T H E Journal (Technological Horizons In Education) articles from February 2007

T H E Journal (Technological Horizons In Education) archives from February 2007

What's ours is theirs: shared histories, interests, and goals make T.H.E.'s new relationship with one of ed tech's premier conferences a perfect match.(Florida Educational Technology Corp.)(Editorial)
February 1, 2007... I AM PLEASED to announce that 1105 Media, T.H.E. Journal's parent company, recently acquired the Florida Educational Technology Corporation, producer of the annual FETC conference. It is fitting that our magazine, the country's oldest education...

Correction.(our SPACE)(Correction notice)
February 1, 2007... Correction: In our November issue, we mistakenly ran a photo of Smart Technologies' Smart Board 680 instead of one of its fiat-panel displays. The price of the Smart Board 680 is $1,400, not $3,299--the price of the flat panel. We regret the...

Rethinking a national curriculum: an outrageous school board decision and a new congressional bill make nationwide standards sound a lot better.(commentary)
February 1, 2007... Maybe we do need a national curriculum. Two unrelated items prompted this thought. The first was an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. It seems a parent in the Seattle-area Federal Way school district complained about a teacher...

Winners of high-tech projectors prepare to wow students: our contest victors lay out their plans for using the technology in the classroom.(Canon REALiS X600 )
February 1, 2007... IN THE NOVEMBER edition of In Brief, T.H.E. Journal announced it would award Canon (www.canonprojectors.com) REALiS X600 multimedia projectors to three schools with "compelling study challenges" that were intent on "innovative use of the...

Google Freebies to benefit K-12 educators.(in brief: Technology + Online + Industry + Partnerships)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... SOME TECH COMPANIES give away pens or squishy toys emblazoned with a logo. Not Google (www.google.com). The producer of the internet's most popular search engine is giving away free online software-and not demos or games, but useful...

Yellow pages addition a sign of the times.(AT&T Yellow Pages )(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... AT&T Yellow Pages (www.att.com) has announced that the rise of virtual education in 2006 has necessitated the addition of a new heading to its print directories--"Online Schools." The change is a good indicator of a marked trend, since a new...

Teachers spend personal funds.(on education supplies and materials)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Quality Education Data (www.qeddata. corn), a division of educational publisher Scholastic (www.scholastic.com), has released a study that says K-12 teachers spend, on average, personal funds amounting to $475 per year on classroom supplies and...

Lockdown Alert texts parents in case of emergency.(Industry News)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Lockdown Alert (www.lockdownalert.com) supports more than 94,000 public schools with its free, cell phone-based emergency notification system. The system sends a text message to parents when an emergency occurs at school. There is no charge to...

HP and Tandberg Forge Alliance.(Hewlett-Packard Co., Tandberg Data ASA)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... PC giant Hewlett-Packard (www.hp.com) and Tandberg (www.tandberg.net), a leader in visual communication systems, are joining forces to make their respective telepresence and videoconferencing portfolios interoperable. Plans are in place to...

Ed tech ventures become partners.(Spectrum K12 School Solutions partnered with Edustructures to provide enhancements to instructional, administrative and communications technologies in schools)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Spectrum K12 School Solutions (www.spectrumk12.com), maker of software for special education, and Edustructures (www.edustructures.com), a schools interoperability framework (SIF) solutions provider, have entered into a partnership to provide...

School/vendor partners to launch satellite.(Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Orbital Sciences Corp.)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... The Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, VA, will team up with satellite maker Orbital Sciences Corporation (www.orbital. com) to launch the first-ever student-built satellite. The program is designed to...

Baltimore schools receive WhisperPhones.(from Harebrain and Progressus Therapy)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Harebrain (www. whisperphone.com), in partnership with Progressus Therapy (www.progressus therapy.com), a provider of school-based pediatric therapy, will donate 1,500 of its WhisperPhones to the Baltimore City Public School System....

Siboney learning group announces promotion.(Siboney Learning Group appointed Jan West )(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... A 14-year veteran of the educational software industry, Jan West has accepted the position of sales director for Siboney Learning Group's (www.siboney learninggroup.com) Educational Activities Software line. She will be responsible for all of...

Smart makes c-level changes.(SMART Technologies Inc. (Austin, Texas) promoted Tom Hodson, David Martin and Nancy Knowlton)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Smart Technologies (www.smarttech. com), maker of the Smart Board interactive whiteboard, has announced a new president and COO in accordance with the company's decision to separate the roles of president and CEO. Tom Hodson, the former...

Horizon Wimba launches Pronto.(Horizon Wimba introduced Pronto)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Horizon Wimba (www. horizonwimba.com), developer of web-based collaboration software, has released Pronto, a free instant messaging and voice chat tool aimed at educators and students. Pronto works with course management systems, such as...

Website delivers newsflashes.(TeacherWeb.com )(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... TeacherWeb.com has introduced a "NewsFlash" page so teachers and school administrators can broadcast late-breaking news, such as the announcement of a snow day, to parents and students. Just a click of a mouse can send a message instantly to...

Bestquest releases new math courseware.(BestQuest Teaching Systems)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Manufacturer of the popular Algebra'scool, BestQuest Teaching Systems (www.bestquest.com), creator of DVD-based learning courseware, has released a prequel dubbed Math'scool. Math'scool provides prealgebra instruction through graphics,...

Going the distance: offering benefits of convenience, independence, and even improved academic performance, virtual schools promise to be here for the long haul.(eLearning)
February 1, 2007... MICAH WILLIAMS HAD A PROBLEM. His attendance at Lutheran High School in Orange County, CA, was down, and, a young actor, he had missed his middle school graduation in order to fly to Vancouver, British Columbia, to appear in a movie. It...

The head of NACOL says that online learning can help patch the holes left by traditional education.(North American Council for Online Learning, Susan Patrick)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Susan Patrick probably knows more about the many online schools around the country than anyone else. She's the president and CEO of the North American Council for Online Learning (www.nacol.org). Three years old, NACOL was launched as an...

A measure of success: the first rounds of data are in, and districts are evaluating the impact of their 1-to-1 programs. With the results showing a revolution in teaching and learning, the task now is to find ways to keep the funding alive.(1-to-1 computing)
February 1, 2007... WHEN TEXAS' TECHNOLOGY IMMERSION PROJECT (TIP) began in the spring of 2004, a grant from the US Department of Education allowed a parallel project to launch--eTxTIP--to evaluate and measure the success of the program, which equips middle school...

Locked down not out: a swarm of portable technologies is creating security headaches for school districts, as they must wrestle, with opposing needs: how to protect the network from unauthorized use while still keeping it accessible to staff and students.(data security)
February 1, 2007... IT IS AN IRONY lost on few district CIOs and tech directors that new technologies designed to make it easier for students and teachers to access computing resources have made the job of securing those resources a lot harder. There was a time...

Solving the math/science riddle: the way out of our most serious educational challenge may lie in a host of new digital curriculum supplements.(hardware & software)
February 1, 2007... WHEN PLUTO LOST its planetary status recently, science teachers found themselves in a bit of a bind. Their textbooks were suddenly out of date, leaving them scrambling to explain a changing solar system without a sufficient reference. Of...

Classroom collaborators: wireless connectivity is providing a level of flexibility for students and teachers, changing the learning environment in ways that in some cases has to be seen to be believed.(mobile technology)
February 1, 2007... JOHN CHAMBERS, CEO of San Jose, CA-based computer networking giant Cisco Systems (www.cisco.com), paced the main stage in San Francisco's Moscone Conference Center, admonishing the members of his audience like a Southern preacher, warning them...

Elmo is shipping the P100, a new high-end document camera.(product FOCUS: The latest releases, services, and new products version)
February 1, 2007... ELMO IS SHIPPING the P100, a new high-end document camera. It offers SXGA (1280 x 1024) native resolution and supports HDTV output with progressive scan (720p). It's designed to display live images of documents placed on the unit's flatbed. (A...

Videocraft Workshop.(product FOCUS: The latest releases, services, and new products version)
February 1, 2007... VIDEOCRAFT WORKSHOP'S Start Editing Now! Classroom Workshop Edition can teach students to edit video--right in class. Designed to be used in conjunction with common video-editing systems, it consists of a three-DVD set and instructional...

A new projector is in production now at BenQ.(product FOCUS: The latest releases, services, and new products version)
February 1, 2007... A NEW PROJECTOR is in production now at BenQ. The W9000, a high-definition digital projector, includes technology that allows it to mimic the responses of the human iris, making automatic adjustments to the picture according to the scene being...

Mitsubishi is rolling out three new projectors.(Mitsubishi Consumer Electronics America Inc.)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... MITSUBISHI IS ROLLING OUT three new projectors. On the high end side, the company is introducing the XL650U, which uses Mitsubishi's new inorganic LCD panels, designed to last longer than previous-generation LCD panels and offering more...

Adobe has released the beta version of Photoshop CS3, an update to the company's flagship image-editing and compositing tool.(product: FOCUS: The latest releases, services, and new products version)
February 1, 2007... ADOBE HAS RELEASED the beta version of Photoshop CS3, an update to the company's flagship image-editing and compositing tool. The new version offers Universal Binary support, allowing it to run natively on Intel-based Mac hard ware. It also...

Leightronix has introduced new technology for schools that have their own TV stations or internal communications systems.(product: FOCUS: The latest releases, services, and new products version)
February 1, 2007... LEIGHTRONIX HAS INTRODUCED new technology for schools that have their own TV stations or internal communications systems. The TCD/V3 is a station automation and video server controller. It allows for unattended operation and management of local...

Event: calendar.
February 1, 2007... March 2007 MAR 1-3 Computer-Using Educators 2007 CUE Conference Sharing the Summit Palm Springs, CA www. cue. org MAR 5-6 Pittsburgh Blackboard Users Group Fourth Annual Teaching and Learning Conference...

Extracurricular: for technologists who do their homework.(spending on educational software)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Tech directors are forecasting substantial increases in software spending over the next five years, including a more than 70 percent jump in spending on core curriculum software. Q: What is the per-student dollar amount allocated for...