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

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

Long odds, short fuses.(prevention of school violence)(Brief article)(Column)
June 1, 2007... Following the April killing spree at Virginia Tech University, security has again moved to the top of policy agendas at many schools. Couple this frightening reminder of our vulnerability with wall-to-wall media coverage, and we wind up with...

Webinars.(what's ONLINE)
June 1, 2007... www.thejournal.com/the/learningcenters/webinars Case Study: Lake Washington SD Discovers the Benefits of Next-Generatlon Wireless Networks Archived Tune in to this one-hour talk with Lake Washington School District's (WA) new...

School it departments evaluate Vista.(Microsoft Windows Vista)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... At educational institutions across the United States, IT decision-makers are showing increasing concern about the performance and the patching and hardware requirements of Microsoft Windows Vista. At the same time, the number of organizations...

Report: states fill in for feds in ed tech.(HOT TOPICS)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... Federal funding for technology in K-12 schools has declined drastically since 2002, but states are stepping in to cover the deficit, providing districts with line items in state budgets and offering alternatives for schools and districts to...

A second life for middle school science.(HOT TOPICS)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... Second Life, the virtual online world that is catching the attention of colleges for its educational possibilities, would probably appeal to 12-year-old students, but Second Life bars anyone younger than 13 from the site....

Securing the learning environment against anonymous proxies.(HOT TOPICS)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... Ask most administrators what the biggest threat to online learning is today, and you'll likely be deafened by the resounding reply of "Anonymous proxies!" Gone are the days when bandwidth, safety, and budget were an administrator's primary...

Kennedy Middle school stimulates learning with multimedia, computing power.(CASE STUDY)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... Middle school students in Germantown, WI, who are eager to get their hands on the latest education technology tools have a fervent ally in their principal, Steve Bold. Since arriving at the school 11 years ago, Bold has been a passionate...

Don't call my kid smart: call her hardworking. An educator argues that chalking up achievement to natural ability sends the wrong message.(our SPACE)
June 1, 2007... NOTHING STRIKES QUITE LIKE the truth, and James Stigler delivered it to me right on the chin with an excerpt I came upon from his book The Learning Gap (Simon & Schuster, 1992). In the book, Stigler, a UCLA professor of psychology, sets out to...

A winner on all fronts: this year's Charp Award goes to a district whose innovative technological efforts touch every aspect of its operation.(International Society for Technology in Education awarding Calcasieu Parish School)(Editorial)
June 1, 2007... AT THE NATIONAL Educational Computing Conference in Atlanta later this month, the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE; www.iste.org) and T.H.E. Journal will present the 2007 Sylvia Charp Award for District Innovation in...

Keynotes: wisdom from this month's pages.
June 1, 2007... "I was a real naysayer at first. It was the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of." --Kate Clark, middle school principal, on her initial, short-lived opinion of audio amplification systems "In my view, [it] is the single most...

Pass fail: what made the grade this issue, and what got left back.
June 1, 2007... SOUND ENHANCEMENT SYSTEMS Audio technology that amplifiers and clarifies the speaker's voice, neutralizing competing noise. Emancipated teachers burn packs of lozenges in effigy. CLASSROOM ACOUSTICS Talking to you kids is like...

Contest winners 'amazed' by new classroom projectors: their shared experiences demonstrate the many uses and benefits of the cutting-edge tool.(Technology + Online + Industry + Partnerships)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... IN FEBRUARY'S IN BRIEF, we named the winners of T.H.E. Journal's projector contest, which awarded a Canon (www.canonprojectors.com) REALiS X600 multimedia projector to each of three teachers based on their plans for using the technology....

Charp honoree gets ticket to NECC.(Sylvia Charp Award winner Calcasieu Parish School System attends National Educational Computing Conference)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... THE WINNER of the 2007 Sylvia Charp Award for District Innovation in Technology is Calcasieu Parish School System. A panel of judges selected CPSS, the fifth-largest district in Louisiana with more than 32,000 students, for its comprehensive...

Online language arts course introduced.(e-Learning for Kids )(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... A new online language arts course has been launched by e-Learning for Kids (www.e-learningforkids.org), a nonprofit organization that provides free online educational games for children ages 5 to 12, and Proton-Media (www.protonmedia.com), a...

DeVry offers Master's in Ed Tech.(DeVry University, Master of Science in Educational Technology )(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... DeVry University (www.devry.edu) recently announced its new Master of Science in Educational Technology program. The curriculum is designed for K-12 educators and other instructors to help them understand the best ways to use technology in the...

Kaplan expands with acquisition.(The Sagemont Virtual School )(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... Education service provider Kaplan (www.kaplan.com) has purchased The Sagemont Virtual School (www.sagemont.com), which has been operating as the University of Miami Online High School, and the online course developer Virtual Sage...

Microsoft invests in students.(Industry News)
June 1, 2007... Microsoft (www.microsoft.com) has announced that it will be making over computer labs in 34 individual schools. The winning schools were selected during Microsoft's Ultimate Windows Vista Celebration Sweepstakes and will each receive $25,000 in...

Scantron and ENI partner to provide assessment solutions.(Evans Newton Inc.)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... Scantron (www.scantron.com) has reached an agreement with Evans Newton Inc. (www.evansnewton.com), a developer of state-specific assessments, to develop new solutions for assessment and standards-based instruction. Through the partnership,...

Companies support Smart phone initiative.(North Carolina Department of Public Instruction )(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction has launched Project K-Nect (www.projectknect.org) to provide smart phones and service free of charge to at-risk students to help improve their performance in school. The project will...

WG appoints new senior vp.(Wireless Generation, Cynthia Rogan)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... Wireless Generation (www.wirelessgeneration.com) has named Cynthia Rogan, an education industry executive and strategist, as its senior vice president of marketing. In this newly created position, Rogan will lead brand management and...

Se habla technology: whether in the lab or without, advancements such as laptops, MP3 players, and videoconferencing are helping enrich foreign language instruction.(hardware & software)
June 1, 2007... LAKESIDE SCHOOL, a Seattle-area private school for grades 5 to 12, counts several technological pioneers among its alumni base, including Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, so it would be natural to assume that the campus resides at the cutting...

Are document cameras the next big thing? The versatile projection technology could be the next recipient of that rarest of educational honors: ubiquitous classroom adoption.(smart classroom)
June 1, 2007... IT'S NO EASY THING for a technology to go from introduction to universal adoption. And if trends over the last 200 years are any indicator, the honor is not eagerly doled out, no matter how useful the innovation is. It took nearly 50 years...

Sound solutions: poor classroom acoustics are impairing students' hearing and their ability to learn. The need for audio amplification systems is coming through loud and clear.(audio technology)
June 1, 2007... "The square of the high moose he calls some of the squares of the other two sides." Some students will tell you that's the Pythagorean theorem. No, they're not dumb; no, they don't have attention deficit disorder; and no, their teacher...

Board certified: only with the right training can teachers use interactive whiteboards to bring the learning environment to life.(interactive whiteboards)(Column)
June 1, 2007... Tom Reardon knows his way around an interactive whiteboard. Reardon, a mathematics instructor at Austintown Fitch High School in Ohio, uses the device to record his class lectures and offer sample tests that he posts on his personal website for...

It's the little things: cutting-edge computing accessories improve productivity, enhance security, and refine systems, putting so-called 'peripheral' needs front and center.(peripherals)(Column)
June 1, 2007... IT DEPARTMENTS ARE RULED by a kind of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: The big-tech stuff--the operating systems, the networks, the data centers--gets the priority, food-and-shelter attention, while upgrading the backup power supplies,...

Taking inventory: keeping on top of your IT assets is an imperative. The newest products can ensure license compliance while helping with budgeting, software updating, and bug fixing.(asset management)
June 1, 2007... ALL SCHOOL DISTRICTS, whether small, 700-student Livingston Manor Central School District in New York, or Florida's Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the fourth-largest in the country, have at least one thing in common: the challenge of keeping...

Getting the story straight: recent articles in the nation's two most influential newspapers draw an inaccurate picture of education technology. A three-pronged counteroffensive is in order.(policy & advocacy)(Editorial)
June 1, 2007... I REMEMBER TAKING a Red Cross class a number of years ago, and one thing has stuck in my head: to stop the bleeding, apply more pressure. That phrase has come to mind several times over the past few weeks as the popular press has featured...

Samsung.(product FOCUS: The latest releases, services, and new product versions)
June 1, 2007... The latest releases, services, and new product versions SAMSUNG has introduced the SDP-6500DXA, a user-friendly document camera. It features an auto-focus, 36x zoom lens that allows users to display clear enlargements of print or 3-D objects,...

Lexmark.(product FOCUS: The latest releases, services, and new product versions)
June 1, 2007... LEXMARK has released the Lexmark Education Station, a laser multifunction product (MFP) that boasts print, copy, scan, and fax capabilities, all in one device. The unit's Scan to Classroom application allows teachers to store student work on...

Pearson Knowledge Technologies.(product FOCUS: The latest releases, services, and new product versions)
June 1, 2007... PEARSON KNOWLEDGE TECHNOLOGIES has unveiled WriteToLearn 3.0, the latest update to its writing development and reading comprehension tool. The system measures student essay writing using Pearson's Knowledge Analysis Technologies engine, which...

Discovery Education.(product FOCUS: The latest releases, services, and new product versions)
June 1, 2007... DISCOVERY EDUCATION has announced upgrades to PowerMediaPlus.com, the curriculum-oriented media-on-demand system that the company acquired when it purchased educational media publisher Clearvue & SVE in June 2006. Designed for K-12 schools, the...

Epson America.(product FOCUS: The latest releases, services, and new product versions)
June 1, 2007... EPSON AMERICA designed the PowerLite 83c, a compact multimedia projector available now, based on input from its education customers. The new projector delivers 2,200 lumens of brightness, a seven-watt speaker, built-in closed captioning, and...

Siboney Learning Group.(product FOCUS: The latest releases, services, and new product versions)
June 1, 2007... SIBONEY LEARNING GROUP, known for its popular Orchard Software for targeted instruction, has announced PracticePlanet, a web-based program that gives students confidence answering practice questions similar to those on standardized tests. The...

Event calendar.
June 1, 2007... July 2007 JUL 12-13 Missouri Distance Learning Association MoDLA's Annual Membership Meeting and Professional Conference Doing It Right: Best Practices in Distance Learning Osage Beach, MO www.modla.org/conference_2007.html...

Extracurricular: for technologists who do their homework.(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... The expectations of technology directors who have yet to implement 1-to-1 computing programs (top chart) positively reflect the experiences of tech directors who have 1-to-1 plans already established (bottom chart). Q: How much do you...