Issue link: http://osercommunicationsgroup.uberflip.com/i/255367
An interview with Marcus Kingsley, CEO, NetSupport Inc. ESD: Tell our readers about your compa- ny. What's your main line of business? MK: We're in the business of classroom management software. Rewind a few years and that would have been translated as monitoring student activity on their desktops. Fast-forward to today, and the term has evolved to include not only monitoring tools but also student assessment tools, cost saving fea- tures, instruction tools and much more. ESD: Are you introducing any new products? MK: We introduced a number of enhancements throughout 2013, most notably addressing the ongoing challenges of BYOD. With NetSupport School v11, we extended the platform to support Android devices as well as extending our Google Chrome OS support. In terms of functionality improvements, a powerful Question & Answer module was added to improve stu- dent assessment, a powerful iOS app was introduced CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT FROM NETSUPPORT An interview with Wayne Rickman, Technical Administrator for Brockport Central School District. ESD: Tell us about your security audit. WR: Our district hired a company to do an audit of all our technology. Our security software, Fortres 101, Clean Slate and Central Control, rated as excellent. After seeing how secure our computers are, the auditing com- pany started recommending Fortres Grand software to other schools. ESD: What is the benefit of Fortres 101 and Central Control? WR: To deny access to the C drive. Fortres 101 locks down the desktop to limit student's access. Once we installed Fortres 101, our support calls went down. ESD: Why did you add Clean Slate? WR: Specifically to clear spyware and viruses. Clean By Marilyn Adams, Marketing Coordinator, PEG Writing. The Common Core State Standards embody what educators have known for a long time: In order to succeed in college or the workforce, students must develop a solid foundation in writing skills. As early as third grade, students are expected to use writing to assert and defend claims, demonstrate knowledge about a particular subject and convey personal experi- ences, thoughts and feelings. Task, audience and purpose must be taken into careful consideration as students complete their writing assignments. While expectations continue to expand and the vol- ume of student writing continues to grow, teachers are discovering that their capacity to grade and provide use- ful feedback cannot keep pace. Fortunately, technology offers a helpful hand. Advances in automated scoring technologies are giving teachers the opportunity to eval- uate the growing volume of student work in a timely and effective manner. Automated scoring can be traced back to the 1960s, when Dr. Ellis Batten Page's pio- neering work in the field of computational linguistics An interview with Tom Piche, Product Manager, Epson America, Inc. ESD: What are the challenges you face in developing products for today's classrooms? TP: Technology is constantly evolving. Compatibility, connectivity and security among various devices, [espe- cially in the BYOD environment] present unique chal- lenges when developing technology for the classroom. To this end, Epson offers Easy MP networking software and iProjection App to bring devices, such as document cameras, DVD/Blu-ray players, iOS and Android devices together, in a way that allows teachers to lever- age all of these tools in the classroom setting. ESD: Have you seen projection technology evolve since you've worked with Epson? TP: Certainly. The introduction of BrightLink ® inter- active projectors was a game-changer, as the projector is no longer just a display device but an interactive teaching tool that allows teachers to more fully engage Visionary Solutions, Inc. (VSI) has announced that EDCO, a leading provider of advanced technology solutions for the education mar- ket, has deployed its AVN series of encoders and PackeTV ® Views browser-based platform to power a new end-to-end video broadcasting solution called the K12 Broadcaster™. Leveraging VSI's IPTV solutions, the K12 Broadcaster cost-effectively streams high-qual- ity standard-definition (SD) and high-definition (HD) video and audio content to classrooms, auditoriums and other areas, improving the teaching and learning experi- ence for instructors and students. "The K12 Broadcaster is a simple and cost-effective solution that enables school districts to continue receiv- ing cable TV and broadcast signals with an image qual- ity far exceeding what was previously delivered via coax cable, without any downtime," said David Allen, Chief Executive Officer, EDCO. "VSI's AVN encoders are key to the system's seamless scalability and outstanding video quality, while PackeTV Views features an intuitive user interface that simplifies IPTV delivery, enabling school districts to simultaneously stream 1080p quality video to several thousand classrooms." Continued on Page 29 An interview with John Myers, CEO, Edsby. ESD: Tell our readers about Edsby. JM: Edsby is a cloud-based social learn- ing platform that enables school districts to transform how educators, students and parents engage with each other. Edsby integrates with a district's key IT infrastructure, such as their student information system, their authentication management system and their groupware system to make the deploy- ment quick and easy for IT staff and for teachers. ESD: How does Edsby support teachers? JM: Edsby provides an integrated suite of services for teachers, including a social class space for each class they teach, a great gradebook, a very easy-to-use atten- dance feature, tools for building course plans, a way to track and submit reporting period data and a host of other features. Best of all, Edsby makes it easy for teach- ers to get started, since Edsby automatically sets up all classes and maintains the class rosters through its tight Continued on Page 23 Continued on Page 29 Continued on Page 29 Continued on Page 23 Continued on Page 23 SECURITY SOFTWARE EARNS HIGH RATINGS FOR BROCKPORT MANAGE STUDENT WRITING WITH TECHNOLOGY EDCO POWERS STREAMING EXPERIENCE WITH VSI IPTV TECHNOLOGY INTERACTIVE PROJECTORS FROM EPSON EDSBY: CUSTOMIZABLE, INTEGRATED LEARNING O s e r C o m m u n i c a t i o n s G ro u p O rl a n d o W e d n e s d a y, J a n u a r y 2 9 , 2 0 1 4