The Sweet Spot - CB&A Client News
The Siemens Foundation, Discovery
Education, the National Science
Teachers Association, and the College Board
launched the fourth annual Siemens
We Can Change the World Challenge.
In this national sustainability challenge,
students use scientific investigation and
web-based tools powered by Discovery
Education to create green solutions. The
contest encourages all students,
kindergarten through 12th grade, to
collaborate with classmates and solve
environmental problems in their school,
community and world. A panel of
environmental experts and educators will
judge the projects and award prizes totaling
more than $250,000. The deadline for all Siemens
We Can Change the World Challenge
entries is March 15, 2012. Read
more…
Funds
For Learning, a leading E-rate
compliance services firm, applauded an Order
from the FCC that added the requirements
outlined in the Protecting Children in the
21st Century Act to the existing Children’s
Internet Protection Act (CIPA) requirements.
Beginning in Funding Year 2012, schools
receiving E-rate funding for Internet Access
or Internal Connections must verify that
they have updated their Internet safety
policy. New provisions to safety policies
must include education for minors about
appropriate online behavior. Funds For
Learning commended the Order, stating that
the changes should help “foster a generation
of responsible Internet users.” Read
more…
A new iPad® app hit the market from Key
Curriculum Press last month. Offering
an intuitive environment for exploring
Dynamic Geometry® mathematics, Sketchpad
Explorer™ provides
access to the library of The Geometer’s
Sketchpad® mathematics content on
the web – including Sketch Exchange,
the Sketchpad Resource Center and
dozens of teacher-published websites – where
users can view and share sketches across a
range of mathematics topics and levels. Sketchpad Explorer will be available free until
Nov. 1, after which the price per unit will
be $3.99. The Geometer’s Sketchpad is
the most widely used learning tool for
mathematics education in the world. Read
more…
Special
education teachers nationwide have the
opportunity to earn funding while sharing
best practices, thanks to a grant sponsored
by PCI
Education in celebration of the
company’s 20th anniversary. To apply,
educators must submit a favorite lesson plan
or activity for students with special needs
to the online community WeAreTeachers
by Oct. 11. The teacher receiving the most
online votes will receive a $200 cash grant,
Flip Video camera and a $200 gift
certificate. In addition, the next 15
teachers who receive the most votes will
receive a $200 gift certificate to spend on
teacher materials from PCI Education. Read
more…
In honor of the new school year, Shmoop
debuted two new subject areas for its free
online Learning Guides, Biology
and Mythology.
Shmoop Learning Guides are designed to make
material more appealing to teens by infusing
humor and pop culture. Shmoop Biology links
ecology to Finding Nemo, and
explains why nematodes do more than destroy
SpongeBob’s pineapple house. To help
students learn about Greek, Roman and Norse
mythology, Shmoop’s team of private
investigators infiltrated the Facebook
profiles, email inboxes and photo albums of
the gods. Shmoop now spans 12 subject areas
and offers more than 750 free Learning
Guides. Read
more…
eChalk
introduced a mobile app that gives students,
parents and teachers access to the company’s
online communication and collaboration
software on iPhone®, iPad®, iPod
touch® and Android® devices. The app
provides a way for parents and students to
stay in touch with school activities,
assignments and discussions from virtually
anywhere. Parents and students can view
grades, homework, learning resources, and
receive timely notifications, and teachers
have the ability to view content and send
information from a mobile device. In
addition to the mobile app, eChalk is
enhancing its software to seamlessly
integrate with Google Apps for Education and
Microsoft Live@edu by the end of the year. Read
more…
As teachers increasingly seek support on
how the Common Core State Standards will
impact their classrooms, Kaplan K12 Learning
Services has launched an online toolkit to
help them make the transition. Kaplan’s
Teach!® Strategies
& Resources is a Web-based
platform that includes robust instructional
and professional development resources
designed to support rigorous differentiated
instruction, training and assessment.
Despite budget constraints, experts believe
investing in professional development is
critical for teacher and student success. Teach!
Strategies & Resources costs
$1,900 for an annual school license for all
teachers and $59 for an annual individual
teacher license. Read
more…
As schools face one of the toughest
education funding crises in decades, i21 zone
from STI
Achievement
Services offers a solution that
helps educators utilize their current
technology more effectively to improve
student learning while maximizing
investments. Partnering with educators, STI
provides research-based instructional
practices, mentoring, and leadership
coaching focused on technology integration.
The service has generated successful results
at West Point School District in
Mississippi, where educators are
incorporating i21 zone into an
initiative that provides laptops to all high
school seniors. By utilizing current
technology to its full extent, educators can
reduce costs while improving learning gains
for students. Read
more…
Califone continues
to expand its 21st Century classroom
offerings with the addition of the PA419 and
the AV2. The PA419 is a portable
presentation system with an iPhone/iPod
docking station enabling educators to
incorporate the latest digital media into
any classroom, auditorium or athletic field.
This versatility helps educators keep
students actively engaged and learning in
virtually any school setting. The AV2 holds
student interest by providing education’s
first Flash-enabled, all-in-one portable
mobile device. Students can download
interactive games and music, capture still
images and videos, read eBooks, and record
audio. The AV2 serves as an upgraded
CardMaster card reader, a popular tool among
reading specialists, elementary educators,
and speech-language pathologists, providing
a modern solution for literacy and language
development. Read
more…
A new service, CollegeSolved.com,
allows prospective college students to learn
more about a college’s campus experience
through a host of interactive tools,
including a college search and comparison
tool, a personality map that charts student
traits at hundreds of campuses, a college
recommendation engine, and data including
expected graduate salaries and financial aid
grants. College hopefuls can use the
CollegiateChat® feature to call current
students at hundreds of U.S. colleges, and
the CounselorConnect® feature to consult
college admissions experts. Read
more…
On average, schools spend $10,000 per
teacher on professional development training
each year. But does the money spent really
result in improved students and schools?
According to Alvin Crawford, CEO of Knowledge
Delivery Systems (KDS), the real
problems lie not with the students, but with
the teachers, principals and administrators.
In his recent Education Week commentary,
“Bringing Professional Development Into the
21st Century,” Crawford argues that the only
effective way to truly fix this problem is
through online, strategic professional
development.
Read more…
Use of the digital teaching platform Time To
Know is expanding quickly, leading to
an additional 25 classrooms this fall alone.
Time To Know is a teacher-led, online
curriculum system that features a Digital
Teaching Platform designed for one-to-one
computing classrooms. With the teacher at
the center, Time To Know engages students
with interactive multimedia lessons,
individualizes instruction, and promotes the
development of critical thinking skills.
After successful pilot programs, Time To
Know is being used by the Wylie Independent
School District and Grand Prairie
Independent School District in Texas, four
Catholic schools in New York, and an
Achievement First Charter School in
Connecticut. It's also used in select New York public schools and a charter school. Read
more...
E2020, Inc., one of the fastest growing
providers of online curriculum, recently
joined forces with Giant Campus, Inc., which
offers high-interest elective courses in
technology, digital arts, business, and
engineering. Together, the firms provide
schools and districts with the curriculum
needed for core and elective courses to
prepare students for college and
STEM-focused careers. With the acquisition,
e2020 has the most comprehensive online STEM
curriculum, combining e2020’s rigorous suite
of math and science courses with the best in
technology and engineering electives from
Giant Campus. Read more…
During the 2010-2011 school year, more than
240 middle school teachers in New York used
Editure
Digital School Solutions (DDS), a
professional development consulting service
that can be completed on-site or online.
Over the course of the year, those teachers
using DDS nearly doubled their use of
technology to differentiate instruction on a
daily basis compared to those who did not
use DDS. In addition, after one year of DDS
support, over 50 percent of teachers who
never integrated computers into their
classroom lessons are now doing so
regularly. DDS consultants have more than 15
years of experience at all levels of the
education system, and are experts in both
education and emerging education
technologies. Read more...
On Oct. 11 at 1 p.m. ET, the Consortium for
School Networking (CoSN) will kick off
its 2011-2012 Internet and Education Webinar
series with “Planning for the Shift from
Print to Digital.” The webinar will provide
insight and ideas for K-12 education
technology leaders on collaborating at a
district-wide level to seamlessly coordinate
the shift from print to digital. The CoSN
2011-2012 webinar series will include six
interactive sessions, including one free
bonus event in conjunction with the CoSN
Annual Conference. The webinars are free to
members, and non-members may purchase access
to individual events. Read
more…
The Software
and Education Industry Association
(SIIA) is accepting nominations for the 2012
CODiE awards. The first round of deadlines
is Oct. 7 for content categories, and Oct.
14 for software and education categories. In
its 27th year, the SIIA CODiE Awards
recognize excellence in business software,
digital content, and education technology
industries. The CODiEs are the industry’s
only peer-reviewed awards program, meaning
winners are honored and recognized by
companies they respect and sometimes compete
with. The CODiEs board has made a few
modifications to the awards program for
2012, including revised categories, changes
to subcategories, and a better judging
experience. Read
more…
VizZle,
the easy-to-use, web-based authoring tool
that empowers educators to create fun,
interactive, visually-supported curriculum
customized to the needs of children with
autism and other learning challenges, is
empowering even more educators with the
adoption of its programs by four of the
biggest school districts in the U.S. VizZle
will now be used by students and teachers in
Miami, Cleveland, Los Angeles, and Jefferson
County, Co. Los Angeles and Jefferson County
were able to implement VizZle using funding
specifically allotted to special education
program enrichment. Read
more...
