Issue link: http://osercommunicationsgroup.uberflip.com/i/136999
Monday, June 24, 2013 Ed Tech Show Daily Mackin (Cont'd. from p. 1) Within the past few years, Mackin has also offered digital content, including e-books and online databases, as well as our popular MackinVIA™ digital content management system. Last year, we launched the MackinVIA reader app for iPad, Android tablets, Kindle, Nook, and both PC and Mac computers. This spring, we proudly released a MackinVIA app for the iPhone and Android phones, and we have a few other exciting innovations in the works. At Mackin, we also have a free funding source for schools and libraries called "Funds4Books." Hundreds of schools have signed up for Funds4Books because it is a no-hassle online donation program that allows them to spend 100 percent of the donated dollars. ESD: Mackin is an industry leader in the educational resources field. What sets Epson (Cont'd. from p. 1) In a recent survey of education buyers by the market research firm TFCinfo, 70 percent of respondents erroneously thought color brightness was part of the white brightness specification. That is not the case. A new, recently published standard of Color Light Output, or more simply, color brightness, measures the brightness of each of the primary colors – red, green and blue. This new standard allows projector manufacturers to provide additional information in purchasing decisions. The International Display Metrology Standard (IDMS) was defined by the Society for Information Displays (SID), a globally recognized organization working to help educate the display industry. The new color brightness standard applies to all projectors that accept GoClass (Cont'd. from p. 1) ubiquitous teaching and learning experience allowing students to take that experience with them wherever they go. In addition, the platform is a driving force for community learning uniting teachers, students, parents and administrators in the learning process. GoClass is a great platform for schools that are implementing bringyour-own-device programs. BYOD is a big trend today. BYOD can enable some pretty amazing learning, but it needs digital learning materials, you need to be able to organize them into teaching experiences, you need to be able to connect the students' devices with those experiences. ESD: How is what you're suggesting different from how devices are being used Britannica (Cont'd. from p. 4) can easily search, tag, save and share content, as well as build lessons and lesson plans around these standards. Britannica School promotes differentiated instruction and learning too. Teachers can select the right grade and age level portal, then students can move freely up or down within the same interface to find content at their your company apart from others? RH: First, our personalized customer support and our customization services are renowned and unparalleled. Our employees truly care about helping customers get exactly what they need, from Common Core resources to leveled libraries to new school services. Mackin serves as a partner in education. We listen to our customers and provide products and services that are designed to meet their individual needs. And our phones are always answered by real people. Second, we work with more than 18,000 publishers and have a database of nearly three million titles and a catalog of more than 100,000 digital databases and e-books, making it possible to provide a full spectrum of educational resources and the largest age-appropriate selection in the nation. Third, we offer a long list of complimentary services, including custom library collection development and analysis, custom shelf-ready processing and free shipping. Lastly, we publish our own best-ofthe-best titles in our Compendium, a 200plus page collection of the latest and greatest titles for K-12. Adding to our reach towards the digital age, Compendium is now available through our own app, for all devices. ESD: What is happening at the Mackin booth at ISTE 2013? RH: Mackin Educational Resources can be found at booth 9248 this year. We are excited to let people test drive the MackinVIA digital content management system with its exciting features such as backpack, categories, even text-tospeech. We will also be demonstrating the MackinVIA reader app and how it not only seamlessly integrates into the MackinVIA portal, but also how it an RGB input signal and provides manufacturers a common way to measure color brightness. Most importantly, the new standard helps consumers and technology purchasers make more informed decisions. So what does this mean for the technology purchaser? By purchasing a projector without a color brightness rating, it may mean that the projector's color brightness is only a third of the brightness of the stated specification. Because of this, the purchaser should consider both white and color brightness specifications when selecting a projector. When color brightness is much lower than a projector's white light output, images may appear dull and/or too dark and may lose detail. In today's classrooms, educators are rarely projecting strictly text-based content, so using a projector that offers both high color and white brightness helps ensure that key components of a quality image – such as detail and gradation – are optimized. Whether projecting color-and detail-rich visuals or high-definition content, color and white brightness are important elements of an image's overall quality, especially in a range of educational settings where ambient light cannot be easily controlled. The new color brightness specification allows technology purchasers and decision makers to consider and compare color brightness without conducting a side-by-side shootout. The TFCinfo study also showed that over 90 percent of projector buyers said that knowing a projector's color brightness specification would have a significant impact on purchase decisions, and 81 percent would like to see the specification called out on in some classrooms today? shared whiteboard feature. Or we might have a student present his own work to the class via his device while allowing the other students to use the devices in front of them to take notes. The entire experience that happens in the classroom, along with the student notes and comments, gets organized into a nice package that goes home with each student on his own device. MB: The majority of current digital learning strategies aren't fully evolved. Parts are incorporated but not the whole. Teachers can give students an app and tell them to play with it, but it's disconnected from the rest of the lesson. GoClass allows them to organize lesson plans into a cohesive educational experience. GoClass today is a three-screen solution. It weaves three screens into a narrative that is curated and managed by the teacher. The three screens are the teacher's device, the big projection screen at the front of the class and the little screen that's on the device in front of the student. GoClass infuses lesson plans with formative assessments and interactive teaching. Interactive can mean utilizing a MB: We say that BYOD is inclusion. This approach allows each student to engage with the subject material for the lesson in multiple ways to achieve greater depth and breadth of learning. Also, it allows students to tap a greater variety of educational resources, including many that originate outside the class- specific reading level. Text-to-speech, built-in translation, a read aloud feature and font size changer support students with special needs and English language learners. Britannica School proves that information search and retrieval doesn't have to be dry or boring and that children, in particular, can truly enjoy discovering things they didn't know before. This is evident in the unique elementary inter- face that provides a developmentallyappropriate experience for young children, including access to Britannica Learning Zone® for grades PreK-2. Regardless of the level chosen, students have the ability to search, tag, save and share content, making the product an important tool for collaborative projects and other activities. Britannica School offers a muchneeded solution for schools with tight ESD: How is this better for students? 45 expands the capabilities of the MackinVIA content management system. And, of course, we'll have lots of things to give away―including our beautiful Mackin bags and posters. ESD: In addition to visiting the Mackin booth, how can people learn more about your company? RH: Anyone can visit our website at www.mackin.com for full information about Mackin. They can also start a live chat, email us at mackin@mackin.com, or call us at 800-245-9540. Our Twitter accounts are @Mackin_Talk and @MackinVIA. We are also on Facebook Educational Resources), (Mackin Pinterest (MackinResources), and LinkedIn. At Mackin, every phone call is always answered in person―24 hours a day, every day―and we pride ourselves on the fact that here, true customer service still exists. packaging and related materials. That information is becoming more readily available today, and purchasers can get more information on Color Light Output and even download a buyer's guide (www.colorlightoutput.com.) The guide shows many popular brands and their lumen specification, along with their tested color light output – a great resource for comparing specs before choosing the best model for classroom needs. ISTE 2013 attendees can learn more about this new standard and Epson's complete line of 3LCD classroom projectors by visiting Epson's booth (#10196.) For more information, go to www.epson.com/projectors, call 562290-5171, email claudine_wolasshiva@ea.epson.com, or stop by booth 10196 at ISTE. room. As an example, for homework, a teacher might assign students to watch a Discovery video at any time over the next few days, discuss it with parents, and answer questions related to the video. It is a cloud-based service, so it doesn't matter if you're using an iPad provided by the school or if the student is accessing the experience on a home computer or mom's iPhone or on television. Students are so engaged. It's a way to get parents and the community involved with their kids' education. Which parent doesn't want to watch a Discovery video with their kids? I mean, come on. We want to help stop education from being a supplylimited commodity that's limited to students with deep pockets. For more information, visit booth 2266 at ISTE. budgets, consolidating multiple resources into one highly affordable digital product that's accessible 24/7 for student research, classroom lessons, projects, and homework help. For more information call 800-6213900, email contact@eb.com, visit www.info.eb.com/bschool.Britannica Digital Learning, or come to booth 9200 at ISTE.