THE Journal — eLearning/Web
Cultural Exchange: LMS Bonds Texas Students with Denmark
In an example of bridging vast cultural divides through technology, students from a conservative Catholic high school in Texas are learning from college students in Denmark, and vice versa, through a Blackboard-based exchange launched last year.
(9/25/2007)
Achieve3000 Adds Parent Edition to Online Literacy Tools
Internet-based instruction provider Achieve3000 has added a revised Parent Edition to its KidBiz3000 and TeenBiz3000 online literacy programs. Both programs are designed to improve writing skills, reading comprehension, and vocabulary for students in grades 2 through 12.
(9/25/2007)
Skype, Annick Press Connect Students with Authors
VoIP chat provider Skype Technologies and book publisher Annick Press are jointly presenting LIVEbrary, a series of online classroom programs that will connect middle and junior high schoolers and their teachers with various authors over a five-week program starting Oct. 15.
(9/20/2007)
Aleks Upgrades HS Geometry Tool
Math Assessment tool provider Aleks has upgraded its High School Geometry offering so that it now leverages the company's AI-2 intelligence engine, which aims to reduce faculty workload and make learning process more rewarding and more targeted to student needs.
(9/20/2007)
Hacienda La Puente USD Expands Online Language Arts Program
California's Hacienda La Puente Unified School District is expanding its implementation of the MY Access! language arts program from Vantage Learning. This district is now making the online writing tool available to more than 13,000 high school, middle school, and fifth-grade students through an expanded, $486,000 license, Vantage reported.
(9/20/2007)
Technology Institute Launches Open Educational Resource
The Monterey Institute of Technology and Education has launched HippoCampus, a website designed to supplement learning for high school and college students in order to assist with credit recovery and home schooling, as well as AP and general ed use. HippoCampus is an open education resource and is available free of charge to all users.
(9/19/2007)
Jason Project Charts Course Through Monster Storms
The Jason Project, a subsidiary of the National Geographic Society, has come out with new science curriculum called Operation: Monster Storms. The first in Jason's new line of curricula, Operation: Monster Storms was developed over a two-year period in cooperation with NOAA, NASA, and the National Geographic Society and is targeted toward fifth- through eighth-grade classes.
(9/18/2007)
San Francisco and Tampa Districts Deploying Hundreds of Whiteboards
San Francisco's Sequoia Union High School District (SUHSD), Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District (FSUSD, Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD), and several other Bay Area districts, along with Tampa, FL's Alachua County Public Schools, have deployed several hundred Smart Technologies Smart Board interactive whiteboards in classrooms.
(9/18/2007)
NACOL Releases Online Education Quality Standards
The North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL) has released National Standards of Quality for Online Courses, a publication detailing quality standards for judging the effectiveness of online education.
(9/17/2007)
Atomic Adds Assessments to Lesson Accelerators
Curriculum developer Atomic Learning this week announced that it's added an assessment rubric to its Lesson Accelerator lesson plans.
(9/13/2007)
Angel LMS Adds Aventa Learning Content
Angel Learning last week launched a new partnership with Aventa Learning that will see Aventa's content integrated into Angel's learning management system. Aventa's content is geared toward K-12 institutions.
(9/12/2007)
Curriculum Advantage Debuts Classworks Science for Elementary Schools
Curriculum Advantage has launched Classworks Science, a science curriculum designed specifically for elementary school students. The company said it's also in the process of developing science curricula for middle and high school students.
(9/12/2007)
College Board Approves Online AP Courses
Aventa Learning, a provider of online educational courses for K-12 schools, has received approval for 22 of its advance placement online courses from The College Board, the organization that administers the AP program.
(9/12/2007)
AccessMyLibrary Offers 30 Million Free Articles
AccessMyLibrary is now providing students and educators returning to school with free Web access to almost 30 million online articles from a collection of more than 4,000 publications.
(9/11/2007)
2 Districts Sign On for Discovery Education Streaming
San Francisco Unified School District and the School District of Philadelphia have signed on with Discovery Education "streaming" (formerly known as unitedstreaming), a service that provides digital video-based learning resources for schools. It's currently used by more than half the schools in the United States, according to Discovery.
(9/11/2007)
Wolfram Delivers Math Demos for RM Curricula
Wolfram Research has partnered with RM Educational Software to deliver interactive visualizations for math curricula, including algebra, trigonometry, and calculus, using applications created in Mathematica. RM Educational Software ia a producer of technology-based curricula. Wolfram is a developer of science and technology software.
(9/10/2007)
ePals Delivers Free E-Mail, Blogging for Schools
Education technology provider ePals is making its formerly subscription-based services available to schools free of charge. These services, available to all schools around the world, include SchoolMail, SchoolBlog, and In2Books.
(9/10/2007)
Online Students Receive Complimentary Tutoring from Tutor.com
The students at Keystone National High School, an online high school hosted by KC Distance Learning, will be receiving 75 minutes of free online tutoring from Tutor.com, an online tutoring company, for the 2007-2008 academic year. Tutor.com allows students to log in for "on demand" tutoring between the hours of 2 p.m. and 1 p.m. Eastern.
(9/6/2007)
PBS To Roll Out PreK Literacy Tools This Fall
PBS Kids is launching two new literacy programs for preschool beginning in early September--Super WHY! and WordWorld--as part of its Ready To Learn initiative for kids aged 2 to 8. The goal of the initiative, aimed especially toward students from low-income families, is to provide the tools young learners will need to acquire reading skills.
(8/31/2007)
Lego Robotics System Updated for Intel Macs, Vista
The Lego Group and education technology developer National Instruments have released an update to the Lego Mindstorms NXT robotics invention system. The new 1.1 release adds support for Intel-based Mac systems and Windows Vista.
(8/30/2007)
LeapFrog School Unveils Story Explorers
LeapFrog SchoolHouse, which makes preK-8 learning tools, has released Leapster Story Explorers, an interactive English language program for K-3 students for use with its Leapster handheld units.
(8/30/2007)
WeBWorK Ramps Up Online Homework Tool
Open-source homework system WeBWorK is being ramped up for new multimedia capabilities and enhanced assessment functionality. Developers met earlier this month at an American Institute of Mathematics (AIM) workshop to help fine tune the software and plan for these enhanced capabilities, some of which are presently in the developer release. An interim update (2.4.1) was also released last week, adding various minor improvements and fixes.
(8/29/2007)
LectureShare Takes Open Source Approach to Education
LectureShare has debuted its free online course management system (CMS) at lectureshare.com, which lets instructors upload class announcements, documents, and audio and video files.
(8/28/2007)
Angel Launches CMS Webinars
CMS/LMS developer Angel Learning is launching three new webinars covering course management systems specifically for K-12 educators. The idea of the webinar series is to show how CMSes can be of benefit to K-12 education, including curriculum alignment to state standards; remediation; professional development; and the incorporation of wikis and blogs into education.
(8/28/2007)
Pearson Debuts ELL Professional Development Program
Pearson last week introduced a new professional development program for teachers of English language learners (or "English learners") called "Enhancing Instruction for ELs with The SIOP Model." The program is designed to help instructors teach academic subjects to ELL students while focusing on English language development.
(8/28/2007)
