T.H.E. SmartClassroom :: May 24, 2007

Case Study

Virginia School Reinforces Learning with Support Site

High school students at a vocational school in Virginia that prepares students for careers as IT technicians are reinforcing their classroom learning by sharing information, encouragement, and their own quizzes and flash cards at a wiki-style website that offers a wealth of online tutorials and resources, all free. The site, ProProfs, combines some of the factors of a social networking site, with member blogs and chats, with elements of a wiki, in which users create and edit the content themselves....

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Ed Tech News

Missouri To Launch Virtual Schools

Connections Academy, a virtual education company, recently announced that it has been selected by Missouri's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to provide Missouri's Virtual Instruction Program's (MoVIP) first K-5 virtual school, expected to open in 2007. The secondary education (grades 6-12) virtual school will be provided by Northwest Missouri State University. Both virtual campuses are intended to provide tuition-free education for more than 4,000 students in the state....

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Fairfax County Gets Another Clue

Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia has extended its relationship with educational publisher FableVision, choosing the company's Get A Clue reading comprehension program for the fifth year in a row....

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Schools Help Struggling Readers with Soliloquy

Over the last month, two schools and one district have reported improvements in student achievement in reading resulting from a reading program based around speech recognition technology, Soliloquy Reading Assistant from Soliloquy Learning....

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Pearson To Acquire eCollege

Pearson said this week that it plans to acquire eCollege, an online distance education provider. The deal will cost Pearson $477 million net, including the agreed $41 million sale of eCollege's Datamark division to a group of investors. The acquisition is expected to take place next quarter and has not yet been approved by shareholders....

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Interwrite Debuts Workspace, Cricket

Education technology developer Interwrite Learning has debuted two new technologies around its classroom tools: Interwrite Workspace, a software suite for working with digital media, and Interwrite Cricket, a new RF clicker for the company's student response system. Interwrite has also recently announced a partnership with MathMastery to integrate its math tools with the Interwrite Board, Pad, and Panel products....

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Web Notes

Does Technology Matter in Schools? ED Wants Your Opinion

As part of an ongoing effort to assess the role of technology in education, the United States Department of Education (ED) has started seeking comments from those who work closely with it. Last week ED sent out a request for opinions from the public, looking to "hear your ideas on the integration of technology in education." We at THE Journal see this as a fantastic opportunity for educators and administrators to bolster federal support for ed tech and encourage all of our readers to participate....

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Events Calendar

Find more events at THE Journal's online Conference Calendar.

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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