THE Journal — Hardware
Kansas School District Rolls Out 1:1 MacBook Program
In one of the poorer districts in the Kansas City, KS metropolitan area--where more than 75 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches--administrators and school board members have launched a project to ensure that their students have all the technological advantages that wealthier students have in their education. The district serving that area, Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools (KCKPS), is giving every high school student and teacher a laptop for use in the classroom and at home--and not just any laptop, but the latest generation of Intel-based MacBook laptops from Apple, which were distributed to students Nov. 6 and 7 district-wide, about 5,400 systems total.
(11/8/2007)
Advanced Media Design Rolls Out WXGA Classroom Recorders
AV technology developer Advanced Media Design has started shipping a new model in its MediaPointe family of digital media recorders, the DMR210e, designed for capturing presentations and classroom lectures. The new model sports a DVD drive and updated design and supports up to 1,500 hours of recording time.
(11/6/2007)
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)
Fremont Bolsters Web Security with Blue Coat Appliance
As part of its 2007-2008 technology goals, Fremont School District in California had deployed appliances from Blue Coat Systems to improve Web security and reduce bandwidth consumption. The district is also using the Blue Coat ProxySG appliances to provide Web security and policy control across its Internet gateway.
(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)
Wireless Gen Brings DIBELS to Harcourt Reading
Harcourt School Publishers and Wireless Generation have formed a partnership to bring assessment to Harcourt's StoryTown and Trophies curricula. Through the partnership, the two will develop mCLASS:DIBELS StoryTown Edition and mCLASS:DIBELS Trophies Edition, which will use Wireless Generation's mCLASS:DIBELS assessment and reporting/analysis system to deliver formative assessments to the classroom reading instruction tools.
(10/25/2007)
ShareLoader Appliance Automates Remote Backups
Crossroads Systems has started shipping a new appliance designed to automate backups of both on site and remote systems--SurePath ShareLoader. The appliance allows for backups of saved files on user machines (Windows-based) and also allows those users to retrieve lost data themselves, with the aim of reducing "IT overhead."
(10/22/2007)
OLPC Gearing Up for 'Get 1, Give 1' Program
For two weeks in November, the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) foundation will let citizens of the United States and Canada buy two of its XO laptops for $399 so that they can keep one and donate the other to a child in a developing nation.
(9/25/2007)
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)
Wacom Intros 'Bamboo' Tablets
Wacom has debuted two new tablets in a new line of entry-level models called "Bamboo." The Bamboo tablets replace Wacom's previous Graphire line of entry-level tablets and lower the cost of entry to a street price of around $60.
(9/13/2007)
Sanyo Intros 1080p LCD Projector
Sanyo this week debuted the new PLV-Z2000, a 1080p HD LCD projector with high-end features priced around $3,000. These high-end features include a 15,000:1 contrast ratio and the ability to reproduce 216 billion color combinations through an adaptive color phase and color level management system.
(9/6/2007)
Toshiba Debuts Sub-$1,000 WXGA Projector
Toshiba has rolled out a new widescreen projector, a sub-$1,000 LCD model with a native WXGA (1,280 x 800) resolution, a brightness of 2,200 ANSI lumens and a contrast ratio of 600:1. The portable (6.2-pound), three-panel TLP-WX2200U LCD projector is targeted toward educators and presentation professionals.
(9/5/2007)
Monitor & Control: Kentucky Teacher Keeps Students Focused with Classroom Suite
Keeping track of a classroom full of students, each in front of a computer, is a teaching challenge. Jorge Romero knows that from experience, as school technology coordinator and an information technology teacher for grades 9 through 12 at Franklin County Career and Technical Center in Frankfort, KY.
(9/4/2007)
Tyler ISD Puts DVRs on School Buses
Tyler Independent School District in Texas is putting digital video recorders on its school buses. No, the DVRs aren't there to let students catch up on the shows they missed while in class. Instead, they're part of a security system for the district that includes cameras and encrypted wireless connections for remote download.
(9/4/2007)
Round Rock ISD Expands NAC Deployment
Round Rock Independent School District in Texas is expanding its deployment of network access control devices. The 39-campus, 110-square-mile district has added 10 new NAC appliances from Mirage Networks, as well as a Mirage Management Server, to its network, integrating with the existing Cisco architecture.
(8/30/2007)
AVerMedia Kicks Off Video Contest
AVerMedia Technologies, a provider of multimedia and presentation tools, is launching a new contest for students, instructors, and administrators, calling on them to produce videos describing compelling classroom experiences made possible through the use of document cameras. The contest, dubbed the AVerVision Video Contest, is open to all North American K-12 schools, colleges, and universities.
(8/28/2007)
Palm Beach County Deploys WAN Optimizer
The School District of Palm Beach County in Florida has deployed a WAN optimization technology called ProxySG from Blue Coat Systems. The device is an appliance designed to accelerate file transfers, educational content, and applications across the WAN. It was implemented at 160 sites, which Blue Coat reported was the largest WAN optimization deployment in history.
(8/20/2007)
Apple Upgrades iMac Line
Apple CEO Steve Jobs today introduced the company's new lineup of all in one iMac systems, replacing the previous lineup. The new models come in two form factors: one with a 20-inch screen, one with a 24-inch screen. Both now sport aluminum enclosures like the Mac Pro and MacBook Pro systems. The new systems are based around Intel's latest Core 2 Duo processors running at clock speeds up to 2.8 GHz.
(8/7/2007)
HP Awards $1.2 Million to K-12 Schools
HP has announced the recipients of its 2007 Technology for Teaching Leadership awards. Fifteen K-12 schools received awards totaling $1.2 million in equipment and professional development.
(8/1/2007)
Public School District Delivering Video On Demand
To provide a digital video collection accessible by all its 68 schools, Loudoun County Public Schools (Ashburn, VA) has purchased Wynnewood, PA-based Library Video Company's Safari Montage WAN Manager, a video on demand (VOD) digital media management system.
(7/30/2007)
Education Market, Notebooks Help Propel Apple to Record Quarter
Apple yesterday held its third-quarter conference call to discuss financial results with investors. During the call, the company for the first time revealed initial sales for its newly introduced iPhone. It also announced record results for the education market and the Mac as a whole, along with positive growth for iPods.
(7/26/2007)
OLPC XO Laptops Authorized for Mass Production
The One Laptop per Child organization (OLPC) this week authorized the mass production of its centerpiece XO laptop. The final model is based on the XO B4 (Beta-4) design. According to OLPC, the authorization begins a production process that will see the final laptops roll off assembly lines in October.
(7/24/2007)
Renaissance Adds Wireless to Latest NEO 'Sub-laptop'
Renaissance Learning (Wisconsin Rapids, WI) has released the AlphaSmart NEO 2 sub-laptop for the education environment.
(7/2/2007)
Interwrite Updates Bluetooth Classroom Pad
Interwrite Learning has announced an update to its Interwrite Pad, a wireless (Bluetooth) interactive pad designed for classroom use.
(6/26/2007)
