T.H.E. SmartClassroom :: September 6, 2007

Focus

Graphics Program a Big Draw for Students

At four-year-old San Elijo Middle School (near San Diego, CA), technology teacher Allen Brooks presides over a state of the art 38-station computer lab that includes a dedicated Windows 2003 system with a teaching station for him, roaming profiles that allow any student to work at any computer, a large SMARTboard electronic display board with software and projector, a sound system, and more. The school opened in fall 2004 and serves students in grades 6 through 8 in the rapidly growing inland area of San Marcos....

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Ed Tech News

Toshiba Launches Science and Math Grant

The Toshiba America Foundation this week announced new grant opportunities for K-12 schools in the area of science and math, part of $500,000 in grants the foundation awards to schools each year. The latest program, Science and Math Improvement Grant, will award up to $5,000 per applicant....

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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....

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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....

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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....

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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....

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Web Notes

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....

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THE Journal Opportunities

Share Your Best Practices

T.H.E. Journal is currently looking for the following types of articles for future issues and for our eNewsletter, T.H.E. SmartClassroom:

  • School Perspectives - discuss a specific topic, trend, or concern about education technology.
  • Case Studies - have you implemented technology and learned a lot from the experience? If so, share your efforts about what worked -- and what didn't.

If you have a potential article, or questions about the above topics, please e-mail [email protected]

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