Industry News
NEW SITE FOCUSES ON RICH MEDIA CONTENT
Sonic Foundry Inc. (www.sonicfoundry.com) has launched Mediasite. com, a searchable Web site focused exclusively on offering expert information in full rich media, video, audio, and graphics. Thousands of hours of high-quality content and recorded presentations by experts of all kinds—including national figures such as Michael Dell, Tom Ridge, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and John Kerry— are captured, archived, and made publicly available at this one centralized location. The content is easily accessible through any Web browser, without the need for downloads or plug-ins. The site houses nearly 7,000 presentations on a wide variety of topics, including health issues, sociology, robotics, and ethics. Universities, schools, and government agencies are creating and archiving presentations using Sonic Foundry’s rich-media recording technology, Mediasite.
LEARNINGWARE ADDS REGIONAL CONSULTANTS
Educational software provider LearningWare (www.learningware.com) has appointed eight educational consultants to serve the needs of their respective regional K-12 education markets. While the company has been in business for more than 10 years, its formal entry into the K-12 education space is a fairly new development. By adding these consultants to its team, LearningWare will be able to expand its face-to-face contact with educators around the country. Since 1995, LearningWare has been producing software templates to increase content comprehension and retention. The company’s software, Gameshow Pro— designed for K-12 students—is currently in use in more than 35,000 classrooms.
LEARNING SYSTEM TARGETS PRE-K STUDENTS
Robert-Leslie Publishing (www.robert-leslie.com) has introduced the InvestiGator Club Prekindergarten Learning System (www.investigatorclub.com), a comprehensive system of instruction, teacher support, and materials for the pre-K classroom. It uses a multimedia approach to prepare children for success in school and in life. Children join Dilly Gator and friends on a series of adventures that engage young learners in science, math, technology, language arts, and reading. Children and their parents receive free membership to the InvestiGator Club, which provides access to a members-only area of its Web site. The InvestiGator Club is correlated to all of the National Head Start Association (www.nhsa.org) domains and is developmentally appropriate, as defined by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (www.naeyc.org). The Web site covers literacy, oral language development, physical development, and technology. Vocabulary words are provided in English and Spanish. The program performance and authentic assessment options are included.
This article originally appeared in the 03/01/2006 issue of THE Journal.