Issue link: http://osercommunicationsgroup.uberflip.com/i/1203678
Thursday, February 6, 2020 8 EdTech Show Daily BrightThinker: Educating Modern Learners BrightThinker is a nonprofit organization that is based out of Lewisville, Texas, that focuses on the development and implementation of both online and paper- based curriculum to support even the most challenging students in grades 3– 12. BrightThinker accelerates students' learning with dynamic media-rich, mas- tery-based curriculum, that is a complete set of courses in core and elective courses that adhere to both state and national standards. Through the implementation of the BrightThinker curriculum, schools have been able to measure comparable success from those students who are in advanced placement courses as they have seen with students who are in credit recovery or use the curriculum in supplemental applica- tions. Today, 24 out of the top 50 alterna- tive accountability charter schools in the state of Texas, including independent school districts, have successfully imple- mented the BrightThinker's core curricu- lum. This success has made BrightThinker a proven leader in promot- ing student success in academics. In 2015, the curriculum was devel- oped to meet the rapidly changing needs of students and schools. The systems and pedagogy of BrightThinker's highly suc- cessful precision mastery-based model informs teachers of student progress and creates a perfect environment for person- alized learning. Both the paper and digi- tal curriculum were created to support students of all academic levels and learn- ing abilities. The curriculum is based on four teaching methods that include con- nectional, elevational, directional and positional. With BrightThinker's curriculum and data, teachers will have the tools necessary to meet the needs of each student based on where they are in the learning process. BrightThinker is at the fore- front of the new educational model of "Blended Education." As students' academic needs have changed over time, BrightThinker has provided a solution to accommodate the changes, and support teaching staff with results-driven content and data. In addi- tion to removing the need for direct teacher to student instruction, the online classroom model better prepares students for academic success at the advanced level in the continuously growing online college environment. Teachers – both novice and experienced – are able to feel confident jumping right into using the systematic online platform that provides teacher autonomy and promotes ease of use. In order to promote student success, BrightThinker provides students a rigorous aca- demic experience, with the intent of preparing them for the successes that are measured by standardized assess- ments and collegiate preparedness. The development team has developed educa- tional products that adhere to state and national standards in both architecture and curriculum content. Students will experience a variety of instructional con- tent that is academically challenging yet visually engaging to stimulate the educa- tional mind and encourage academic dis- covery. For more information, go to www.bright thinker.com or stop by booth #2352. Smart Parents Stay Ahead of the Weather By Kari Strenfel, AcuRite Meteorologist As a meteorologist and an active mom with two young kids, I need to stay informed of the outdoor weather condi- tions to maintain our active lifestyle. Whether we are biking to the park, head- ed out on a family hike, or keeping it sim- ple by playing in the backyard, I need to stay updated on the outdoor conditions year-round. Living in the San Francisco Bay Area, we can get outside mostly every weekend. In the summer, I need to keep an eye on those high temperatures: a family hike is fun at 8 a.m. when it's still 60 degrees Fahrenheit outside, but not so fun when it reaches 80 degrees Fahrenheit by 10 a.m. Even in the winter when it rains, we like to know how much rain we got overnight to decide if it's a good day for puddle jumping! I rely on the AcuRite Atlas™ weath- er station that I mounted on my roof to stay updated on the changing weather conditions. With the weather station reporting to the AcuRite Access™, which is plugged into the router, all the weather data is reported to My AcuRite. This allows me to check the weather conditions from anywhere from the My AcuRite app on my smart- phone. I also have enabled alerts in My AcuRite to notify me of any potentially dangerous conditions, such as outdoor temperature above 95 degrees or lightning detected within 25 miles. For those of us with smart speakers, My AcuRite is compatible with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, making it even easier to access our weather conditions. I often find myself asking – "Hey Alexa, ask my AcuRite for the outdoor temperature." The AcuRite Atlas and My AcuRite will help you keep your family active and safe all-year-round. Create your custom weather station and home monitoring system at www.acurite.com/personal-weather- stations.html. For more information, go to www .acurite.com. ASHA's Concern About Tech Use Shared by World Health Organization The American Speech-Language Association (ASHA) has long raised con- cern about the threat to hearing from lis- tening to personal audio devices too loudly, too often and for too long. That concern was validated anew last February when the World Health Organization (WHO), in conjunction with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), introduced first ever global safe listening recommendations for man- ufacturers of personal audio devices. Collectively, the recommendations are referred to as the WHO-ITU Global Standard for Safe Listening Devices and Systems. According to WHO, nearly 50 per- cent of people age 12–35 years old – or 1.1 billion young people – are at risk of hearing loss from prolonged and exces- sive exposure to loud sounds, including music heard through personal audio devices. Since 2006, ASHA has been a leader warning the public about the risk, so much so that WHO invited ASHA to join a diverse group of outside experts to consult with them on its Make Listening Safe campaign, the effort that produced the new global safe listening recommendations. The recommendations ask manufac- turers to equip devices like smartphones and other personal audio devices with information that explains safe listening and includes usage warnings, tracking information and options for limiting vol- ume levels. The recommenda- tions would also have safe listening informa- tion appear in advertis- ing and on external product packaging and manufacturers' websites. These WHO recommendations rep- resent a global attempt to mitigate the risk of unsafe popular tech use. You can be part of it by joining ASHA's Healthy Communication & Popular Technology Initiative at www .communicationandtech.org. For more information, go to www.asha.org. VideoAmp Partners with TiVo To further advance its practice of com- mingling TV viewership data from Smart TVs (ACR) with the same from cable and satellite set-top boxes, VideoAmp is part- nering with TiVo. The expanded data set extends VideoAmp's TV Viewership data pool to cover 25 million devices in 19 million U.S. households and gives mar- keters and media owners sophisticated cross-screen media planning, measure- ment and optimization capabilities, bol- stered by device-level viewership data and audience insights from participating multichannel video programming distrib- utors (MVPDs), TV and DVR manufac- turers. VideoAmp uses commingled TV viewership data to map households to privacy-protected digital identity and advertising exposure data to model a nationwide, cross-screen audience that brings transparency, liquidity and accountability to the media and market- ing ecosystem. For marketers, this makes it easy to effectively target, engage and measure audiences. For media owners, this makes it easy to analyze and assess audiences, to optimize yield across screens holistically. "This new relationship with TiVo will allow our data to cover a huge num- ber of households and devices, giving marketers and media owners the opportu- nity to leverage this crucial insight as they come under increased pressure to show value for marketing dollars," says Randy Laughlin, Senior Vice President of Business Development at VideoAmp. "We are excited to be working with VideoAmp to pioneer the future of television and cross-screen video advertising," said Walt Horstman, SVP/GM Data and Advertising, TiVo. "We believe our nationally-representative, highly-accu- rate viewership data enables unified planning, activation and measurement for all. Together, we hope to dramatically improve the advertising experience across screens." "CIMM has long supported integra- tion of Set-top Box data with Smart TV data to enable a more holistic view of the television audience universe and mitigate the limitations inherent in both data sets by combining the two," says Jane Clarke, Chief Executive Officer and MD of The Coalition For Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM). "We welcome the efforts by VideoAmp to advance such integra- tion and help bring media buyers and sell- ers a step closer to the larger and more complete data samples needed for true cross-platform measurement." VideoAmp's sophisticated data mod- elling empowers ecosystem parties to bridge the silos between TV, OTT and digital video. The resulting unified VideoAmp household currency makes it easier to value, buy and sell cross-screen audiences. For more information, go to www.videoamp.com, call 424.272.7774 or email hello@videoamp.com for gener- al inquiries or videoamp@propeller group.com for media and press inquiries.