THE Journal — eLearning/Web
Homework: A Math Dilemma and What To Do About It
The issue of assigning homework is controversial in terms of its purpose, what to assign, the amount of time needed to complete it, parental involvement, its actual affect on learning and achievement, and impact on family life and other valuable activities that occur outside of school hours. I have encountered all of those controversies in my years of teaching mathematics. Math homework is usually a daily event. Unfortunately, many teachers assign most homework from problem sets following the section of the text that was addressed that day. There is little differentiation. For the most part the entire class gets the same assignment. (In fairness, teachers do take into consideration the nature of those problems, which are often grouped by difficulty, deciding which to assign based on the general ability level of students in the class: below average, average, above average, or mixed.)
(10/22/2007)
Site Combines Reading Comprehension with Science Education
Earlier this month Pearson launched two new learning tools for K-12: an update to the company's WriteToLearn reading comprehension software and an enhanced version of its Scott Foresman's Science 2008 textbook series, which now integrates Web-based reading comprehension and writing instruction via Pearson's Summary Street.
(10/22/2007)
Q&A: Smartening up the Classroom
The Clarke County School District's mission to install whiteboards in its classrooms dates back about seven years, but it wasn't until 2006 that more than 1,000 Smart Boards were installed in its 13 elementary, four middle and three high schools. "We had vendors come in, and we experimented with a few different options by installing four or five boards in one school to see how they worked," said Steve Piazza, technology integration support specialist for the Athens, GA-based school district, "but it was nothing like this."
(10/17/2007)
Angel Adopts IMS Common Cartridge in LMS
Angel Learning this week announced new support for the IMS Global Learning Consortium's Common Cartridge standard in its learning management system, Angel LMS. The standard, developed through IMS GLC's Common Cartridge Alliance, is an open standard for content sharing. Angel last year contributed intellectual property for its development.
(10/17/2007)
Microsoft Launches Communications Suite
At a live event in San Francisco, Microsoft Tuesday announced the launch of its "Unified Communications" suite of products, which aims to blur the distinction between electronic and voice communications and provide a seamless experience that relegates traditional telephone use to the dark ages.
(10/17/2007)
3 Districts Deploy Differentiated Math Tutoring System
Three large school districts in the United States this semester have deployed Apangea Learning's SmartHelp as a part of their math intervention and remediation programs: District of Columbia Public Schools (Washington, DC), Atlanta Public Schools, and Chicago Public Schools.
(10/16/2007)
Wimba Voice 5.2 Expands Audio Collaboration Capabilities
Education technology developer Wimba has released Wimba Voice 5.2, an update to the company's audio module for its Collaboration Suite, which also includes Wimba Classroom, Wimba Create, and Wimba Pronto. The new version expands the tool's functionality and end-user features and enhances some existing features.
(10/16/2007)
Wikis for Education: Angel Contributes Custom Code to Open Source Community
Angel Learning has contributed more of its source code to the open source community. The company this week made its TiddlyWiki customization technology freely available for development for educational purposes through Eduforge.
(10/12/2007)
MNPS Rolls Out VOD District-wide
Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools in Tennessee is deploying video on demand and digital asset management tools across all of its 135 schools. The district, one of the 50 largest in the United States, signed a five-year contract with Library Video Co., which will supply the services through its Safari Montage video on demand system.
(10/12/2007)
Bellevue Deploys Hosted Apps for 24/7 Access
Bellevue City Schools in Ohio is deploying technologies from ClassLink to allow students and teachers to access instructional software from their schools and homes. The district is also using ClassLink's Information Console (CLiC) to manage software licenses and access.
(10/12/2007)
AEC Launches High School Electives for E-Learning Courseware Program
Curriculum and courseware developer American Education Corp. this week launched three new high school courses for its A+nyWhere Learning System. The elective courses are designed to supplement A+LS' core subject areas of language arts, math, science, and social studies.
(10/10/2007)
3 Laws of Robotics: Learn, Build, Compete
Robotics has become the standard bearer in STEM education as high schools, colleges, and universities around the world focus their software and hardware engineering efforts on inventing better and better machines and ultimately plunge their creations into the underworld of robotics competitions. Now a new site has been launched to promote the educational value of robotics and robotics competitions and provide resources for students and educators.
(10/9/2007)
Read Naturally Adds ELL Curriculum Support
Read Naturally has released a new version of its reading software, Read Naturally Software Edition (SE) Network Plus. The new 2.1 version incorporates support for ELL curricula and also adds new licensing options.
(10/9/2007)
Animated Science: Site Expands Multimedia Content
Educational content provider Facts on File has expanded the range of reference materials on its science Web portal Science Online. The newly updated site adds video content, expanded images, and essays on science.
(10/9/2007)
More Schools Turn to Gaming for Math Education
Following up on our recent case study on gaming in math education, several schools have begun adopting Tabula Digita's DimensionM algebra and pre-algebra game-based learning system. The company reported that 75 schools in eight states have adopted the technology and brought video gaming into the classroom.
(10/5/2007)
STEM Education: Prepping Students for Science
Do students lose interest in science as they progress through the education system? The 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress science results suggest so, showing steadily declining student achievement in science between grades 4 and 12. In that national assessment, 68 percent of fourth graders performed at or above the Basic achievement level, compared with 59 percent in grade 8 and 54 percent in grade 12.
(10/4/2007)
San Diego USD Cogitates on Cognitive Tutor
San Diego Unified School District in California is hoping to bump student performance in math with the help of a research-based multimedia math curriculum called Cognitive Tutor Bridge to Algebra. The district spent $177,000 on licenses to bring the algebra readiness curriculum to students in 11 of its middle schools.
(10/3/2007)
Wildform Debuts Hosted E-Learning Service
Wildform, a developer of multimedia tools primarily for online presentations, has unveiled a new hosted service for educators called Wildform Online. The service is designed to provide educators with tools that help them track how users interact with their learning materials and tests.
(10/3/2007)
DL Expands Vocab Development System
Curriculum developer Dynamic Literacy has released Elements Level 2, an expansion of the company's WordBuild Vocabulary Development System.
(10/2/2007)
DJI Releases Writing Intervention
Don Johnston Inc. (DJI) has expanded its lineup of Solo literacy tools with the release of Solo Writing Coach, an instructional framework targeting struggling learners in grades 3 through 12. Writing Coach is a component of the Solo Literacy Suite, a technology-based reading and writing scaffolding system.
(10/2/2007)
Lexia Updates PreK-12 Reading Suite
Lexia Learning Systems has released Lexia Reading v5, an update to the company's suite of reading tools for pre-kindergarten through grade 12. Lexia said the new version was beta tested by more than 4,500 students at "hundreds of teachers and administrators" at 10 elementary, middle, and high schools.
(10/1/2007)
Florida Virtual School To Study Best Practices for Online Learning
Florida Virtual School has received a $314,000 grant from the AT&T Foundation for a two-year project in which the online institution will "gather best practices and methodologies for developing and delivering high-quality online learning for K-12 students," according to AT&T.
(10/1/2007)
Kaplan University High School Now in Session
Kaplan Virtual Education, a business unit of education provider Kaplan, has opened the virtual doors on Kaplan University High School, a national online high school.
(9/28/2007)
DoE UMass Dartmouth Grant Targets Math Education
The United States Department of Education has awarded the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth $2 million for a research effort aimed at improving math education. The funds will be used by the university's recently dedicated James J. Kaput Center for Research and Innovation in Mathematics Education to "examine new strategies to excite students about learning math, and increase the number and diversity of students in the math, science, and engineering pipeline," the university reported.
(9/28/2007)
ISI Releases Universal MediaWorks 6.2
Interactive Solutions has released an update to to MediaWorks, a video and multimedia authoring suite targeted toward education. The 6.2 update adds Universal Binary support for native compatibility with Intel-based Mac systems and also includes support for Windows Vista.
(9/28/2007)
