T.H.E. SmartClassroom :: October 9, 2008

SPOTLIGHT

New Alliance To Research Gaming in Math and Science Education

Video games have always had and probably will always have their detractors. But there's a growing movement in academia and industry recognizing the value of this medium as an educational tool both inside and outside the classroom. This week, eight colleges and universities added their inertia to this movement, joining with Microsoft to launch a new alliance to study the benefits of gaming for math and science instruction and STEM equity.

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Ed Tech News

North Carolina School Takes to the Clouds with Virtual Desktops

Frank Porter Graham Elementary School in North Carolina is piloting a cloud computing initiative to bring virtual desktops to about 600 students and teachers. The initiative is part of the SIMtone Education Thunder Program, whose goal is to bring technology resources to those who couldn't otherwise afford them.

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AVerMedia Rolls Out 1080p Visual Presenter

AVerMedia Technologies has launched a new model in its Digital Presenter line of high-resolution document cameras for classroom presentations. The latest model, the AVerVision SPB370 Platform Visual Presenter, offers a 5 megapixel document/object camera and 1080p HD output coupled with networking capabilities.

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Social Network Aims To Connect Teachers Around the World

The Schools United has recently launched a new online social network designed to provide educators around the world a no-cost platform to communicate and collaborate on all things education.

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Digital Arts Alliance Adds Fordham U

The Digital Arts Alliance, a consortium led by the Pearson Foundation that promotes digital arts in K-12 education, is expanding its membership with the addition of Fordham University. This follows on the heels of three other organizations joining the group back in July-- the National Education Association (NEA) Foundation, the Foundation for Investor Education, and Employers For Education Excellence (E3).

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K-12 Online School Adopts Angel LMS

Internet Academy, an online K-12 public school (the first in Washington), has adopted the Angel Learning Management Suite to replace its previous system, which had been developed internally. The school cited the need for enhanced collaborative capabilities, standards alignment, student progress tracking, and automated communications as major reasons for the switch.

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LanSchool 7.2 Adds Testing Features, Beefs Up Thin Client Support

LanSchool Technologies has released LanSchool 7.2, an upgrade to the company's K-12 classroom management system. The new version adds new features for interactive with student computers and also enhances support for thin client technologies.

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Events Calendar

Find more events and calls for papers and presentations 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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EduHound.com

  • EduHound Directory is a highly specialized K-12 educational directory with categorized resource links.
  • EduHound Lesson Plans feature thousands of free lessons that meet state and national standards.
  • EduHound Site Sets are collections of topic-based online education resources.
  • Classroom Tools & Tips: Eduhound's highly popular newsletter that provides valuable ed tech resources to incorporate into K-12 curriculum. Educational topics, preformatted templates, technology tutorials, and practical tips are featured. Published on the 1st & 3rd Thursdays of each month. Sign up for free by clicking here.

Awesome Clipart for Educators
Awesome Clipart for Educators offers educators FREE clipart, backgrounds, fonts, icons, worksheets, wallpaper and more. See how easy searching for clipart can be!

EducatorTemplates.com
Your FREE directory of customizable & printable education related templates.

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Featured

  • futuristic AI interface with glowing data streams and abstract neural network patterns

    OpenAI Launches Its Largest AI Model Yet

    OpenAI has introduced GPT-4.5, its largest AI model to date, code-named Orion. The model, trained with more computing power and data than any previous OpenAI release, is available as a research preview to select users.

  • Slooh Earth Science Quests

    New Slooh Earth Science Curriculum Features Live Orbital Satellite Feeds

    Robotic telescope platform and astronomy education provider Slooh has launched a new NGSS-aligned Earth Science curriculum for grades 5-9 designed for Earth science and career and technical education IT courses.

  • A geometric pattern of open Chromebook computers with bold outlines, subtle shading, and soft gradients, spaced evenly with vibrant green and blue accents on a neutral background.

    Challenges and Opportunities Ahead for the 'Great Chromebook Refresh'

    During the pandemic, the education community scrambled to provide students with laptops to promote online learning equity and mitigate learning loss. Today, those devices are approaching the end of their useful lives — and a "great Chromebook refresh" has been predicted as schools seek to replace them with newer models.  

  • stacks of glowing digital documents with circuit patterns and data streams

    Mistral AI Intros Advanced AI-Powered OCR

    French AI startup Mistral AI has announced Mistral OCR, an advanced optical character recognition (OCR) API designed to convert printed and scanned documents into digital files with "unprecedented accuracy."