Issue link: http://osercommunicationsgroup.uberflip.com/i/137886
10 Tuesday, June 25, 2013 BLENDED SCHOOLS NETWORK'S PROFESSIONAL LEARNING INITIATIVE TRANSFORMS SCHOOLS Mount Union Area School District is a small, rural, economically challenged school district in central Pennsylvania. The district has provided access to Blackboard Learn to some teachers and classes since 2003, and Mount Union hosts a Cyber Academy for some students. Although these facts suggest an immersive use of online and blended learning technologies and curriculum, Mount Union did not systemically adopt online or blended learning within a given academic area, grade level or school building. And teachers did consistently leverage high quality online resources. In 2010, Mount Union was awarded a three-year Title 1 School Improvement Grant to implement a transformational model. Mount Union contracted with the Blended Schools Network to deliver professional learning and resources for all K-12 administrators and teachers to implement an engaging, student-centered instructional process that delivers expanded learning opportunities individualized for each student's academic needs. The initiative gives Mount Union teachers the option of customizing copies of Blended Schools Network's master courses or designing and building their own courses. Two years into this school transformation initiative, blendedschools.net is delivering a mix of onsite, synchronous online and asynchronous online professional learning events. Teachers have choices for where, when and how they consume professional learning. The teacher professional learning sequence integrates curriculum mapping, curriculum development, instructional design and online learning proficiency. During the first year, administrators participated in professional learning ses- EVERNOTE AND HOVERCAM DOCUMENT CAMERAS An interview with John Miewald, Marketing Manager of Pathway Innovations and Technologies, Inc. ESD: Hello, Mr. Miewald. Tell me a little about how you use the HoverCam Solo 5 with Evernote. JM: Certainly. Let me first say that Pathway Innovations and Technologies, Inc. is a document camera manufacturer. Our primary goal has been to produce the highest quality document camera. We recognize that hardware manufacturing is not enough. We took the next step by making partnerships with industry-leading software manufacturers, like Evernote. This is a unique approach in the industry. ESD: Why Evernote? JM: Partnering with Evernote was an easy choice. Evernote is one of the fastest-growing software manufacturers in the world. Evernote is a leader in producing software tools for educators. It only made sense to integrate Evernote software into our document camera hardware. Our document cameras are capable of supporting the most demanding software solutions. ESD: Interesting. On what basis do you REDIKER SOFTWARE'S NEW PRESIDENT SHARES LATEST INNOVATIONS FOR SCHOOLS By Andrew Anderlonis, Rediker Software, Inc. President, As the new president of Rediker Software, I am excited to share our latest innovations in educational technology for the 2013-2014 school year. At Rediker Software, we always look for new ways to utilize technology to help schools improve processes while reducing costs. Our latest innovations accomplish these goals by providing schools with the tools they need to manage and share data in one seamlessly integrated solution. New Teacher Gradebook and Plus Family of Products: Rediker has taken a key move to build the most advanced teacher, parent and student portals of any SIS at an afford- able price: TeacherPlus Gradebook, StudentPlus, and ParentPlus. TeacherPlus Gradebook incorporates key CMS and LMS functionalities along with integrated data from our student information system Administrator's Plus. The gradebook seamlessly connects to the StudentPlus and ParentPlus web portals to give teachers the ultimate flexibility in communicating with parents and students. The portals include live views of grades, attendance, class content, calendars, directories, and much more. AdminPlus Notify Mass Notification Service AdminPlus Notify is our new mass notification service embedded in Administrator's Plus. As a result, school personnel can quickly and easily notify Ed Tech Show Daily sions on managing their blended learning schools, as well as planning, developing and sustaining their quality blended learning program. Grade level peer coaches participated in a full suite of teacher training, curriculum mapping, assessing student learning and performances, engaging and instructing students, facilitating, learning and fostering collaboration. In the second and third years, Blended Schools Network's professional development staff are mentoring the peer coaches and working with teachers until all classes in the district are vertically and horizontally aligned; aligned to Common Core and Pennsylvania standards; and highly engaging. Students will be able to do course work from handhelds any time, anywhere. There is still a lot of work to be done until all of Mount Union's classes leverage immersive blended learning, but surveys and testimonials already show a significant transformation in faculty attitudes about, and their use and student use of blended learning, use of technology to expand and enrich learning, and using technology to align and design curriculum. Once the three-year professional development initiative is complete, only a few of Mount Union's classes will use textbooks. The savings will more than pay for Mount Union's membership to Blended Schools Network for Blackboard, online curriculum and continuing professional learning. Blended Schools Network has helped a couple hundred small and rural school districts adopt blended learning. This past year, 40,000 sections of blended learning classes were taught in their Blackboard system. As a not-for-profit corporation that helps schools implement online and blended learning, Blended Schools Network provides podcasts, webinars, onsite, asynchronous and synchronous online professional learning opportunities to teachers. make that claim? like Evernote. Often, educators want to be able to collate all their photos, videos, etc. into one place. Our Evernote integration offers a simple solution. Our high-quality cameras ensure that educators are not frustrated because their images and videos are not of high quality. JM: Easy. Take our Solo 5 for example. It offers a true 5MP resolution, a resolution that is not scaled down. We maintain our 5MP resolution in video, too. The Solo 5 offers true HD video at 720p. Not many other document camera manufacturers can make that claim. We believe that having the best hardware makes integrating software, like Evernote, seamless. ESD: Can you expand a little bit more on the hardware specifications? JM: Of course. We offer a true 5MP resolution at 12FPS, which none of our competitors can say. For our consumers, this means a clear picture and high quality streaming video to use with software thousands of contacts via email, text and voice message without leaving their SIS. Data is in real time so there is never any importing or syncing involved. Teacher Evaluator Teacher Evaluator is our new affordable classroom observation tool for the web and iPad. If you have the need to evaluate teachers and are still using paper evaluations, or are spending thousands of dollars on another evaluation tool, give us a call. We will let you use our program free of charge until you are comfortable with it. That's how confident I am in this tool. Use it with or without our student information system; you decide! AdminPlus Version 6 Our student information system, Administrator's Plus, recently received an updated user interface design with some great new benefits and features. The result is AdminPlus V6, the most powerful yet user-friendly SIS on the market. For more information about professional learning offerings, visit www.blended schools.net/professionaldevelopment.ph, or stop by booth 5251 at ISTE. ESD: Wow. I bet educators really appreciate that. JM: Yes. I'd like to invite anyone who is interested in learning more to stop by our booth for a demonstration. For more information, visit www.thehovercam.com or stop by booth 13076 at ISTE. Always Innovating While the tip of the iceberg has been revealed, Rediker Software has many more exciting products and features in the works and planning. Our company is committed to innovation in education, and we truly stand by our mantra, "More time with students, less time with software." About Rediker Software For over 30 years, Rediker Software has been a leader in school administrative software for private, public, international, religious and independent schools. Through its innovative solutions, Rediker Software helps schools in over 115 countries manage administrative tasks, maximize school-to-home communication and inspire student performance and success. The company's products include Administrator's Plus, Admissions Plus Pro and Teacher Evaluator. For more information about Rediker Software, visit booth 5269 at ISTE, www.rediker.com or e-mail sales@rediker.com.