T.H.E. News Update :: April 16, 2008

News & Issues

CIOs See Declining Budgets in Q1

Although IT budgets are expected to grow in 2008 overall, about a fourth of CIOs in the United States reported decreases in their budgets in the first quarter of 2008, according to a survey released by Gartner this month and highlighted at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo: Emerging Trends event this week in Las Vegas....

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Toshiba Grants Fund Environmental Science

The Toshiba America Foundation has announced the recipients of several grants under its Science and Math Improvement Grant program. The SMIG launched back in August as part of the foundation's goal of awarding $500,000 to teachers and schools each year....

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Qwest Awards Technology Grants to 4 Schools

The Qwest Foundation this week has awarded grants to teachers in three schools through its Teachers and Technology program. The program is designed to fund technologies geared specifically toward improving student achievement, including interactive classroom technologies, online tools, and gear to support scientific work, in preK-12 schools....

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Autodesk, Innovation First Launch Robotics Curriculum

Robotics developer Innovation First has teamed up with software developer Autodesk to develop a new curriculum for robotics education. The curriculum will be included in the Vex Robotics Classroom Lab Kits and will also be available separately this spring....

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Baton Rouge Schools Test First Responder Video Communication System

The East Baton Rouge Parish School System has implemented a pilot project involving three of its 90 schools in an "intelligent building response" initiative. The city was the site earlier this year of a shooting that claimed three lives on the campus of the Louisiana Technical College. The district effort involves networking the three schools to 911, fire, emergency and police/sheriff substations to give incident commanders and responding units the ability to view a developing security or fire emergency at each school through a mobile, wireless computer system....

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PA District Goes Green with Energy Reduction Program

Aramark Education, a provider of professional services to more than 500 K-12 school districts in the United States, recently helped the Council Rock School District in Newtown, PA, implement a comprehensive energy reduction program that was recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)...

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WebSphere Portal 6.1 To Couple Web 2.0, Enterprise Technologies

IBM revealed Wednesday that it will ship WebSphere Portal 6.1 this quarter (i.e. by the end of June) with new collaboration, administrative, deployment, and Web 2.0 features based on input gathered from some 4,000 beta testers. The company also announced that it's shipping three of its accelerators for WebSphere Portal this quarter....

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FirmTek Intros eSATA Combo Hub

At the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas this week, FirmTek debuted a new combo hub designed to bring eSATA connectivity to laptops. The SeriTek/SpyderHUB includes USB and FireWire host connection options, along with hardware RAID and boot capabilities for Mac OS X systems....

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Coming Up

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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Featured

  • laptop with digital productivity and calendar symbols

    September 2025 Tech Tactics in Education Conference Agenda Announced

    Registration is free for this fully virtual Sept. 25 event, focused on "Overcoming Roadblocks to Innovation" in K-12 and higher education.

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    McGraw Hill Expands CTE Offerings

    Education company McGraw Hill has announced a host of new career and technical education courses, designed to help learners gain professional, technical, and academic skills for workforce success.

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    New National Academy for AI Instruction to Provide Free AI Training for Educators

    In an effort to "transform how artificial intelligence is taught and integrated into classrooms across the United States," the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), in partnership with Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic, and the United Federation of Teachers, is launching the National Academy for AI Instruction, a $23 million initiative that will provide access to free AI training and curriculum for all AFT members, beginning with K-12 educators.

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    Avantis Education Launches New Headsets for ClassVR Solution

    Avantis Education recently introduced two new headsets for its flagship educational VR/AR solution, ClassVR. According to a news release, the Xcelerate and Xplorer headsets expand the company’s offerings into higher education while continuing to meet the evolving needs of K–12 users.