and Reporting Product Evaluation Research: Guidelines and Considerations for Educational Technology Publishers and Developers.” Available for free online, the Guidelines provide best practices for publishers and developers of educational software and other instructional technologies. To read the Guidelines, visit http://siia.net/presentations/education.
Photo contest: Where’s the Bear? The International Society for Technology in Education is kicking off its 2010 conference season with a “Where’s the Bear?” contest featuring the Colorado Convention Center’s mascot, I See What You Mean, designed by Denver artist Lawrence Argent. The winner from each category will receive his or her choice of an iPod Touch or digital camera. Submit photos by June 15, 2010, to be eligible for Round 1 of the contest. For contest details or to view entries, visit www.iste.org
Survey: Estimated 275,000 education jobs at risk
Sites We Like: www.americanrhetoric.com/ newtop100speeches.htm
American Rhetoric brings together transcriptions of what are judged to be the 100 most important speeches of the 20th and 21st centuries.
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School administrators across the nation are faced with the possibility of eliminating an unprecedented number of teaching jobs for the 2010-11 school year, according to a new snapshot survey of school superintendents released by the American Association of School Administrators. The new study finds that 82 percent of districts will cut or eliminate 27,516 education jobs in 2010-11 and 53 percent will freeze hiring. Download the one-page survey report at http://budurl.com/JobSurveyPDF.
Virtual travel focuses on energy use General Motors Education uses Google Earth to allow students and teachers to travel the world and discover the types of energy people use to fuel their cars, homes, and electronics. Includes lesson plans by grades and a blog for teachers, “Teach Green.”
newstrends
IF YOU BUILD IT THEY WILL COME A sampling of the latest iPad apps for education 123 COLOR HD TALKING COLORING BOOK
TOPYX
(HTTP://123COLORAPP.COM) This talking coloring book teaches numbers and letters in several languages including English, Spanish, French, and German. 123 Color and 123 Color HD are companion apps to developer Steve Glinberg’s math learning game, KidCalc 7-in-1 Math fun, and geography coloring book, 123 World HD.
(WWW.INTERACTYX.COM/MLEARNING) TOPYX, the eLearning 2.0 solution with integrated social LMS technology, is now available on iPad, increasing the LMS functionality with integrated social learning and e-commerce tools into one Software as a Service (SaaS) application.
BUGME! (WWW.BUGME.NET) Electric Pocket Limited announced new features to its BugMe! sticky-note app for iPad. The latest iPad version enables users to set alarms that are triggered by push notification. BugMe! now also lets users jot notes on pictures and offers “flexible note positioning,” which allows users to drag and drop notes anywhere they choose or organize them in clusters.
CRESTRON IPAD APP (WWW.ITUNES.COM/APPS) This new app enables full access to your Crestron control and presentation system via Wi-Fi and 3G. The Crestron Mobile Pro™ G iPad app comes pre-loaded with a standard graphic template and supports user-defined interfaces as well.
HELLO-HELLO SPANISH (WWW.HELLO-HELLO.COM) The company has announced the launch of its iPad app, which features Hello-Hello’s complete Spanish course. Hello-Hello Spanish includes 30 conversational lessons and hundreds of flash cards that display words and sentences with which to practice vocabulary. At least four more languages will be added by the end of June.
THE ORCHESTRA (WWW.XHUMANS.COM) iPad developer xhumans announced that it will donate 1,000 copies of its application The Orchestra to music educators across the United States. xhumans has partnered with several instrument makers, music teachers, and nonprofit classical-music groups on this initiative.
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TOUCHRETOUCH FOR IPAD (WWW.IPHOTOMANIA.COM/APPLICATIONS.HTML) AdvaSoft released the new photo editing software app for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users. The photo editing software promises special algorithms for its image background recovery application. TouchRetouch gives users the ability to remove objects from freshly captured or saved photographs.
THE WRONG SIDE OF THE BED 3D (WWW.SEEHERESTUDIOS.COM) Independently produced by a new small company, 3D Storybook—The Wrong Side of the Bed 3D! features awardwinning graphics. See Here Studios has ramped up production for more 3D children’s e-books and interactive educational apps. Upcoming apps by See Here Studios will include options for viewing the storyline and educational content in either standard 2D or enhanced 3D.
WYSE POCKETCLOUD APP FOR IPAD (WWW.ITUNES.COM/APP STORE) PocketCloud’s features include iPad native full-resolution support, enhanced Multi-Touch interface for iPad, custom keyboard with function and shortcut keys, and PocketCloud Windows Companion (now supports 64bit operating).
From Web 2.0 to 1:1, balance learning and safety in today’s learning environments. Blog. Collaborate. Participate. Share. Message. LEARN. All within the safe, protected environment of a smarter web filter.
Lightspeed solutions can give your district:
Safe Online Learning – for Web 2.0 and Beyond
• CIPA-compliant filtering for on-network and mobile users • Innovative features for safe Web 2.0 access • Tools to encourage participatory learning within a safe environment
Filter, secure, manage, and monitor with a single solution
• The ability to balance learning and safety on your network • Access to thousands of educational videos, websites, and other resources • An extension of Professional Learning Community efforts • A way to teach students about safe and appropriate online communication • Closed messaging to communicate with students, and allow them to communicate with each other
Lightspeed Total Traffic Control includes the following:
Ensure safe web browsing with customizable filtering and features for safe Web 2.0 access
Archive and report on communications, while blocking spam
• Customizable and flexible policies
Safe Web 2.0 access and collaboration integrated with the network and filter for easy management, monitoring, and deployment.
• Protection against dangerous or inappropriate web and email content • Protection against viruses, spyware, and malware
Block viruses, spyware, and malware with desktop and gateway security
• Ability to conform to regulations and enforce AUPs • Powerful spam blocking
Control traffic with bandwidth management
• Comprehensive and unalterable email archiving • Ensured network performance with bandwidth limiting and prioritizing • Comprehensive monitoring and reporting on network and individual activity • A single time-saving, cost-effective solution for your school network
Safe access to approved YouTube videos, without the dangerous and inappropriate peripheral content.
“We need to give teachers and students the best possible learning tools and environment to enhance their education, and we believe that Web 2.0 is that environment. My Big Campus gives us the safe resources and safe social networking we need.”
Manage energy use with automated power management
High-capacity network solutions High-performance, scalable appliance-based school network solutions:
Get a free printed version of this poster when you attend an online demo of my Big campus! Discover how you can make integrating Web 2.0 safer and easier with a smarter web filter. www.lightspeedsystems.com/demo/My-BigCampus.aspx
Mobile filtering and reporting, so anytime, anywhere mobile learning is as safe as when users are on your network.
— Steven Halper, Technology Coordinator/Chair, Rye Neck Union FSD Network solutions for safe online learning
ASSESSMENT
DON’T ASSUME;
ASSESS By Sascha Zuger Sandy Brimhall smiles as she recalls her early days as special education director in rural Show Low School District in Arizona. Her new district had elevated special education rates, and she turned to tracking data to find out why. “A high number of our SpEd students had high IQs but were nonreaders,” she says. “Without a consistent K–12 reading program, if students had not developed the necessary foundational skills to be strong readers by third grade, the chances were slim that they would have another opportunity.” Assessment tech found in Fast ForWord, as well as Study Island, Reading Assistant, APAX, and AR within Brimhall’s Response to Intervention program, measured cognitive skills like memory, attention, processing rate, and sequencing. Data reports from three- to six-month sessions in Fast ForWord informed placement. Brimhall discovered that many students placed in SpEd were really just delayed rather than truly disabled. Pinpointing the moment when a particular student faltered, or a specific building block of phonic awareness they lacked, proved crucial for teachers in understanding students. Tactile tech, like interactive whiteboards and acoustically modified tech tools, which train the ear to hear, helped kids struggling with visual perception and auditory development. Mispronunciations flagged in real time as a student spoke into a Reading Assistant microphone tied together the visual and hearing aspects for kids who had never made that vital connection. Fifty-five percent of the SpEd students have been exited within the past five years, and there are concrete data backing up those decisions and protecting the school from lawsuits, rather than parents having to accept a teacher’s subjective opinion of their child’s progress. Increased efficiency of speech and psychological evaluations, and reduced student need, saved additional district funds. “We are a full-inclusion school, which means that the
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general-education teacher is responsible for all levels of learners in the classroom,” Brimhall says. “Teachers armed with assessment-product data which determine and precisely define disabilities use interactive whiteboards, student-response systems, document cameras, laptop computers, and mobile computer labs to differentiate their instruction according to each child’s learning style within a single classroom. The assessment reports teachers receive are specific about students’ needs.” Although Brimhall’s original goal was to address struggling readers, the general student population has benefited from higher state-test scores and more successful student job placement. Most noted was the change in behavior.
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ASSESSMENT “Many students would rather be a ‘bad’ kid than a ‘dumb’ kid,” Brimhall says. “We’ve seen significant drops in students using avoidance behaviors to get out of class. The teachers have better-prepared learners: 19 percent fewer incident referrals means that all students are able to focus and engage.” Carol Gibbs, principal of North Elementary School in Des Plaines, Illinois, can relate. After implementing a Positive Behavioral Interventions & Support program to address severe behavior problems and seeing the number of discipline referrals reduced by more than 80 percent as a result, school officials noted that many of the students who displayed behavior problems also struggled academically. They approached RtI as they did the PBIS: between 80 percent and 90 percent of students received universal interventions, 5 percent to 10 percent received individual and group interventions, and 1 percent to 5 percent received intensive individual interventions. “RtI, in practice, starts with solid, flexible, robust core instruction and a good data-management system,” Gibbs says. She notes the importance of researching assessment-tech programs for more than just the bells and whistles: to find the right fit. “This is critical,” Gibbs says. “The trick is to pick products that align with core instruction. Lexia meshes so nicely to systematically address the five big areas of reading across all grades, provides performance data and the ability to pre- and post-test individual student skills, and ties together many of the key programs and tools we already used. “We are in a high-poverty and culturally diverse environment,” she says. “We began the school year with 75 percent of kindergartners unable to recognize or name a single letter of the alphabet. Lexia and Reading Plus together is like the whole enchilada of reading. Students targeted for lack of pre-reading education, phonics skills, and awareness could build the capacity to move up through the reading program. By aligning our goals, efforts, and resources and using the program’s progress monitoring, we brought every child into our ‘green’ [on-level] group academically. “While I firmly believe that instruction should drive core and intervention programs,” she says, “selecting programs that work well together and serve the school’s instructional goals can have a dramatic impact on student performance.”
tial days of using the data-analysis tool TestWiz, it was determined that certain math concepts on the state assessments, such as vertex-edge graphs, were not included in the local assessments. Once the problem was recognized, an adjustment of the curriculum sequence made a huge difference in performance. Linear equations had been taught, but students were missing many of those questions; another adjustment, this time of the recommended instruction time, again showed improved scores. “We needed assessment data beyond MCAS [Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System] to help drive instruction and identify students at risk,” Backman says. “MCAS tests only in grades three through eight and grade 10, and the results are not available until mid-October. We wanted a way to make data-driven decisions starting on the first day of school.” Through the use of TestWiz to align local assessments with state standards and to shift access to detailed test data from the district level into the hands of building principals and assistant principals, assessments can be administered frequently, and the results are available online within a single day. Students are also motivated by the immediate feedback on comprehensive assessments. “At the beginning of the school year, students are given their item analysis, which they use to set academic goals for themselves,” Backman says. “This creates more ownership of the learning process on the part of the student. “Because TestWiz is Web-based, teachers can access assessment data for their students anywhere they have an Internet connection,” she says. “Our district currently educates 8,412 students from pre-K through 12 with more than 700 classroom teachers; ease of data collection is essential. With the ability to print plain paper answer sheets and score them on a standard printer-scanner, this system eliminates the need to purchase expensive answer sheets and scanners. Teachers find the process extremely easy and efficient, and their scores and analysis reports are available immediately.” How and where the programs will be used determine whether a solely Web-based option or one that must be installed in an existing network is chosen. “Now that we are using a Web-based program, we have eliminated the impact on our network and tech support staff,” Backman says. “We were using expensive scanners that constantly needed repair and maintenance, which was time-consuming and costly.”
RtI, in practice, starts with solid, flexible, robust core instruction and a good data-management system. The trick is to pick products that align with core instruction.
Karen Backman, math coordinator at Plymouth (Mass.) Public Schools, knows only too well the importance of making sure that everyone is on the same page. In the ini-
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ASSESSMENT Access to tech support is another financial consideration, suggests Christine Zapata, coordinator of student support teams for Round Rock, Texas, which purchased AIMSweb, a data-management system, as part of its implementation of RtI. “When purchasing assessment technology, a school system should also take a look at how much training and technical support are included with the purchase,” Zapata says. “Be wary of additional costs later on, such as renewal fees and additional licenses. “Plans for training and building sustainability should take into account that adult learners are as individual as the students in our classrooms,” she says. “Providing a onetime training is less effective than providing initial training followed by coaching sessions. “In education, we want teachers spending time on instruction. Technology steps in and does the dirty work by scoring, graphing, and sometimes even adjusting instruction in seconds. Many programs have the ability to analyze
ASSESSMENT/ RTI RESOURCES • American Education Corporation (www.amered.com) • Autoskill (www.autoskill.com) • Carnegie Learning (www.carnegielearning.com) • Compass Learning (www.compasslearning.com) • CTB/McGraw Hill (www.acuityforschool.com) • Curriculum Associates (www.curriculumassociates.com) • Discovery Discovery Education Assessment (www.discoveryeducation.com/products/ assessment/) • Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (www.hmhco.com)
When purchasing assessment technology, a school system should also take a look at how much training and technical support are included with the purchase. Be wary of additional costs later on, such as renewal fees and additional licenses.
• Imagination Station (www.istation.com) • Kaplan, Reading and Math Empowerment (www.kaplank12.com) • Lexia (www.LexiaLearning.com) • Macmillan/McGraw-Hill (www.mhschool.com) • MindPlay RAPS (www.mindplay.com) • OnCourse Systems (www.oncoursesystems.com) • Pearson Assessment (www.pearsonassessments.com)
student performance in real time and automatically modify instruction by targeting skills a student is struggling with, raising the level of difficulty while the student is using the software, and meanwhile generating detailed reports for assessment. While these things are taking place via technology, teachers are able to work with smaller groups of students. A teacher has only one set of hands; technology has no such limitations. “Why do so many children enjoy playing electronic games on X-Box, PlayStation, and Nintendo?” she asks. “They are presented with high-quality graphics and sound and rewarded when they master a level, and they receive immediate feedback. Many good education software programs have these same features. That they are learning and being assessed at the same time is a bonus.” Whether instructors face the challenge of teaching efficiently and effectively, have to define student needs and placement, or must spend more time correcting behavior than teaching, assessment tech can be a useful guide to finding success.
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• Pinnacle by GlobalScholar (www.globalscholar.com) • PLATO Courses (www.plato.com) • Princeton Review (www.princetonreview.com) • Recorded Books, Plugged-in to Reading (www.pluggedintoreading.com) • Scholastic Read 180 (www.scholastic.com/read180/) • Schoolnet (www.schoolnet.com) • Scientific Learning, Fast ForWord (www.scilearn.com) • SRA/McGraw-Hill (www.sraonline.com) • Steck Vaughn/Renaissance Learning (www.renlearn.com/rnpu/) • Summit Interactive, GraspMath Interactive Video Tutor (www.evrmath.com) • Voyager (www.voyagerlearning.com)
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WHO’S WHO IN ED TECH: PART TWO, THE PRESENT
A DV E R TO R I A L
Clarksville Students Excel with A+® The Clarksville Montgomery County School System (CMCSS) in Tennessee has been using the A+nyWhere Learning System® (A+LS™) courseware from American Education Corporation since 2003. CMCSS uses A+LS in its Alternative School, Virtual School, Credit Recovery, and Summer Intervention programs, and also for ACT and GED preparation. The primary challenge to education in CMCSS is unmistakable. “We’re a district with more than 45 percent poverty,” says Dr. Kimi Sucharski, accountability supervisor, K-12 at-risk programs supervisor, for CMCSS. “In some schools, poverty approaches 90 percent.” Along with poverty is mobility, with its disruptive effect on learning. “We have schools with more than 70 percent turnover,” says Sucharski. “In some grade levels, it’s 90 percent.” “We wanted to provide our kids with access to one flexible curriculum that
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allows them to move from place to place and also lets them continue learning,” explains Sucharski. Since many students may start a grade in one school and finish in another, ongoing, accurate assessments with results that can be compared between schools is critical—both to maintain state standards and to give teachers a quick understanding of each student’s strengths and weaknesses. “After extensive research, A+LS was selected because it includes a study component, pre- and post-assessments, and can be realigned to meet our specific needs.” “We use the A+LS assessments differently in different programs,” says Sucharski. “For example, in Credit Recovery, our assessments are mainly
summative. Our purpose is to evaluate mastery. Assessments are made after each module and upon completion of each content package. In ACT and GED prep, we make more use of pre-assessments to establish what the student already knows and to build on that, and to focus on what the student doesn’t know.” For Sucharski, the bottom line is the success of individual students. But individual student success often depends on solving district-wide problems in educational management. “In our Alternative School program alone,” says Sucharski, “we have six high schools and seven middle schools. So we have the potential for 13 or 14 curriculums. Imagine being the teacher in the classroom who has to address that. To streamline the process and ensure curriculum continuity, we decided to standardize on A+LS.” The results of Sucharski’s strategies are well documented. “For instance,” says Sucharski, “100 percent of the students coming to our Virtual High Schools were identified as being unable to graduate on time in their traditional high school programs. In the last two years, 90 percent of Virtual School students graduated high school on time with regular diplomas—that’s a huge percentage.” And in the CMCSS Credit Recovery Program, 93 percent of more than 200 students recovered their credits. Sucharski values not only the A+LS courseware but also the company that stands behind it. “When you have 400 kids signing on to technology,” says Sucharski, “it has to work perfectly. The American Education Corporation has always been responsive. All our phone calls and emails are answered promptly. They’ve always resolved even our most difficult problems. They work closely with us—that’s a big plus.”
The Tech & Learning By Matt Bolch
AS PART OF OUR 30TH-ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION, Tech & Learning continues to compile a compendium of the most influential people affecting the advancement of technology in education. Our second group of honorees is plucked from the present: today’s leaders who are changing the landscape of edtech through innovation and vision. LOOKING FOR LINDA? Linda Roberts was honored in our March Issue along with 29 of her colleagues. Read it online here: www.techlearning.com/30thanniversary
Arne Duncan Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education, spent more than seven years as CEO of Chicago Public Schools and as such is the longest-serving big-city superintendent in the country. During his confirmation hearings, he called education “the civil rights issue of our generation.” His father was a professor at the University of Chicago, and his mother runs an independent early-learning center on Chicago’s South Side. Under Duncan’s leadership, the city district had record gains in elementary reading and math standards. Gains in ACT scores among high schoolers were triple those achieved nationally.
Nancy Knowlton Karen Cator Karen Cator, director of the Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education, has long advocated for students. She previously directed leadership and advocacy efforts in education at Apple, where she focused on the intersection of education policy and research, emerging technologies, and the real conditions faced by teachers, students, and administrators. Prior to joining Apple in 1997, Cator served in the public-education sector, leading the planning and implementing of technology in Alaska. She was also special assistant for telecommunications for that state’s lieutenant governor. She is a past chair of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and has served on the board of the Software & Information Industry Association’s education division.
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Nancy Knowlton is president, co–chief executive officer, and cofounder of SMART, which introduced its interactive whiteboard in 1991. Since then, the Canadian company has sold more than 1.5 million whiteboards in the education, business, and government sectors and has a nearly 48 percent share worldwide. Knowlton, who is responsible for the company’s day-to-day direction, has spoken widely on 21st-century education. In 2002, she was on an independent commission that reviewed the province of Alberta’s system of basic education. She and cofounder David Martin won the 1999 Prairies Region Technology Entrepreneur of the Year award and a Manning Innovation award in 2002.
100@30: Present ILLUSTRATIONS BY JAY BEVENOUR
Mitchel Resnick Anybody who likes building robots with a LEGO MindStorms kit can thank Mitchel Resnick. The LEGO Papert Professor of Learning Research and head of the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Laboratory investigates how new technologies can help people create. One offshoot of that research has been the development of a “programmable brick” that formed the basis of the LEGO MindStorms robotics kit. Another is Scratch, an online community where children can program and share interactive stories, games, and animations. He cofounded the Computer Clubhouse, a global network of after-school centers where disadvantaged youth use new technologies to express themselves creatively.
Michael Milken
Dean Kamen Dean Kamen founded FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), an international robotics competition that attracted more than 137,000 children from 42 countries as contestants in 2009. The purpose of FIRST is to inspire children, especially girls and minorities, to pursue careers in science and mathematics. Kamen, a prolific inventor (more than 440 patents) and a member of the National Inventor Hall of Fame, is best known for his invention of the Segway Human Transporter. The president of DEKA Research & Development Corp., he is working on a water-purification system to solve the world shortage of drinkable water.
Every teacher should know who Michael Milken is. The financier and philanthropist has supported educators since 1985 through the Milken Educator award, the largest teacher-recognition program in the United States. The organization has awarded $60 million to more than 2,400 K–12 teachers and principals, each of whom received $25,000 and an opportunity to participate in an annual professional-development conference. Milken and his brother Lowell established the Milken Family Foundation in 1982, but Michael has been generous since at least 1972, when his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. In addition to medical research and education, the foundation addresses inner-city problems and seeks to aid families of children with cancer and youth programs.
Douglas E. Van Houweling Douglas E. Van Houweling led a statewide computing network in Michigan in 1987 that was tasked with helping run the National Science Foundation Network, a backbone of the early Internet. Van Houweling is a professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan and founding president and CEO of Internet2, an advanced networking consortium led by the research and education community. He was a member of the National Academies Panel on the Impact of IT on the Future of the Research University. Van Houweling received the EDUCAUSE 2002 Excellence in Leadership Award.
TECH & LEARNING
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The Tech & Learning 100@30 Chris Dede Chris Dede, Timothy E. Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, researches how people learn in the wake of emerging technologies. His teaching models the use of information technology to distribute and orchestrate learning across space, time, and many interactive media. His research spans emerging technologies for learning, infusing technology into large-scale educational-improvement initiatives, policy formulation and analysis, and leadership in educational innovation. He currently conducts funded studies in developing and assessing learning environments based on modeling and visualization, online teacher professional development, wireless mobile devices for ubiquitous computing, and multiuser virtual environments.
Roberto J. Rodriguez Roberto J. Rodríguez has worked closely on education issues for most of his political career. He currently serves on the White House Domestic Policy Council as special assistant to President Obama for education. Previously, Rodríguez was chief education counsel to the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. He led policy development and strategy for legislation that addressed early-childhood education, elementary and secondary education, higher education, and adult education. Earlier he had worked with the HELP Committee on the No Child Left Behind Act.
Chris Lehmann Chris Lehmann is founding principal of the Science Leadership Academy, a progressive science and technology high school in Philadelphia. Lehmann returned to his native city after nine years as an English teacher and technology coordinator at New York’s Beacon School, known for its integration of technology. While there, he was honored by the youth-development organization MOUSE as a Champion of Technology and by the National School Board Association in 2006 as one of “20 to Watch” among American educators. He is the author of the education blog Practical Theory (www.practicaltheory.org).
Jaime Carbonell Jaime Carbonell’s research areas include artificial intelligence and language technologies, such as machine translation, machine learning, and computational biology, and usually combine theory, experimentation, and system building. He directs the Language Technologies Institute and is the Allen Newell Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Active learning, another of Carbonell’s research areas, seeks to identify the fewest possible labeled training instances necessary to grasp a concept. According to his Web site, he is particularly interested in ensemble-based active learning, in active learning for highly skewed class distributions, and in differential labeling cost models.
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Joyce Valenza Joyce Valenza, teacher-librarian at Springfield Township High School, Erdenheim, Pennsylvania, has been modeling evolving tech-integrated practice for more than 30 years. Valenza created her first virtual library in 1996. A mentor and leader in edtech and information fluency, she has taught at the graduate level and publishes books and videos about information skills. She writes the NeverEndingSearch blog for School Library Journal as well as regular features for edtech and library journals. Valenza is an American Memory Fellow and a Milken Educator. She has won awards for her library program, Web sites, videos, and blogs. She recently founded the TL Virtual Café, TeacherLibrarianNing, and the AASL Geek Squad.
Mark Bauerlein Emory University professor Mark Bauerlein turned heads with his 2008 book The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future; Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30. In it he posits that the proliferation of technology causes precipitous drops in general knowledge and reading in general. As he told an interviewer for The Hub, Emory’s quarterly magazine, “You can quote me on this: You guys don’t know anything.” Bauerlein has taught at Emory since 1989 except for a break between 2003 and 2005, when he directed the office of research and analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts.
James Paul Gee After pioneering new literacy studies with his 1990 book Sociolinguistics and Literacies, in his more recent works professor James Paul Gee draws correlations between video games, language, and learning. What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, published in 2003, promotes the effective-learning principles that a good video game can impart. His 2004 follow-up, Situated Language and Learning, describes video games in terms of overall learning and literacy, explaining how they can aid in school reform. Gee is the Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies at the Mary Lou Fulton College of Education at Arizona State University.
Gary Stager Gary Stager believes in the power of the computer for learning and selfexpression. For nearly 30 years, he has educated and spoken about education. Professional development in the world’s first laptop schools and designing online graduate school programs are among his accomplishments. Stager is a collaborator in the MIT Media Lab’s Future of Learning Group and a member of the One Laptop Per Child Foundation’s Learning Team. He is a visiting professor at Pepperdine University, an associate of the Thornburg Center for Professional Development, and executive director of the Constructivist Consortium.
David Warlick David Warlick operates Landmarks for Schools, a Web site dedicated to helping teachers and students “find information and tools designed to help us redefine literacy for the 21st century.” It is the most visible method of outreach of the Landmark Project, the consulting and innovations company Warlick founded. His attribution tool, Citation Machine, has 500,000 hits a day, and his classroom blogging service has more than 200,000 users. Previously, Warlick was a classroom teacher, district administrator, and staff consultant with the North Carolina State Department of Public Instruction. He has written three books on instructional technology and 21st-century literacy and has spoken widely on education.
Andrea diSessa Andrea diSessa is director of the Boxer Computer Environment Project at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is the Corey Professor of Education in the Graduate School of Education. As the project’s Web site explains, “Boxer is the first example of a ‘computational medium’ for real people....Boxer is based on a literacy model. That is, we want computational media to be useful to everyone, as text is, except we want to extend from a static and linear tradition to a new, dynamic and interactive medium.” DiSessa’s current work focuses on students’ ideas about “patterns of behavior and control” and the development of the concept of force.
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A DV E R TO R I A L
Teachers Use Cisco Video Solutions To Energize Learning “When technology meets learning, dynam-
sonalization to their assignments, and
ic learning societies are formed, and great
Cisco has helped our teachers turn their
things happen to students, to communi-
ideas into highly effective learning tools.”
ties, and to societies,” says Michael Stevenson,
vice
president,
Other districts are seeing similar
Global
excitement growing in classrooms when
Education at Cisco. “It is through these
video is used. Colleen Winkler, a teacher at
societies that we see advancements in sci-
Riverdale High School in Jefferson Parish
ence, business, and culture.”
says “It’s building a community of learners
Cisco® video solutions give educators
Students can easily search for content of
that possibly would not have evolved
the ability to redefine learning experiences
interest and share their comments. The
without the technology.”
and engage, equip, and empower students.
Media Experience Engine is also enabling
Oaks Christian School worked with
At Global Technology Preparatory School
the advancement of innovative speech-to-
Cisco to introduce a multimedia solution
in East Harlem, New York, most students
text capabilities that will help future gener-
that could extend into the classroom.
arrive early to take advantage of the tech-
ations of students, including those with
Cisco Digital Media solutions, including
nology during their free time. At Jefferson
learning disabilities or English as a Second
video multicasting, digital signage, and
Parish in Louisiana, the integration of tech-
Language
Cisco
Show and Share for both of the school’s
nology is fostering creative teaching. In
TelePresence™
Cisco
campuses, are making information more
California, Oaks Christian School is combin-
WebEx™ web-based collaboration tools
ing social video, digital signage, and IPTV
help educators use video to extend the
systems to keep students participating and
reach of education to housebound stu-
EMPOWERING SCHOOLS AND
well informed.
dents or remote high-definition video
DISTRICTS FOR SUCCESS
classrooms.
Cisco’s extensive portfolio of video-enabled
The recently introduced Cisco Video-
(ESL)
students.
systems
and
Enabled Teaching and Learning Solution
interesting to students.
solutions for education enables teachers to
represents a new milestone for collabora-
IMPROVING STUDENT OUTCOMES
engage students today while preparing
tive learning environments. “The technolo-
“This generation is all about personalizing
them for the future. By better aligning the
gy lets teachers and students access video
themselves, and you can see it in their web
learning environment to the way students
content across the network, creating highly
pages, their Facebook profiles, and every-
learn, schools motivate lifelong learning
secure video communities where ideas and
thing they do,” says Chrystina Russell, prin-
and reach new learners outside of the tradi-
expertise can be shared–while increasing
cipal of Global Tech. “Video brings that per-
tional classroom walls.
major administrative, operational, and energy efficiencies,” says Frank Florence, senior director, Industry Solutions and Marketing
■ For more information about Cisco innovations for education, visit: www.cisco.com/go/learningsocieties
at Cisco. Combined with Cisco’s existing portfolio of video-based solutions, the new solution helps inspire students within tradi-
■ Download a free trial of Show www.cisco.com/go/tryshowandshare
and
Share
at:
tional classrooms and reaches out to include remote and virtual classrooms. The solution includes a broad range of
■ Or attend the Virtual Forum for Education Leaders at: http://events.unisfair.com/rt/education~cisco
products: Cisco Show and Share provides anytime, anywhere viewing of video instruction or content on any device.
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■ You can also join us in person, at ISTE, Colorado Convention Center in Denver, June 27–30, Booth #2032.
The Tech & Learning 100@30 Linda DarlingHammond Linda Darling-Hammond launched the Education Leadership Institute and School Design Network at Stanford University, where she is Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education. She is a former president of the American Educational Research Association and member of the National Academy of Education. Darling-Hammond was executive director of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future when it released the landmark 1996 report “What Matters Most: Teaching for America’s Future.” The report brought about changes in the policies affecting teaching and teacher education and was named among the reports that influenced education the most.
Gina Bianchini Until March, Gina Bianchini was CEO of Ning, the social-networking platform she founded with Marc Andreessen. Published reports indicate that Bianchini left after more than five years to pursue other opportunities. Those include being entrepreneur in residence at Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm that Andreessen cofounded. A successful entrepreneur, she previously founded and served as chief marketing officer at Harmonic Communications. She also directed business development and investor relations at CKS Group and was a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs.
Henry Jenkins Henry Jenkins, Provost’s Professor of Communication, Journalism and Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, has recently focused his research on media convergence. Before arriving at USC in the fall of 2009, he spent a decade directing the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and as the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities. While at MIT, he was one of the principal investigators for the Education Arcade, a consortium of educators and business leaders who advocated educational uses for computer and video games. His recent research argues that understanding the relationships among media should be based on how individuals interact with and combine them.
Jomo W. Mutegi Jomo W. Mutegi is executive director of Sankoré Institute, a nonprofit science and education research organization. Sankoré seeks to develop the intellectual infrastructure in African and African-American communities through its focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The institute concentrates on research and development, education, and application and policy. Mutegi’s research explores the worldview of students and student-teacher interaction as factors that determine future career choice. He received the Outstanding Junior Scholar award and, in 2003, the United States Early Career Researcher award.
G. Wayne Clough G. Wayne Clough began his tenure as the twelfth secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in 2008 after leading the Georgia Institute of Technology for 14 years. The Georgia Tech alumnus, a civil engineer by training and the first alum to lead the college, oversaw more than $1 billion in new construction during a push to increase the school’s enrollment and prestige. Among Clough’s goals at the Smithsonian are to digitize many of the institution’s 137 million objects and to beef up its K–12 educational programming to link methods of informal education to its formal education system. He was appointed to the National Science Board in 2004.
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Neeru Khosla Neeru Khosla wants to reduce the high cost of textbook materials, one of the reasons that in 2006 she cofounded the CK-12 Foundation, where she is executive director. The nonprofit CK-12 focuses on the K–12 market across the world through its open-content Web-based collaborative model, called FlexBook. The aim of FlexBook is to provide good core content and an adaptive environment for learning. Khosla is a founding member of the K–12 Initiative of the D-School (Hasso Plattner Institute of Design) at Stanford University and a member of the committee to expand the program.
Clayton M. Christensen Clayton M. Christensen developed the concept of disruptive innovation, a framework that describes how a product or service develops in a simple form at the bottom of a market and can then displace established competitors as it moves upmarket. His 1997 book The Innovator’s Dilemma explains the concept, which he is now applying to promote solutions in the education and health-care sectors through the Innosight Institute, a nonprofit think tank he cofounded. He is also the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.
Michael Horn With Clayton M. Christensen, Michael Horn founded the Innosight Institute, a nonprofit think tank that applies Christensen’s theories of disruptive innovation to social problems such as education and health care. Horn is the organization’s executive director of education and secretary. He wrote Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns with Christensen and Curtis W. Johnson. He worked at America Online during the AOL.com relaunch and was once employed by David Gergen, journalist, attorney, and adviser to four U.S. presidents, as Gergen’s research assistant.
Amy Bruckman Amy Bruckman studies the “constructionist” philosophy of education as it relates to the design of online communities. According to her Web site, the associate professor at the College of Computing at Georgia Tech believes that the “Internet has a unique potential to make constructionist learning scalable and sustainable in real-world settings, because it makes it easy to provide social support for learning and teaching. In electronic-learning communities, participants can help motivate and support one another’s activities.” Bruckman, a member of the university’s Graphics, Visualization, and Usability Center, currently studies wikis as constructionist-learning environments.
Robert Kozma Despite having retired from the Center for Technology in Learning, Robert Kozma continues to help link technology with education reform and economic and social development. He is principal consultant at Kozmalone Consulting, which he founded in 2002 after retiring from SRI International’s Center for Technology in Learning, for which he is emeritus director and principal scientist. CTL’s goal is to improve teaching and learning through innovation and inquiry, which include developing and assessing interactive-learning environments. Kozma consults nationally and internationally with government, nongovernment, and commercial clients that have included the agencies the World Bank, UNESCO, and the Ford Foundation.
Sir Ken Robinson Sir Ken Robinson knows about the transformative power of creativity and innovation. Queen Elizabeth II knighted him in 2003 for his contributions as a writer, speaker, and leader in creativity, the arts, and education. He was the lead author of the 1999 report “All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education” (also known as the Robinson Report), which influenced government and corporate attitudes toward creativity. In the late ’80s, Robinson directed the Arts in Schools Project, a UK initiative to improve the teaching of the arts, and chaired the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education. He is professor emeritus at Warwick University.
TECH & LEARNING
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Strategies for K-12 Technology Leaders
The
POWER PORTALS of
An old concept becomes a beneficial reality. by Pam Derringer While the phrase “school portal” may sound as dated as “information superhighway” or even “Don’t copy that floppy,” in fact the idea is finally becoming an effective solution for schools. Many districts and states now are taking Web sites to the next level by developing portals that have customized content for teachers, students, and parents. The vision: engage students with Facebook-like tools, help teachers with enriched curriculum resources, and enlist parents as partners with real-time data on their children’s academic progress. Accessible by user name and password, school portals typically give students and parents access to assignments and grades, and sometimes standardized-test scores. They also usually include a class calendar, discussion forums, and personal Facebook-like student pages. That’s just for starters. The latest portal buzzwords, according to Kevin McGuire, technology director for Michigan City, Indiana, schools and a former state tech director of the year, are personal learning plans, social networking, and portable student portfolios, which children can take with them when they leave. “It’s all about communication,” McGuire says. “Too often, parents wait too long [to contact the school] and can’t believe that their children won’t be graduating. We realized that nine-week report cards aren’t frequent enough. And we want to give parents access to the information to help the students succeed.” Michigan City’s portal, which has been in the works for a number of years, already gives parents and teachers access to standardized-test scores, grades, attendance, and discipline
School CIO Special Section | 47
www.schoolcio.com Strategies for K-12 Leaders
records; students will receive access to (Right) The home page of Loomis Chaffee’s public all the data in the fall. Web site, with news and An unusual feature of the portal is information for faculty, the personal learning plan, in which indi- parents, students, and visitors. (Below) The home vidual students set their own goals for page of the faculty portal the year and work with their teachers on with resources, news, and student directory. their progress during that year. “PLPs are a way for us to know how students feel about learning,” McGuire says. “And we’re starting to use them to help students stay on the path.” Begun in a few middle schools and used in an after-school remedial program, PLPs will ultimately be rolled out K–12, system-wide, and students will update their plans every year. A second component of Michigan City’s portal is the individual student portfolio, a multimedia repository that status report on homework at any time colleges are increasingly requiring for and is thus empowered to help their chiladmission. Currently visible only to the dren with current assignments or prod student creators, these portable portthem on overdue ones. folios should be accessible for public In a recent study of portal usage, display by the fall, McGuire says. Corpus Christi was encouraged to find The final component of the district’s that 75 percent of its teachers had impleplan is secure social networking, which is mented all 12 features the district recomintended to enable students to email one mended for driving traffic to their class another and ask their teachers for help in a safe environment that can be managed and monitored by the district. The net- An unusual feature of the working piece and other fine-tuning portal is the personal should be completed next spring, according to McGuire, who adds that the learning plan, in which portal was built on Drupal, an openindividual students set source content-management applicatheir own goals for the tion, and was not a costly project. year and work with their Meanwhile, the Corpus Christi (Texas) ISD rolled out a school portal running on teachers on their progress a customized version of eChalk software during that year. districtwide in 2008. As with Michigan Strategies K-12 Leaders City, a key Corpus Christi goal isforimproving communication and keeping parents pages. The study also found that 98 perinformed about their children’s progress, cent of all teachers are using the portal according to Lyndall Gathright, the disand that 79 percent of all K–12 students trict Webmaster. The portal recently are registered users. In addition, students began allowing parents to see what the sent an average of three emails apiece via teacher assigns, the due date, and a stu- the portal, and the volume was much dent’s grade for the assignment as soon higher in the upper grades. as they are posted. Any parent with Although there is no quantifiable eviInternet access can get an up-to-date dence that the portal has improved learn-
ing, Gathright says, parents and teachers feel that it fosters a partnership between parents and students concerning school and that it encourages responsibility. Corpus Christi is looking for ways to expand Web 2.0 functions like networking and blogging throughout more schools in the district and to encourage learning 24/7, inside and outside the classroom. Loomis Chaffee, a Connecticut coed boarding school, was prompted to add a portal to its Web site last year primarily for administrative efficiency, according to Cassandra Corrigan, database administrator. The school needed to consolidate its data so that a single change, such as a new phone number, would be reflected throughout the system. From the perspective of the user, says Mary Forrester, Loomis Chaffee’s Webmaster and director of public information, the school also wanted to create a single entry point where students and other visitors could find whatever they needed, from daily updates on school activities to conference-room availability to class assignments, dorm news, and email. Using FinalSite’s content-management tools and templates, the school built the portal in five and a half months, less than half the estimated time, linked it to the student-information system, and went live with the teacher and student portals last September. The parent portal had been completed the previous spring.
Strategies for K-12 Leaders
48 | School CIO Special Section
www.schoolcio.com Strategies for K-12 Leaders
First-year results have been positive and have included extended learning, increased efficiency, and improved communication. The class pages, for example, have discussion threads and show alerts when new data are posted. And teachers can email the class and/or their parents with a single click and issue periodic progress reports electronically. This is helpful especially since many of the reports are quite lengthy and nearly 10 percent of the parents are international. In addition, the portal builds a sense of community with its daily bulletin, dorm photos, club pages, and athletic coverage, which includes the latest game results, directions to upcoming away games, and updated team rosters. And it helps the day students (45 percent of Loomis Chaffee’s 681 students are commuters) feel more connected to the school community.
The goal of the portal is to improve education two ways: first, by giving teachers a united online resource and community for professional development; and second, by providing exceptional curriculum enrichment resources.
This year has been one of transition, Corrigan says, and there are more enhancements ahead, but generally speaking, the portal has helped teachers improve classes and foster discussion and has increased administrative efficiency. And students are becoming more familiar with portal tools, which function the same way from subject to subject. Finally, no discussion of school portals would be complete without mention of the Texas Education
[Kids Want In] There is one portion of you school population who won’t balk at the idea of portals: your students. A recent survey from National Speak Up Day (www.tomorrow.org/speakup/), as presented by David Jakes at Chicago Tech Forum 2010, confirms that when it comes to communication and collaboration online, they are all in. Here is what students surveyed say they want:
Social-based learning: Students want to leverage emerging communications and collaboration tools to create and personalize networks of experts to inform their education experience.
Strategies for K-12 Leaders Untethered learning: Students envision technology-enabled learning experiences that transcend the classroom walls and are not limited by resource constraints, traditional funding streams, geography, community assets, or even teacher knowledge or skills.
Strategies for K-12 Leaders
Digitally-rich learning: Students see the use of relevancy-based digital tools, content, and resources as a key to driving learning productivity, and not just about engaging students in learning.
50 | School CIO Special Section
Agency’s ambitious Project Share, a new state education portal. According to Anita Givens, the agency’s associate commissioner of standards and programs, the goal of the portal is to improve education two ways: first, by giving teachers a united online resource and community for professional development; and second, by providing exceptional curriculum enrichment resources through partnerships with the New York Times Knowledge Network, the Smithsonian Institution, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The New York Times network will give teachers accounts of current events dating back to 1851, and the other partnerships will take science to a new level with online simulations and audio and video discussions with working scientists. Ultimately, Givens says, the portal will link to student-information systems statewide and be a resource for all individual districts, starting with a few pilots in the fall and phased in over the following 18 to 24 months. Individual districts are welcome to deploy as little or as much Web 2.0 functionality (student and parent log-ins, calendars, email, etc.) as they wish. “Project Share will be done as a distributed model, from the ground up,” Givens says. “Local school districts may have any number of plans for engaging parents and students. But it’s not the state’s job to do it. Not with 4.8 million students, 1,265 school districts, and more than 4,000 educators.”
PRODUCTGUIDE
NOW YOU SEE IT By Ellen Ullman
Teachers say that document cameras change the way they teach. Because the cameras allow them to place any object under the lens and project it in full color onto a large screen, teachers say, they help them manage the classroom, keep students engaged, and can lead to increased retention. Best of all, you’ll never hear “I can’t see!” again. CANYONS SCHOOL DISTRICT SANDY, UT
LOVEJOY INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT ALLEN, TX
AVERVISION V300AF+ ($700); V355AF ($800) WWW.AVERUSA.COM
DUKANE 335 ($1,275 LIST PRICE; EDUCATION DISCOUNTS AVAILABLE), WWW.DUKANE.COM
“When you work with small items, it’s hard for the whole class to see,” says Ross Rogers, media tech specialist. His science and elementary teachers, in particular, appreciate having the technology for their classes. It also helps teachers handle students, Rogers explains, because they are always facing them.
“Some of our teachers went to a summer training course and saw them in use,” says Tina Phillips, director of technology. “We let them ‘earn’ the document cameras to use for instruction. Once a handful of teachers started using them, others started requesting them as well.” Today a document camera is standard equipment in every classroom.
It’s what the district chose.
A vendor demonstrated them for Phillips, and she liked the way they worked.
WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT IT?
“It’s sturdy. Other ones have an arm with a camera and an arm with lights, which take up so much more room. With AVer, the lights are built on. Wherever you put the camera, the lights are right there.” He also appreciates the fact that the 300 has USB and VGA cables, so he can use a laptop microphone to record, and that the 355 has a built-in microphone. “It has so many uses, whichever curriculum you teach.”
“It is nice and small and user-friendly.” In another district, Phillips had employed a brand that wasn’t as easy to use. “The images are clear, and we are happy with the service we get.” Last but not least, Phillips appreciates the “good price” and the five-year warranty.
WHAT DON’T YOU LIKE ABOUT IT?
“Honestly, I haven’t heard a negative comment, but if it could be wireless and operate on a battery so I could take it with my laptop, that would be great. But I’d still need a projector.”
“I haven’t heard any complaints, and we’ve had few mechanical problems. We sent back only one or two. The bulbs are fragile and tiny, but we’ve put in only two.”
HAS IT BEEN EASY TO INTEGRATE INTO THE CLASSROOM?
Yes, Rogers says. The third-grade teachers use it to teach cursive writing; math teachers use it to work with manipulatives. One teacher uses it as a Webcam and broadcasts guest speakers wirelessly to the classroom next door. “The teachers find new uses every day; they tell me they couldn’t teach without it.”
Yes. The teachers use it to correct students’ work, do math manipulatives, and flip pages of books. “It’s the day-to-day stuff that is the basis of teaching. Any tool they can use every day is so valuable.”
WHAT DO YOU USE?
WHY DID YOUR DISTRICT GET DOCUMENT CAMERAS?
WHY THIS BRAND?
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TECH & LEARNING
PRODUCTGUIDE
HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS TAMPA, FL
TOPEKA DRIVE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL NORTHRIDGE, CA
WHAT DO YOU USE?
EPSON DC-10 ($399) WWW.EPSONBRIGHTERFUTURES.COM
ELMO TT-02RX & CRP-22 PROJECTOR ($1640) WWW.ELMOUSA.COM
WHY DID YOUR DISTRICT GET DOCUMENT CAMERAS?
“We incorporated them into our presentation stations,” says Steve Newhouse, district resource teacher for 46 middle schools. “We were using Epson projectors, and it was nice to take advantage of the document cameras as well. They seemed to be a natural with many teachers.”
Topeka Drive is a Korean-language dual-language school. “When the teacher has to write a sentence on the board in Korean, it takes a long time and the children don’t see it clearly,” says Gina M. Metzelar, Korean dual-language program representative. “The research shows that document cameras help kids pay more attention.”
Epson is responsive, Newhouse says, and he was happy with the way the company handled his projectors. “Epson products last, and the company provides good service.”
Metzelar did a lot of research and evaluated several document cameras. “The ELMO’s features answered my needs. I knew that the children would benefit greatly from the microscope attachment, from connecting to the Internet, and from seeing everything so clearly.”
WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT IT?
“It has lots of uses for all schools. The elementary teachers like it that it captures information from a large format, as they have big books with large pages. Other document cameras don’t let them view items as large without having to scroll.” An additional benefit is the DC-10’s portability. “Teachers love being able to fold the camera into a small box. Some of our schools are concerned about security, and it’s easy to put these away and lock them up.”
“I love the interaction it allows. Whether students are reading in Korean or English, everyone can follow along. It has great highlighting features.” The ELMO has so many positives, Metzelar says, she can’t list them all. “Our scores in math and in fluency in Korean have gone up. After three months we had already seen improvements.”
WHAT DON’T YOU LIKE ABOUT IT?
“There isn’t really anything; even the price is responsible. Of course, it could always be less expensive.”
“The price,” Metzelar says, laughing. She can afford only one, which is shared among four classes.
HAS IT BEEN EASY TO INTEGRATE INTO THE CLASSROOM?
“Oh, yes,” Newhouse says. “Teachers use it easily. Math teachers show how to solve problems. Some writing teachers put up student writing and highlight parts of speech. Social studies teachers use it to make mental maps to remember locations of states and other countries.”
“Absolutely. All schools should have this product. It makes teaching so much easier, and they are able to teach more. It expands their ability to teach in depth.”
WHY THIS BRAND?
Other Document Camera Providers ■ CANON www.usa.canon.com/home
■ QOMO www.qomo.com
■ LUMENS www.myladibug.com
■ SAMSUNG www.samsung.com/us
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TECH & LEARNING
■ SMART TECHNOLOGIES smarttech.com
WHATSNEW
Hardware/AV
Canon has advanced and expanded its line of LCD multimedia projectors (www.usa.canon.com/projectors) with two new WXGA resolution (1,280 x 800) wide-screen and four new XGA resolution (1,024 x 768) models. The six new models share several new features, such as an improved Lamp Lighting System; a carbon Reduction Meter to calculate and display the amount of CO2 emissions saved by operating in Quiet Mode; an Auto Energy Saver; and power-saving Stand-By Mode, in which overall power consumption can be reduced to less than 1W by setting the standby mode to Power Saving. Each projector also has several inputs for a wide variety of computer, video, and control sources and functions.
Featuring the Intel Atom processor and a 10.1-inch LCD monitor, the new classmate PC (www.classmatepc.com) includes increased memory and storage for running education applications. The new design can change from a clamshell to a tablet PC, allowing students to naturally switch form factors as they move between activities and locations in the classroom. The new, convertible classmate PC features a touch screen with a user interface optimized for eReading applications, a water-resistant keyboard, a touch pad, improved ruggedness, and an optional antimicrobial keyboard. It also includes integrated wireless connectivity with Wi-Fi and provides the options of 3G, GPS, and WiMAX for easy network and Internet connections.
Hitachi America introduces the CP-X3011 3LCD projector (www.hitachi-america.us), which offers a brightness of 3,200 lumens and a 2,000:1 contrast ratio. The CP-X3011 features 16 watts of built-in audio while maintaining a low noise rating of 29 dBA in eco mode. It also has a long lamp life of 3,000 hours in standard mode and 6,000 hours in eco mode. The CP-X3011 offers Hitachi’s proprietary My Buttons functionality, which enables two programmable buttons on the projector to execute any command.
Intel Corporation has announced the Intel Reader (www.intel.com), which is designed to increase independence for the estimated 55 million people in the United States who have dyslexia or other specific learning disabilities, or vision problems such as low vision and blindness. The Intel Reader, about the size of a paperback book, converts printed text to digital text, then reads it aloud to the user. Its design combines a high-resolution camera and the power of an Intel Atom processor, so users can point, shoot, and listen to printed text. When the Intel Reader is used with the Intel® Portable Capture Station, large amounts of text, such as a chapter and an entire book, can be captured for reading later.
Crestron has announced QuickPacks (www.crestron.com), new all-in-one presentation solutions for classrooms. Each QuickPack features a basic system controller with AV switching, an audio amplifier, speakers, wall plates, mounting hardware, and cables. Just add the video projector, the projection screen, and AV sources and the software wizard guides you through setup, with no system design required. There are three QuickPack systems to fit any classroom application. The QP-200 (shown) provides connectivity to a laptop and a video source, such as a DVD player; the QP300 adds a room PC; and the QP-400 provides connectivity for two computers and two video sources.
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TECH & LEARNING
For more of the latest product releases, visit us online at Techlearning.com.
WHATSNEW
The HP All-in-One 200 (www.hp.com) features a traditional tower and monitor in one sleek, integrated design. It is simple to set up and has an integrated Webcam, a built-in wireless LAN, and HP’s MediaSmart software suite. Additional features include a 21.5-inch diagonal high-definition LED display that is mercury free, uses less energy than previousgeneration displays, and is ENERGY STAR 5.0 qualified. The All-in-One 200 is the first desktop to include some BFR/PVC-free components.
The new Wacom DTU models’ (www. wacom.com/pendisplays) direct pen-onscreen input is designed to make presentations as proficient and interactive as possible. The 1,920 x 1,080 resolution of the DTU-2331’s 21.5-inch wide-screen HD display matches those of modern large displays and projectors. Each model boasts an internal USB hub, so it can connect a flash drive, a Web camera, or another USB device. The video pass-through feature lets the work done on the pen display be shared directly with a secondary display. Both the DTU-2231 and the DTU-1631 integrate into existing AV infrastructures.
The TI-Nspire with Touchpad (www.ti.com) graphing calculator handheld adds new touchpad navigation and computing functions. Some of these are a streamlined touchpad keypad that gives the handheld the feel and function of a laptop; an alphabetical keyboard at the bottom of the keypad for easier text creation; an enhanced home screen that makes it simpler to access files and applications; and extended battery life. The handheld is compatible with the TI-Nspire Navigator, the TI-Nspire Teacher Software, and the TI-Nspire Student Software.
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TECH & LEARNING
Viewsonic (www.viewsonic.com) announced that the VOT125 PC Mini —the latest in compact and energy-efficient computing solutions. With a green-centric design, this compact and sleek PC mini uses up to 90% less plastic and consumes up to 90% less energy than traditional tower PCs. With an Intel ULV processor and 0.6L form factor specifically designed for less power usage, less plastic and less cables, the VOT125 allows green-conscious users to reduce their carbon footprint. The VOT125 PC Mini ships with Windows 7.
InFocus (www.infocus.com ) announced the availability of a wide range of 3D projectors ideal for teaching complex visual subjects. The IN100 series, the IN2116 and the IN3116 3D projectors, are specifically designed for educational environments and feature native resolutions from SVGA to WXGA, a full range of input and output connection options including wireless and networking, high brightness from 2,500 to 3,500 lumens, and long-life lamps for years of maintenance-free, reliable operation. Costing no more than a standard 2D projector, these projectors can switch easily between normal 2D projection and 3D.
WHATSNEW
Online & Software
THE ACADEMYOF READING ACUITY ONLINE COMMUNITY (WWW.INTERVENTION.SCHOOL SPECIALTY.COM/SOLUTIONS)
This Web-based environment has added three targeted solutions to help build reading skills. School Specialty’s new intervention systems’ blended-media model combines good teacher-led instruction with data-driven online learning and assessment to address students’ readingintervention needs. Each solution provides struggling readers with indepth instruction in the five pillars of reading—phonemic awareness, phonics, comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency— coupled with writing practice. The Academy of READING forms the foundation for the new intervention systems, which are designed specifically for grades 3–5, 6–8, and 9–12. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: reading
(WWW.ACUITYFORSCHOOL.COM)
The Acuity Online Community is a Web-based social-networking forum where users of Acuity InFormative Assessment can collaborate and exchange ideas to improve student achievement using CTB’s Acuity assessment solution. Easily and securely accessible direct from the Acuity application, this online community also includes a portal of CTBcreated resources, including interactive tutorials, white papers, training materials, and videos that are available to all Acuity users. Price: free Category: online community
ADOBE CREATIVE SUITE 5
(WWW.ADOBE.COM/EDUCATION/PRODUCTS/CREATIVESUITE) This software enables students and faculty to create print, Web, video, audio, and mobile content more easily and incorporate it into their assignments. It lets them work faster, construct stories, collaborate more efficiently, and visually communicate their ideas. The Creative Suite 5 lineup includes Creative Suite 5 Master Collection, Creative Suite 5 Design Premium, Creative Suite 5 Web Premium, Creative Suite 5 Production Premium, and Creative Suite 5 Design Standard. Adobe Creative Suite 5 Master Collection includes all of Adobe’s Creative Suite tools. Price: Starts at $299. Category: presentation tools
BLACKBOARD LEARN 9.1 (WWW.BLACKBOARD.COM) This release introduces features such as lesson planning and standards alignment and deepens the platform’s ability to integrate collaboration tools like wikis and multimedia Web content. Release 9.1 can also be enabled for interactive mobile learning opportunities through Blackboard Mobile Learn, which lets students choose how they receive course notifications and updates, including by means of messages to their mobile devices. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: online learning
CENTRICITY (WWW.SCHOOLWIRES.COM)
The new Centricity release allows districts to add social learning capabilities beyond Web 2.0 tools, providing students with a more relevant and engaging learning environment. In addition, Schoolwires has improved Centricity’s ability to integrate, enabling a more individualized user experience. This unifying platform is especially important for strengthening the home-school connection. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: Web tools
CLASSMATE WITH NOCTI (WWW.CLASSLINK.COM)
ClassLink has added NOCTI assessment data to the ClassLink ClassMate solution. This collaboration lets ClassMate users import and analyze student NOCTI scores and create many different individualized and summary reports. With the new NOCTI score module, CTE schools can now import NOCTI assessment data for even more detail. Reports can be created at the student, class, or school detail. Pie charts, bar graphs, and tables can be made to visually analyze student scores in both the written and the performance components of the test. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: assessment
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WHATSNEW
COREL PAINT IT!
EXPLORE THE BLUE
This software features a variety of brushes and preset painting styles so users can add painted effects to their photos. Both Windows and Mac users can do this in as little as three mouse clicks. With either a mouse or a tablet, they can use Corel Paint it! to create a work of art from scratch. Price: $39.99 Category: art
Explore the Blue is an online initiative encouraging youth participation in on-the-water activities and aquatic-conservation efforts. It uses hands-on resources to engage students in a dialogue about the importance of outdoor recreational activities, such as boating and fishing, and the value of clean and healthy natural resources. Price: free Category: science
EARLY WORLD OF LEARNING
INSPIRATION TRAINING VIDEOS
This new online resource helps young learners build vocabulary, comprehension, phonics, and reading fluency. Among the literacy-building features included are story narration by human readers of both sexes and various ethnicities; word-by-word highlighting; educational interactive games for reinforcing comprehension; and printable activities in English or Spanish for use in the classroom or to take home. Additionally, each area of Early World of Learning includes a comprehensive Education Center. Price: Annual subscriptions to Early World of Learning start at $199 Category: reading, literacy
Inspiration Software has announced that more than 70 training videos are now available to teachers who have purchased volume licenses for the newest version of the Inspiration 9. The library of online videos, developed in collaboration with Atomic Learning, provides teachers with training tools for learning to use all the visual learning software’s capabilities at their own pace. Beginning with a series of overview videos that introduce the use of both visual learning in the classroom and the tools in Inspiration, these short online tutorials provide step-by-step instructions for using the software. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: professional development
(WWW.COREL.COM/PAINTIT)
(WWW.WORLDBOOKONLINE.COM)
(WWW.EXPLORETHEBLUE.DISCOVERYEDUCATION.COM)
(WWW.INSPIRATION.COM/INSPIRATION9TRAINING)
WHATSNEW
KURZWEIL 3000 VERSION 12 (WWW.KURZWEILEDU.COM)
Students with learning disabilities; those who are cognitively able but who don’t read well enough to learn from gradelevel content; and second-language learners are among the many populations that benefit from the use of Kurzweil 3000. Version 12 for Windows features expanded writing support, including text translation on the fly with Google Translate; the ability to read MathML through a partnership with Design Science; expanded eContent support through Internet Explorer; additional digital file support for PDF, Daisy 2, Daisy 3, and NIMAS; a Picture Dictionary containing 1,300+ images and supporting English and Spanish; audible pronunciations for more than 64,000 words from the American Heritage Dictionary; and a comprehensive set of brainstorming and outline-writing templates. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: special needs
MICROSOFT MOUSE MISCHIEF
(WWW.MICROSOFT.COM/MULTIPOINT/MOUSE-MISCHIEF) The product integrates with PowerPoint 2010 and 2007, allowing teachers to create multiple-choice, matching, and drawing question
slides that students, each with their own computer mouse, can answer on a shared screen. Mouse Mischief also gives teachers the option of having students answer questions individually or as part of a team. Price: free Category: presentation tools
NES PRACTICE (WWW.PEARSON.COM)
Pearson’s series of online interactive practice tests for the NES (National Evaluation Series) educator certification testing program is designed to help states ensure that the educators they certify are prepared to teach effectively in 21st-century classrooms. NES tests provide states with comprehensive exams aligned to professionally accepted national learning standards and covering areas such as essential academic skills, professional knowledge, reading instruction, and commonly taught elementary, middle, and secondary grade-level subjects. Each NES Practice allows candidates to take a full-length practice test online, simulating the experience of taking an NES test. Price: $17.50 per test Category: professional development
WHATSNEW
NUANCE SPEAK & SEE (WWW.NUANCE.COM)
The Nuance Speak & See suite combines speech recognition, a screen reader and a magnifier, a reading and writing toolbar, and a language learning assistant. It allows students with learning difficulties to grasp the relationship between the spoken and the written word through a combination of speech recognition and text-to-speech. Students who have other physical challenges or who generally struggle with using a keyboard and a mouse can take advantage of Speak & See to view their screens more clearly and navigate their PCs quickly and easily. Speak & See is also a useful solution for students who are learning English as a second language. Through its text-to-speech capability and bilingual dictionaries, the software makes it easier to learn English by letting people hear spoken words in context, helping them distinguish between different pronunciations and meanings. Price: $24.99 (educational discounts available) Category: reading, special needs, ESL
ONE-CLICK AUDIO ACADEMIC COLLECTION (WWW.RECORDEDBOOKS.COM)
With One-Click Audio, public and private K–12 schools can offer teachers and students access to a wide collection of downloadable
e-audiobooks. The One-Click Audio Academic Collection has more than 800 downloadable titles, including 320 that are iPod compatible. Each month, seven new titles are added to the collection, and an additional 130 titles are available for individual purchase. Price: annual subscription starts at $600. Category: reading, audiobooks
RECORDED BOOKS K-12/TRANSPARENT LANGUAGE PREMIUM EDITION (WWW.RECORDEDBOOKS.COM)
Recorded Books K-12, in partnership with Transparent Language, has introduced three foreign-language-learning systems for K–12 schools. Transparent Language Premium Edition offers 16 languages. Byki Online for Education builds vocabulary with interactive rapid flash card interface. Transparent Language KidSpeak, geared to younger students, combines fun animations with interactive games, puzzles, and songs. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: language
WHATSNEW
RM EASITEACH NEXT GENERATION (WWW.EASITEACH.COM/USA)
RM Easiteach Next Generation offers more than thirty new features including Easiteach widgets, the first “apps” for interactive whiteboards and slates; “.iwb” file support, a common file format for use with any interactive whiteboard software; and over 250 interactive lessons and graphic organizers. RM Easiteach NG presents a new design, providing intuitive navigation and easy access to its toolbars and widgets, which facilitate the creation of whole-class teaching activities to fit specific learning objectives. Built-in content packs provide a range of ready-made lessons in a range of topic areas, or teachers can use the array of tool sets to create their own. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: Interactive whiteboard software
SCHOOL LOOP
(WWW.SCHOOLLOOP.COM) School Loop enables schools to upload data from other software applications in order to share this information with parents and staff. Parents can view any data that districts or individual schools choose to share from their various systems, including standardized test scores, textbook fines, and parent contact information. Any data tied to a student’s ID number can be uploaded and shared within the School Loop system. The data are placed on the student record page for staff to
access, and parents can view them on their dashboard on their portal page. The data displayed are customizable for every user according to preferences or needs. There is also an option to send these notifications to parents via a daily email. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: organizational tools
SCHOOLNET’S RESPONSE TO INTERVENTION (WWW.SCHOOLNET.COM)
When combined with the Schoolnet Instructional Management Suite (IMS), Response to Intervention provides a supplement to the general education process. Leveraging the student information available in the Schoolnet IMS, RtI makes it easy for district- and school-level staff to define thresholds for at-risk students and systematically refer them for RtI programs. The program brings the creation and management of instructional and behavioral interventions and assessments together in a single online location and identifies at-risk students by establishing performance thresholds for selected standardized and benchmark assessments. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: assessment
WHATSNEW
SMART RESPONSE 2010 SOFTWARE UPGRADE (WWW.SMARTTECH.COM) This upgrade allows EXAMVIEW questions, quizzes, and assessments to be integrated into SMART Notebook software and delivered through SMART Response. It enables results to be exported in text format for further analysis or uploaded into third-party grade books. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: assessment
TOUCHMATH
(WWW.TOUCHMATH.COM/KINDERGARTEN) The company announces the release of a new kindergarten math curriculum. It includes four kits covering counting/ readiness, addition, backward counting, subtraction, geometry, algebra, fractions, money, time, measurement, and graphing/data. The interactive software complements the print product and provides multisensory activities for students who are beginning to use TouchMath or who need review. Price: Contact company for pricing. Category: math
SPIRAL UNIVERSE
21ST CENTURY-EXPLORER
(WWW.SPIRAL.COM)
(WWW.EXPLORER.EB.COM)
Spiral Universe is an integrated software suite used by schools to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and improve management and administration. The road map includes more than 30 modules that cover all facets of a school’s administrative and educational processes. These modules can easily be customized to meet unique needs, languages, and requirements. Spiral comes with detailed help guides and tutorials, but most users need minimal or no training to take full advantage of its potential. Price: free Category: administrative tools
Britannica’s site includes encyclopedias, an atlas, historic time lines, a dictionary, news, and other learning tools. 21st-Century Explorer is also ideal for reluctant readers and ELL, ESL, and adult-literacy students. The site also features learning games and activities that promote skills in language arts, math, science, and social studies. Interactive games allow students to practice and test themselves on what they have learned in the classroom. Price: starts at $0.60 per student. Category: reference
BUYERSGUIDE
Special Advertising Section
ISTE ABSOLUTE SOFTWARE
ATOMIC LEARNING
www.absolute.com ISTE Booth #: 574
www.atomiclearning.com ISTE Booth #: 674
Contact Us: 1-800-220-0733,
[email protected]; Suite 1600, Four Bentall Centre, 1055 Dunsmuir Street, Vancouver, BC V7X 1K8, Canada Absolute® Software specializes in software and services that provide an easy way to manage and secure computers. For education organizations, we deliver state-of-the-art computer lifecycle management solutions – enabling schools to improve accountability, reduce costs, prove regulatory compliance, combat computer theft and optimize productivity.
Contact Us:
[email protected], 866-259-6890 Atomic Learning provides the practical application of technology in education by empowering educators with the training and resources needed to create 21st century-ready students. Thousands of schools, colleges and universities have made Atomic Learning an integral part of their professional development, technology integration, and support initiatives. Learn more at www.AtomicLearning.com.
ACEREADER PRO
CALIFONE® INTERNATIONAL
www.acereader.com/education
califone.com ISTE Booth #: 1189
Contact Us:
[email protected], 1-800-ACE-READ (223-7323), ext. 2 AceReader Pro – Reading Improvement / Reading Assessment Software. AceReader is referred to as reading improvement software, reading assessment software, reading fluency software, vision training software, and speed reading software. Includes Tests, Drills, Games and an automated self-adjusting courses for all ages. It’s fun, easy and affordable. Over 50 awards and honors including being named TOP winner out of all winners by Tech & Learning. For FREE demo, toll free number and more product info, please visit our website today.
ALDEBARAN ROBOTICS www.aldebaran-robotics.com/en ISTE Booth # 2215 Contact Us: Cedric Vaudel,
[email protected] With humanoid robot NAO and his user-friendly programming environment, your students will have the fascinating experience of learning with robots. Energize scientific curriculae and attract the best students to your classes! Conceived for students of all levels, NAO is a versatile robot that can help you explore a great variety of subjects through lively hands-on experiments and programming. Join the 200 prestigious universities and schools in the Nao community!
Contact Us: Tim Ridgway,
[email protected] Come see the Spirit™ SD boombox with its SD card slot and USB port, a new Keyboard, and our new Diggiditto™ line of document cameras. Also shown are rugged headsets for ELL language learners, the same as what’s used in ISTE conference workshops. Listen to what enriching whole class audio amplification sounds like with our upgraded Infrared Classroom Audio System. Sign up to receive our free monthly enewsletter and be entered to win hourly prizes!
DREYFOUS & ASSOCIATES www.eduplatform.net ISTE Booth #: 548 Contact Us:
[email protected] or toll free, 1-866-314-0110 EduPlatform™, The Premiere Tool to Create and Distribute Digital Lessons, is an easy-to-use teaching solution for wired or wireless networked classrooms like computer labs and other one-to-one settings. Our Lesson Builder encourages the usage of available digital resources by allowing teachers to merge and sequence WebPages, program files as well as teacher created assessments. The included Classroom Manager provides the features necessary to minimize distractions and maximize instructional time.
eINSTRUCTION AMERICAN EDUCATION CORPORATION
www.einstruction.com ISTE Booth #1810
www.amered.com ISTE Booth #: 864
Contact Info:
[email protected] eInstruction offers educators a family of software, student response systems, interactive whiteboards, wireless tablets, data reporting and analysis tools, and high-quality content. These solutions increase student engagement, provide real-time feedback, and enable educators to assess comprehension and customize lessons in more than 500,000 classrooms around the world. To learn more about eInstruction, please visit http://www.einstruction.com.
The American Education Corporation offers three elearning curriculum and assessment solutions for whole districts, individual schools, classrooms, labs, as well as remote or virtual students. The A+nyWhere Learning System®, A+® LearningLink™, and A+® Classroom Student Response System™ are ideally suited for K–12 public, private, and charter schools as well as before- and after-school learning centers.
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Special Advertising Section
ELEARNINGFORCE CORPORATION www.elearningforce.com ISTE Booth #: 582 Contact Us: Sales Department ElearningForce, a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner, has developed SharePointLMS, the Academic version of SharePoint. SharePointLMS is a fully blown Learning Management System (LMS) for the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, 2010 and WSS3.0. SharePointLMS is packed with advanced and intuitive features yet is easy to use for both Teachers and Students.
FARONICS www.faronics.com ISTE Booth #: 1340 Contact Us: Kelly Batke As the latest edition to the Faronics security suite, Faronics Anti-Virus ensures proactive, resource-efficient malware protection without compromising system performance. It combines anti-virus, antispyware, and anti-rootkit technologies into a tightly integrated solution that seamlessly integrates with Faronics Deep Freeze so definition updates will occur even while workstations are protected in a Frozen state.
LANSCHOOL TECHNOLOGIES www.lanschool.com ISTE Booth #: 2320 Contact Us: 877-370-5546 LanSchool v7.4 classroom management software improves teacher effectiveness and learning in a 21st century classroom. With LanSchool, teachers can easily remove distractions, demonstrate skills, monitor and assess student progress. LanSchool supports wired or wireless networks and runs on PCs, Macs, MultiPoint Server, Terminal Services, and the iPad, iPod Touch. Download a 30-day trial from http://www.lanschool.com/trial and take control of your classroom!
LIGHTSPEED TECHNOLOGIES, INC. www.lightspeed-tek.com ISTE Booth #: 2355 Contact Us: 800-732-8999 Classroom audio systems are considered the core component for 21st century classrooms. The new all-in-one REDCAT? Media delivers optimum speech intelligibility, overcomes classroom noise and provides crystal clear sound to all students. Multimedia sound can now be routed through Lightspeed infrared systems wirelessly with the new IR Media Connector.
NETSUPPORT www.netsupport-inc.com ISTE Booth #: 762 Contact Us: Jennifer Petrikas;
[email protected] Classroom Management Software not just for the classroom. Combining advanced classroom PC monitoring, real-time Presentation and Annotation tools, Printer, Application and Internet controls together with its unique Technician console; NetSupport School rises to the challenge and requirements of today’s modern classroom.
PEPPERDINE UNIVERSITY gsep.pepperdine.edu ISTE Booth #: 1650 Contact Us: 866-503-5467 The Pepperdine University Graduate School of Education and Psychology is an innovative and XXXX learning community dedicated to fostering academic excellence, social purpose, meaningful service, and personal fulfillment. Offering master’s and doctoral programs at graduate campuses located throughout Southern California in Encino, Irvine, Malibu, West Los Angeles, Westlake Village, and Online.
W W W.T E C H L E A R N I N G . C O M
PROMATRIX INC. www.promatrixinc.com Contact Us: www.promatrixinc.com/Contact.aspx Software tools based of speech sequencer technology for creating and delivering presentations. Easily add voice to your video, or PowerPoint presentations, and without speaking a single word. Host your presentations using the Video Explorer, a video based help system. ProMatrix: Integrated Solutions by Bridging Technologies.
PROMETHEAN www.PrometheanWorld.com ISTE Booth #: 1110 Contact Us:
[email protected] Promethean is a global leader in interactive learning and assessment technology. The ActivClassroom by Promethean is a 360-degree, technology-enabled learning environment. Here, we believe everyone can learn, and that learning should be fun. That more student participation means better student achievement. The assessment should support learning and lessons should reach all learners. And that technology is important, but it means nothing without the dedication of teachers and the imagination of students.
QWEST www.qwest.com/edu ISTE Booth #: 2314 Contact Us: Catherine Mayer or Roxana Madrid,
[email protected],
[email protected] Qwest offers a unique and powerful combination of managed data and voice solutions for federal, state, and local governments; K-12, Higher Educational institutions; business and consumers. Qwest provides a wide range of data networking services designed for reliability and security, voice over IP (VoIP), as well as local and long-distance voice servers.
QWIZDOM www.qwizdom.com ISTE Booth #: 1626 & 839 Contact Us: 877-794-9366 Qwizdom provides integrated education technology solutions for thousands of schools around the world. Striving to make learning both effective and engaging, Qwizdom offers advanced radio-frequency classroom response technology, complete software learning systems, over 150 interactive curriculum programs, and digital learning network. Stop by the Qwizdom booths #1626 and 839 at ISTE and enter to win a Q7 Presenter Tablet plus many other prizes and giveaways or visit: www.qwizdom.com.
SPECTOR 360 STUDENT PC & INTERNET MONITORING SOFTWARE www.SpectorEDU.com ISTE Booth #: 2321 Spector 360 works with your Web Filter to Increase Student Time on Task, Protect Kids from the Dangers of the Internet and Save Money on wasted IT costs by centrally monitoring EVERYTHING students do on the PC and the Internet. High-level charts show trends and patterns then drill down to investigate suspect behavior.
WYSE TECHNOLOGY, INC. www.wyse.com/edu ISTE Booth # 2450 Contact Us:
[email protected], 800-GET-WYSE Wyse Technology is the global leader in cloud client computing, leveraging its industry-leading thin and zero client computing-based desktop virtualization software, hardware and services. Cloud Client Computing is the ultimate client computing solution for our time. It replaces the outdated computing model of the unsecure, unreliable, un-green and expensive PC. It delivers the security, reliability, user experience with the lowest energy usage and total cost of ownership. It simply connects all the dots: Thin and zero client computing, unified communications, desktop virtualization and the web for users to reach the clouds – in a private, public, government or hybrid cloud. Wyse is headquartered in San Jose, California, U.S.A., with offices worldwide.
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THEY SAID IT
How to think (and act) global in the classroom by Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano
Adapted from an original post on the TL Advisor blog (www.techlearning.com/blogs/29738) If you do not teach or attend an international school, nor live in a metropolitan city, raising global awareness among your students does not happen by osmosis. As a teacher, you have to work hard to expose your students to multiple languages, cultures, geography, different customs and traditions. Global Awareness, according to The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, includes: ■ Using 21st century skills to understand and address global issues ■ Learning from and working collaboratively with individuals representing diverse cultures, religions and lifestyles in a spirit of mutual respect and open dialogue in personal, work and community contexts ■ Understanding other nations and cultures, including the use of non-English languages Raising global awareness and making global connections for teachers and students has been one of my goals this year. Although isolated, one-time connections are better than none. I am witnessing a transformation in students and teachers who are regularly participating in global connections. Let me give you an example: Third graders have had opportunities to con-
nect live via Skype to Italy, Israel, New Zealand, Finland, Canada and various states within the USA this year. Alison Quinn, the teacher from Finland, wrote a reflective blog post about our connection: They asked and answered great questions that highlighted both the differences (geographically and culturally) and similarities. This was so key. The similarities now seem insignificant— two kids on opposite sides of the ocean have art as their favorite subject—both groups of kids like pizza, the same TV shows— and the same Hannah Montana song. But these seemingly insignificant shared pieces of pop culture astounded and united the kids who were oceans away from each other. I am in complete agreement with Alison. Although seemingly insignificant, these kinds of interactions contribute to a connected feeling, they contribute to a global awareness, that otherwise would not exist. Seeing students being aware of a bigger world than their own backyard is a first step towards global education. Hearing students use names of far away countries, talk about different languages, cultures and traditions as if they were frequent travelers and jet-setters is a step in the right direction. Making connections with students from around the world is becoming “just the way it is”... normal... part of their lives in the 21st Century.
AD INDEX COMPANY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PAGE Aldebaran Robotics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 American Education Corp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32-33 Atomic Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 AVerMedia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 AVID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Azden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Bretford Manufacturing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Califone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Calypso Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 CDW-G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Cisco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40-41 Crestron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 CTB McGraw-Hill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Dell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 A-H,7 EduPlatform/Dreyfous & Assoc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 eInstruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Epson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12-13 Faronics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Global Scholar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Hatch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
COMPANY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PAGE Hitachi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 HP DLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 LG Electronics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Lightspeed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 A-H Logitech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Lumens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Microsoft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Microsoft DLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Mimio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 NetSupport School. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 NewTek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 On Course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Pearson PowerSchool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 PolyVision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Promethean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44-45 Qwizdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 RM Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 SMART . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36-37 Teeso . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 University of Maryland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
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