FETC 2010 News
Promethean, Safari Montage Partner on Educational Repository
At the FETC 2010 conference in Florida, education technology developers Promethean and Safari Montage announced a joint effort to provide an integrated tool for creating, storing, and sharing digital lesson plans.
Promethean is a technology provider that develops interactive classroom technologies, including the ActivClassroom line. ActivClassroom is a set of tools for classroom learning that ranges from the ActivBoard line of interactive whiteboards to software tools and resources, including instructional materials, collaboration features, assessment solutions, and various other resources for teachers and students.
Safari Montage is the maker of a WAN-based VOD and digital media management system (also called Safari Montage) designed specifically for schools. It includes multi-bay server configurations, a core content package with pre-loaded titles from educational video producers (National Geographic, Disney Education, and others), tools for creating and adding content, and a WAN manager for districts delivering content to schools.
According to the two companies, with the new collaboration with Safari Montage, "Educators who use Promethean's ActivClassroom will have the ability to seamlessly integrate media-rich Safari Montage resources into lesson plans and classroom activities."
Sarasota County Schools in Florida is a user of Safari Montage and Promethean tools. Joe Binswanger, director of instructional technology, commented on the benefits district will see with the integrated tool.
"Our teachers have extensively used Safari Montage's dynamic instructional 'videoetts' with their ActivBoards," he said in a statement released this week. "Early in our work, Promethean and Safari Montage worked together to create a search capability that allowed our teachers to quickly find both flipcharts and videos in Safari Montage in one quick federated search. This ease of use gave our teachers quick access to fantastic instructional resources and the capability to share them. This partnership will again offer more great resources for our teachers and that's a win for all."