Microsoft's education division has teamed up with the Smithsonian and TakingITGlobal, an organization that facilitates online collaboration among young people, to launch a global program intended to inspire teachers and students to participate in environmental issues.
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 11/01/10
Casio Education has introduced the Prizm fx-CG10, a new concept in educational graphing calculators that aims to impart mathematical concepts in addition to providing standard graphing functions. Using a new tool known as Picture Plot, the Prizm enables users to plot graphs over full-color photographic images, such as an Egyptian pyramid or the jets of an outdoor fountain, as way of relating complex mathematical functions to real-world concepts such as design and engineering.
- By Scott Aronowitz
- 10/26/10
Texas Instruments has beefed up the resources it offers on its TI Math Nspired site,
Two county school districts in Maryland have implemented DreamBox Learning K-3 Math to improve math competency in thousands of students in kindergarten through grade 3.
- By Scott Aronowitz
- 10/20/10
Google wants to get middle and high school students interested in open source software, and the company is betting that a new "outreach contest" that includes cash prizes and a grand-prize trip to the Googleplex in California will appeal to budding programmers.
- By John K. Waters
- 10/20/10
Autodesk has brought AutoCAD 2011 for Mac OS X to its Education Community, offering teachers and students about 90 percent off the full commercial version. The standard education edition of AutoCAD 2011 for Mac, which also began shipping this month, will continue to be free for education users.
The BEST ("Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology") Middle and High School Robotics Competition has released its schedule of workshops for fall 2010, which are aimed at welcoming more districts and schools worldwide into the 2011 competition.
- By Scott Aronowitz
- 10/18/10
Discovery and 3M have selected a grand prize winner in their joint 2010 National Young Scientist Challenge (YSC). Liam McCarty, an eighth-grader at Brookfield Academy in Brookfield, WI, was named America's Top Young Scientist for his idea for a wound closure system to protect deep cuts, as well as for his performance in a live science competition among YSC finalists.
- By Scott Aronowitz
- 10/12/10
Intel is being joined by a major semiconductor competitor in encouraging young people to pursue STEM careers. The Broadcom Foundation, founded last year and funded by Broadcom, has signed on with the Society for Science & the Public in a six-year, $6 million partnership to launch a new national middle school competition focusing on science, technology, engineering, and math.
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 10/06/10
A new report warned that the United States is slipping on post-secondary degree completion compared with other nations, falling to fourth overall among adults and 10th among young adults. We will ignore the underling causes of this trend "at our peril," the report's authors said. But what can K-12 institutions do to address the problem and help reverse the trend?