THE Journal — eLearning/Web
Apex Test Prep Targets State Blueprints
Apex Learning is rolling out new test preparation tools focusing on high school exit exams. The online prep courses target state-specific high stakes exams and are "aligned to each state's test blueprint and designed around its unique exam architecture," according to Apex.
(11/16/2007)
Book Punch Takes a Swing at Literary Response
Merit Software has launched a new interactive site focused on developing literary response in young learners. The site, Book Punch, is an offshoot of the company's Paragraph Punch and Essay Punch, both of which focus on writing development. Book Punch, unlike the other two programs, targets literary response specifically, using popular children's literature to get kids to think critically and write coherently about what they read.
(11/15/2007)
LeapFrog To Give Away $35,000 in Classroom Technology
LeapFrog SchoolHouse this month launched a new sweepstakes for schools. Through Dec. 15, educators who register at the company's online education store are entered to win shopping sprees at the store ranging from $1,000 to $10,000.
(11/15/2007)
Are Schools Failing Kids in 21st Century Skills?
Are students getting what they need out of schools in order to succeed in the 21st century? Whatever your own opinion, Americans, in large part, think schools are failing in this regard, and they spread the blame around to school leaders, teachers, and parents, according to a new survey released this week by Harris Interactive and commissioned by ASQ, a quality control/management association.
(11/14/2007)
MIT Researchers Advance Lecture Capture with Search Capabilities
Researchers in MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have developed a new Web-based technology that's designed to take recorded classroom lectures to the next level. The technology, developed by a team led by MIT's Regina Barzilay and James Glass, provides search functionality for classroom video recordings. At present, the prototype only works with MIT's online lectures made available to the public through the university's OpenCourseWare initiative, but it may be made available to other institutions in the future.
(11/14/2007)
Latest LabView Student Edition Includes Multicore Processing, Hybrid Programming
National Instruments has released LabView 8.5 Student Edition, the latest update to its software that gives students a graphical system for designing, prototyping, and deploying real-world applications based on engineering and science concepts.
(11/13/2007)
PBS Early Literacy Initiative Launches in January
In January PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will launch a five-year literacy initiative for preschoolers and young learners aimed at teachers, parents, and caregivers. Funded in part through a grant from the United States Department of Education, the multi-pronged initiative, dubbed "PBS Kids Raising Readers," will include a wide range of new tools and media, including television series, Web content, professional development, and a preschool curriculum, designed to develop literacy skills in kids aged 2 to 8.
(11/12/2007)
Hoover City Takes Library Services Online
Hoover City Schools in Alabama is expanding access to library services with the adoption of a centralized, Web-based system that allows students to search for and reserve books online and have them delivered to their desks the next day using Follett's Destiny Library Manager. The district is also using the system to provide library enhancements, including providing previews of books.
(11/12/2007)
The Great Debate: Effectiveness of Technology in Education
I sometimes wonder why there is debate on the effectiveness of technology in education. The whole point of a debate is to examine issues in such a way that decisions can be made. However, in this case, we can hardly say, "Remove all technology from education!" Or, "Don't add any more because we are not getting an adequate return on our current investment--technology is not improving the quality of education." What would we put in its place?
(11/8/2007)
NC District Literacy Intervention Program Applies Neuroscience
North Carolina's Anson County School District has deployed Scientific Learning's Fast ForWord To Reading Series reading intervention software as part of its program to increase literacy among students who are at risk readers.
(11/8/2007)
AdLit.org Debuts To Help Struggling Adolescents Read, Write
A new site called AdLit.org has come online to help parents and educators help adolescent students in grades 4 to 12 who are having literacy difficulties improve their reading and writing skills.
(11/8/2007)
Innovation First Brings Robotics to the Classroom
With robotics playing an ever more integral role in STEM education, Innovation First, the company behind a wide range of robotics initiatives, has launched a new online resource targeted directly toward K-12 and post-secondary education.
(11/8/2007)
Interwrite Donates Pads for UNESCO Project
As part of a project launched by UNESCO Bangkok and Microsoft, called Next Generation of Teachers, Interwrite Learning this week donated 30 Interwrite Pads to support distance learning for teacher professional education. The donations were distributed through local reseller to a variety of countries participating in the project, including China, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.
(11/8/2007)
Indiana Virtual Academy Adopts Angel LMS
Indiana Virtual Academy has made the move to the Angel Learning Management System from Angel Learning. Indiana Virtual was originally conceived as a means of providing postsecondary educational opportunities to rural students in Indiana but now serves students across the state, including high school and middle school students seeking advanced courses and accelerated education, homebound students, students looking to make up credits, and continuing education students.
(11/5/2007)
Institute Focuses on K-12 Laptop/Tablet Adoption
The Lausanne Collegiate School has teamed up with the Anytime Anywhere Learning Foundation to produce next year's Laptop Institute, an academic conference focusing on the adoption of laptop and tablet-based computers in K-12 education. It's designed as a sort of "think tank" for schools looking to adopt laptops and tablets as learning tools.
(11/5/2007)
Blended Program Supports Preschool Literacy
Teachscape has launched three new professional development series for pre-kindergarten educators and mentors, combining face to face and online learning programs that incorporate access to training content, reporting, and work management applications using Teachscape's Online Program Manager. The programs focus on developing skills for educators teaching literacy skills to preschoolers and fostering environments that promote language learning for principals, mentors, and other education supporters.
(11/5/2007)
Mobile Educational Gaming To Triple by 2012
The market for mobile educational gaming will more than triple by 2012, according to a new forecast released late last week by research firm Ambient Insight. Demand for mobile educational gaming will expand at a compound annual growth rate of 26.5 percent over the next five years, with annual revenues expected to hit $185 million by 2012, up from the current $57 million.
(11/5/2007)
21st Century Learning: 'We're Not Even Close'
Without incorporating technology into every aspect of its activities, no organization can expect to achieve results in this increasingly digital world. Yet education is dead last in technology use compared with all major industrial sectors, and that has to change in order for schools to meet the challenges of 21st century learning--this according to a paper released Monday by the State Education Technology Directors Association (SETDA), the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills at the SETDA Leadership Summit and Education Forum in Washington, DC.
(11/5/2007)
Case Study: Writing with Technology
Practicing writing is typically a slow process. It's time-consuming, and student feedback is often delayed owing to the time it takes teachers to grade each essay for grammar, content, and writing style. In a world of 24/7 advertising, Game Boys and instant messaging, how can teachers motivate middle and high school students to invest their time and energy and actually enjoy practicing writing?
(11/5/2007)
Getting Started with Videogame Development
In the first segment in this series, we covered the pedagogy behind student videogame development. We addressed how learning as doing, collaborative & peer learning, tutoring, ownership, and publication are critical components to game development. We also addressed benefits of videogame making, including content area knowledge acquisition, students as producers of information, and the potential of game-making for encouraging STEM-related careers for women and minorities.
(11/1/2007)
Beaufort County SD Revamps Network for E-Learning
Beaufort County School District is South Carolina is overhauling its network infrastructure to facilitate e-learning applications and to help provide advanced online professional development through the use of streaming video. The district is working with technology provider Extreme Networks and systems integrator Converged Networks on the overhaul.
(11/1/2007)
Districts Revamp Curricula for 21st Century Learning
School districts around the United States are taking an active approach to 21st century learning by retooling their curricula and changing the way they measure student achievement in STEM subjects. What's more, according to a survey released this month by the National School Boards Association, technology is playing a major role in facilitating change, from online learning to project-based learning to Web 2.0 applications like wikis and blogs.
(10/31/2007)
Angel To Supply Learning Management for Harcourt Programs
Angel Learning and Harcourt Education have formed an alliance for e-learning. Through the arrangement, Angel will provide learning management technologies for use with educational programs from Harcourt School Publishers and Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
(10/31/2007)
Live! Integration Coming to Sakai Open-Source LMS
Education technology developer Elluminate is bringing its Live! collaboration suite to the Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment, an open-source learning management system. The move is part of a new alliance with Unicon, a company that specializes in providing support and services for open-source software to education.
(10/30/2007)
Web 2.0 Entails 'Sleeping Giant' Security Risk
As increasing numbers of enterprises climb aboard the Web 2.0 bandwagon, it's more important than ever for software developers keep security in mind during the development process. So says Danny Allan, director of security research at Watchfire, the Waltham, Mass.-based Web-app security company acquired by IBM in July. Allan was in Santa Clara, Calif. to speak at this year's AjaxWorld show, and he took a few minutes to talk with me before his presentation.
(10/30/2007)
