EdTech Show Daily

Chicago PS Expands Carnegie Learning Implementation

The Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has purchased Carnegie Learning’s Cognitive Tutor Bridge to Algebra and Algebra I curricula for eight additional high schools, bringing to 25 the total number of high schools using the company’s research-based math instruction as part of Chicago’s High School Transformation project. CPS also purchased Carnegie Learning’s Geometry and Algebra II curricula for select high schools. These new programs will be in place and 68 teachers will receive Carnegie Learning Professional Development services by the start of the 2008-09 school year.

CPS also purchased Carnegie Learning’s Algebra I curricula for some eighth grade classes in 19 elementary schools across the District.

“Chicago has been an excellent proving ground for Carnegie Learning’s Algebra Readiness solution,” saiys Dennis Ciccone, Chief Executive Officer of Carnegie Learning, Inc. “The district is a model for change and improvement in the education of students in large urban districts, as we are very proud to be expanding our partnership to make a difference in these students’ futures.”

Chicago Public Schools is the nation’s third-largest school system and includes more than 600 schools serving 435,000 students. Chicago’s High School Transformation project, unveiled in September 2006 by CPS Chief Executive Officer Arne Duncan, is supported with $21 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The program is designed to strengthen schools with new, rigorous college preparatory curricula in English, math, and science. Initially, Carnegie Learning’s solutions were selected for eight schools, and over the last two years, CPS has consistently expanded the implementation of Carnegie Learning’s blended textbook and software solutions.

Carnegie Learning’s curricula are based on more than two decades of cognitive science research at Carnegie Mellon University studying how students think, learn, and apply new knowledge in mathematics. The instructional format prescribes three days a week of classroom instruction and two days a week in a teacher-supervised software lab environment. Carnegie Learning’s Cognitive Tutor® software was developed around an artificial intelligence model that identifies weaknesses in each student’s mastery of mathematical concepts, customizes prompts to focus on areas where the student is struggling, and sends the student to new problems addressing those specific concepts. The instructor receives an assessment of each student’s progress on an ongoing basis, allowing students to receive more individualized teaching and learning.

For more information, visit www.carnegielearning.com.

Scholastic Commissions GeoBeats for Innovative Travel Education DVDs

GeoBeats, Inc. has been appointed by Scholastic UK Ltd. to provide licensed travel videos that will be featured in a new Scholastic UK Ltd international language education program. Beginning in 2009, EVERYDAY FRENCH will target primary students, ages 5–11 years, in the United Kingdom.

As government regulations on bilingual education go into effect in the UK, Scholastic will provide classrooms with educational kits that are of interest and relevance to children including supplemental printed and multimedia materials. GeoBeats’ unique video content, created by locals in countries across the world, will serve as film curriculum in many of these kits.

“We’re very pleased to align the GeoBeats brand with one of the world’s leading education and publishing companies and feel it validates the high-quality and authenticity of our videos,” said Ashish Khurana, chief executive officer at GeoBeats. “Because GeoBeats’ videos are filmed and hosted by locals, they provide a perfect introduction to engage students both in foreign language and culture.”

For more information on GeoBeats, visit www.geobeats.com. For teachers interested in pre-ordering Scholastic’s EVERYDAY FRENCH educational kit available in June 2009, visit http://teachershop.scholastic.co.uk/.

Fairbanks, Advanced Academics Launch Online School

Students in the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District will have a new educational option starting in August. Offered in partnership with online learning leader Advanced Academics, Inc., the Fairbanks BEST (Building Educational Success Together) program will offer more than 90 courses free to district students.

“The BEST program is a rigorous, self-paced option for those students who prefer independent study,” says Superintendent Nancy Wagner. “Students who enroll in BEST will benefit from individualized attention, around-the-clock support, and a flexible class schedule.”

Open to district residents in grades 7-12, BEST offers a flexible, high quality option for students looking for an alternative to the traditional school environment, including home-schooled-students, advanced learners, students who are behind on credits, or those needing a flexible schedule. The program is also free of charge for students up to 20 years old who have not received a high school diploma. There is a per-course charge for those older than 20 who would like to earn a high school degree.

The Fairbanks BEST program will offer online classes that comply with all Alaska graduation requirements. Students earn their high school diploma in a personalized program featuring one-on-one access to state-certified teachers, 24/7 student support, and a full high school curriculum including electives and advanced placement courses.

For more information, visit www.advancedacademics.com.

AASA Survey Finds Rising Fuel, Energy Costs Stressing School Budgets

Rising fuel and energy costs are taking a toll on school system budgets nationwide, according to the results of a new survey released today by the American Association of School Administrators. The eight-question AASA Fuel and Energy Snapshot Survey asked school superintendents about the effect of rising fuel and energy costs on their school districts. Ninety-nine percent of respondents reported these rising costs are having an impact on their school systems. Further, they reported that conserving energy, cutting back on student field trips and consolidating bus routes are among the top steps districts are taking to minimize the impact of rising fuel and energy costs. Meanwhile, few states are stepping forward to assist school systems struggling to meet escalating these rising costs.

“School systems are making tough and innovative budget choices to meet rising fuel and energy costs, but they need financial assistance,” says AASA Executive Director Daniel A. Domenech. “Education is an investment. State governments and the federal government must step in on behalf of the nation’s children to fill the gaps created by rising costs and shrinking school budgets, including reduced local property tax receipts.”

Only three percent of superintendents responding to the survey said their districts are moving to a four-day school week, but 15 percent said their districts are considering moving to a four-day school week.

When asked if their states are doing anything to assist their districts with rising fuel and energy prices, 77 percent of respondents said no, 14 percent said they were not aware of state actions and nine percent said yes.

View the full survey results here.

Sprint Foundation Helps Students, Teachers with Character-Education Grants

Sprint announced the recipients for the Sprint Ahead for Education grant program. Sprint Ahead for Education is a brand-new program that supports innovative character-education initiatives through funding of K-12 public schools and school districts. A total of 19 school districts received up to $25,000 in grant funds, and 45 public schools received funding up to $5,000. In total, the Sprint Foundation awarded more than $607,000 in grant funding for this program. School and school districts that were awarded grant funding include:

The Bay-Waveland School District in Bay St. Louis, Miss., received a $10,000 district grant for a comprehensive positive-behavior support program. Nearly every school in the district was destroyed during Hurricane Katrina, and since that time, the district has seen an increase in student behavior problems; the new program will be put in place to combat that. All classroom teachers will receive specialized training and will implement targeted lesson plans that teach and reinforce positive behavior traits and characteristics.

The Boston Public School System in Boston, Mass., was awarded a $25,000 district grant to put in place a “Kid to Kid” mentoring program that will train 80 incoming high-school freshmen to be mentors to elementary-school children from three Boston elementary schools. The goal of this program is to help both the high-school trainers and elementary-school students to excel academically while also learning positive behavior traits.

Desert Hot Springs High School in Desert Hot Springs, Calif., received a $5,000 school grant to launch a peer-counseling and conflict-mediation program that will train 30 students to become peer mediators in an effort to reduce the number of fights and other behavior infractions at the school.
Macopin Middle School in West Milford, N.J., was awarded a $5,000 school grant to provide extensive bullying-prevention training to classroom teachers. Additionally, because bullying is more prevalent during “free time,” the grant will also be used to train cafeteria workers and custodians in an effort to reduce the incidence of bullying that occurs at the middle school.

Menasha High School in Appleton, Wis., received a $5,000 school grant to purchase a Web-based volunteer application that will allow students to go online to find volunteer opportunities and post comments and reflections about their community-service efforts. Teachers will use this new software to review the students’ online posting and track their students’ volunteer hours in an overall effort to create a school culture based on service learning and community involvement.

“Sprint is committed to helping educators develop the right character-education initiatives for their student population,” saiys Debby Ballard, director of Community Relations for Sprint. “The Sprint Ahead for Education program allows teachers and administrators to implement unique and innovative programs that will have a profoundly positive impact on their students.”

For more information, click here.

Attleboro Chooses Cymphonix to Safeguard Student Online Activity

Cymphonix has announced that Attleboro Public Schools in Attleboro, Mass., has integrated three Cymphonix Network Composer™ DC30XS appliance and one Network Composer DC50XS appliance to limit non-critical web browsing, stop anonymous proxies and other filter bypass methods, and prioritize bandwidth so educators have faster access to the tools they need and use the most.

“When I first came on board with Attleboro Schools, they were only using IP Cop,” says Jonathan Plourde, Network Systems Administrator. Plourde gained experience with Network Composer while working as the Network Systems Administrator for Westport School District in Westport, Mass. “We moved from Websence to Cymphonix and within two weeks the results were noticeable. I liked the configurability of the product, the ability to shape my bandwidth, and the fact that I could create customized groupings for teachers, students, and faculty.”

Once Plourde signed on with Attleboro Schools, he knew he needed to make a drastic change to their current network. “Even though I was 90% certain that I would again move forward with the Network Composer, I wanted to do one last competitive analysis. I looked at iPrisim’s Command Center and St. Bernard, as well as many others, but none of them could even come close to offering the same features…let alone in one self-contained box.”

“Cymphonix regularly fills the gaps that traditional web filters leave open – especially in schools,” says Kevin Santiago, CEO at Cymphonix. “We’re happy to be able to provide Attleboro Schools with better visibility, optimization and automation of their Internet security.”

For more information, visit www.cymphonix.com.

Lighthouse's Struggling Readers Make Headway with the Help of Patented 'Brain Rewiring' Technology

The students of Lighthouse Community Charter School have found a new way to harness their brainpower. In March 2008, the school started using the full suite of neuroscience-based Fast ForWord® products from Scientific Learning to enhance the learning capacity of struggling readers. In just 12 weeks of using the software programs, two-thirds of the participating students have shown at least half a year’s gain in reading skills.

“We think it’s really powerful and we’ve seen the proof,” says Melissa Barnes-Dholakia, Lighthouse’s director of instruction. One student success story is of a sixth grader whom Barnes-Dholakia describes as a “superstar” pupil. The young girl began working on the Fast ForWord software through Lighthouse’s before-school reading intervention group to address a specific reading difficulty, slow processing. In just a few short weeks, she made a gain of 1.8 years in her reading skills using the Fast ForWord program. “When I told her how she’d done, she just lit up,” said Barnes-Dholakia, who runs the before-school group. “She glowed in a way I hadn’t seen before.”

The student is just one of the 165 students in Lighthouse’s elementary program who received reading intervention via the Fast ForWord software; 180 in the overall K-12 population worked on the programs during the past semester. The school’s youngest students who struggle with literacy are pulled into reading intervention sessions during the independent reading time of their regular reading workshop class. Sixth graders have a special enrichment block that now includes sessions on the Fast ForWord software for two months.

Drawing on the concept of brain plasticity, the brain’s ability to change as it learns new skills, the patented technology in the Fast ForWord programs strengthens users’ cognitive skills of memory, attention, processing rate and sequencing. The suite’s programs range in focus from building a solid language foundation for literacy to developing advanced reading skills such as comprehension.

“My favorite part of the Scientific Learning technology is that it is based on the belief and research that if child has a learning disability, the brain can be exercised and can overcome the problem,” said Barnes-Dholakia. “The children at Lighthouse are from predominantly low-income families. Their parents are usually told if you don’t have it, you just don’t have it. At Lighthouse we say, ‘We believe in your child and here’s how we are going to help change things.’ Scientific Learning has been instrumental in helping us make some big changes in these students’ lives.”

For more information, visit www.scientificlearning.com.

FLASHbrief Offers System/Campus-Wide, Internet Mass Alert Notification System

FLASHbrief, LLC will launch FLASHbrief for Schools, Version 2.0 at the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO) annual meeting in Phoenix today.

Similar in concept to FLASHbrief for Government, FLASHbrief for Schools is an Internet communication protocol that allows public or private school systems or campus officials to send nearly instant, emergency or advisory alerts to every school system or campus computer, as well as the computer of every student, parent, staff and faculty member with a broadband Internet connection -- at home or at work.

Now, an unlimited number of students, their parents, school staff and faculty can be notified of impending, severe weather; terrorist activity; Amber Alerts; temporary street closures, simultaneously, in just seconds. Utilizing a revolutionary, encrypted, Internet communication protocol that features distinctive audible tones for advisory or emergency alerts, FLASHbrief sends visual alert message windows to the screen of every work or home computer that has downloaded their free access to a given school or campus FLASHbrief Alert Center.

In addition to FLASHbrief for Government and FLASHbrief for Schools, the version, FLASHbrief for Business is due to launch on September 22nd, providing yet another layer of nearly instantaneous, mass alert capability -- this time for America’s business community.

For more information, visit www.flashbrief.com.

Alibris Improves Textbook Sales for Sellers, Savings for Shoppers

Alibris, the premier online marketplace for new and used books, CDs and DVDs, announced today the launch of new Web site features that make it easier to find and save on new and used textbooks, recognizing that the sluggish economy and exorbitant textbook prices are especially hard on students and parents. The launch of the site enhancements resonated with consumers and resulted in a dramatic increase in textbook sales, reported the marketplace for independent book, music, and movie sellers.

Part of a strategic plan to build on record-setting back-to-school sales in January 2008, Alibris’s new features aid textbook buyers in their search for more affordable textbooks at a time when education expenses are at an all-time high and rising gas and food prices are forcing consumers to make the most of every dollar. The average student spends USD 900 on textbooks each year, according to the College Board's “Trends in College Pricing 2007” and “Trends in Student Aid 2007” reports. “When you’re enrolled in a four-year public college and siphoning 17.5 percent of your tuition and fees into textbook costs, you’re eager to stop wasting money,” said Brian Elliott, President and Chief Executive Officer of Alibris. “We were eager to help students do just that.”

For more information, visit www.alibris.com.

Back-to-School Planning With TimeToo Family Tracker

TimeToo® has introduced solutions for families to cope with the hectic annual ritual known as back-to-school. The new line of Family Tracker™ products — including a wall calendar customized for the school year — helps the whole family stay on the same page when it comes to school meetings, sporting events, doctor’s appointments, field trips and more.

A new line of timesaving calendars and schedule accessories specifically designed around family life and use, the Family Tracker™ product set includes: Family Tracker Wall Calendar, an oversized calendar for recording the whole family’s schedule; “my Weekly Dispatch,” a slim, on-the-go schedule booklet, and Family trackerdoo stickies — cleverly pre-formatted post-its for daily and weekly schedule reminders.

The Family Tracker Wall Calendar makes it easy to keep track of the biggest, busiest schedules. Smart features include: visual layouts and color guides that make activities stand out; easy reference people and event trackers, and a flexible format sized to capture, change or make additions to the ever-changing family schedule. Super-sized page dimensions (16 x19") with daily squares ensure a big picture view of everyone’s schedule, the entire week.

“my Weekly Dispatch” is a super slim (1/4”), stylish shuttle that can easily be tucked into any purse, and when needed easily flips open to a weekly view of mom's top family activities, carpool assignments or top to-dos. Working moms can use it to easily view and merge work and family schedules in the you-date-it catch-all. It comes complete with quick connect reference pages including Family 411 and key contacts, medical information, digital IDs, as well as extra room each week for notes, planning, and to dos.

For more information, visit www.timetoo.com.