Discovery Education Tapped to Create Lesson Plans Featuring Google Earth

Discovery Education is working with Google to offer a series of lesson plans for teachers that connect the power of Google Earth and Discovery Education’s flagship service, unitedstreaming. The jointly created materials launch in conjunction with Google’s new “Google for Educators” Web site that was introduced last week. Educators can now help their students gain a deeper understanding of the world by blending the proven effectiveness of unitedstreaming’s broadband videos with Google Earth’s cutting-edge geography content. To do this, Discovery Education and Google Earth have created detailed lesson plans for elementary, middle school, and high school students that focuses on a range of topics covering social studies, language arts, math, and geography. Special tutorials have also been created to provide advice on integrating Google Earth with digital instructional services such as unitedstreaming, and teachers from the Discovery Educator Network will conduct teacher training sessions on how to bring these resources to life in the classroom…

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Rhode Island Science and Technology Council Launches Research Alliance

The Rhode Island Science and Technology Council (STAC) has announced the creation of the Rhode Island Research Alliance, a statewide platform for supporting research across the state’s academic and commercial research institutions. The alliance’s first move will be the allocation of $1.5 million in new research funding. Funds will be distributed through an independent, competitive award process to advance research that promotes interorganizational and/or interdisciplinary collaboration, as well as creates new federal and corporate funding opportunities. The research alliance will also support research funded through a $6.75 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant awarded to Rhode Island through NSF’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research initiative (EPSCoR)…

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Florida District Selects Scantron’s Achievement Series for Benchmark Assessment Program

Volusia County Schools (VCS), a 65,000 student preK-12 school district located in central Florida, has selected Scantron’s Achievement Series as the platform for an innovative testing program to identify student strengths and needs, as well as improve teaching and learning districtwide. Achievement Series is a Web-based formative testing solution that gives educators the ability to score and analyze benchmark tests in real time, diagnose student needs, and make informed instructional decisions to improve student achievement. Along with Scantron’s Performance Series, a computer-adaptive diagnostic test that allows educators to quickly pinpoint students’ proficiency levels, the combined solution helps educators meet No Child Left Behind requirements and raise the level of student achievement. Volusia County Schools will roll out Achievement Series this year in all 82 of its schools upon completion of teacher training...

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