Issue link: http://osercommunicationsgroup.uberflip.com/i/255556
E d Te c h S h o w D a i l y 2 3 Fri d a y, Fe b ru a r y 7 , 2 0 1 4 THE NEXT FRONTIER FOR DATA: DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION For years, district offices and schools have been demanding greater access to data. As technology improved, the data arrived usually in the form of static reports with rows and columns of num- bers. Unfortunately, this often left edu- cators none the wiser, as it takes a trained eye to see patterns or trends in the numbers. "We're data rich, but information poor," became an all too common complaint. Advances in technology helped replace the numbers with more visual charts and graphs. While this was some improvement, the data was still static and did not allow for the more active explo- ration or analysis that's often required to discover new trends and patterns or to gain deeper insights. What many administrators and teachers need is a more powerful analyt- ics solution that helps them ask and answer questions on their own, exploring the data in a more interactive way and leading to more informed instructional decisions. However, traditional reporting and analytics solutions aren't well-suited to this need. Instead, traditional solutions define fixed paths for drilling into data, pre-define the reports and queries that must be used, and lock down the types of data that can be analyzed. The informa- tion technology (IT) department often plays a significant role in such solutions, as they have to create the data models and build the reports and dashboards, sometimes based on one-off requests. This can be a time-consuming process for IT, as well as frustrating for the educators who need fast access to information. A new wave of analytics solutions is emerging to meet this need. Gartner, the analyst firm, calls these "Data Discovery" solutions, and identifies three common attributes: a proprietary data structure that can store data from dis- parate sources; a performance layer that avoids the need to calculate and store summary data; and an intuitive interface that enables users to explore data without much training Pinnacle Insight is the Data Discovery solution from Scantron. Powered by QlikView ® , Pinnacle Insight delivers rich interactive dashboards that help educators make decisions based on multi- ple sources of data, including assessments, student informa- tion systems and learning management systems. Pinnacle Insight makes it easy for administrators to ask and answer their own questions, and for teachers to create and share knowledge and analysis as part of a professional learning community. With Pinnacle Insight, educators are free to ask what they need to ask, and explore up, down or sideways, without being con- strained by predefined paths they must follow or questions they must formulate ahead of time. Visit booth 1739 to learn more about put- ting the power of Pinnacle Insight to work in your school or district. For more information, call 800-SCANTRON or go to www.scantron.com. SUCCESS FOR BOISE STATE UNIVERSITY GRADUATE STUDENTS Boise State's largest graduate program has about 800 students, but is all but invisible on campus because its stu- dents live and work all over the United States and in nearly two dozen interna- tional locations. As a whole, Boise State is Idaho's largest public brick-and-mortar institu- tion, and is labeled by U.S. News and World Report as "an up-and-coming uni- versity in the West." The online educational technology program is successful because its stu- dents and graduates are successful as innovative teachers at all levels of educa- tion, while others work as instructional designers and trainers for federal agen- cies, universities such as Johns Hopkins and Penn State, and at worldwide non- profits and corporations. EdTech admissions adviser Jerry Foster says it is important for anyone interested in getting a graduate degree to know about recent achievements of students and faculty members, because those are the people who are setting the bar. For example, in his graduate pro- gram: a year ago, EdTech doc- toral student Glori Hinck was a unanimous choice for Graduate Student of the Year for the National University Telecommunications Network, an association for university distance education directors; last October, EdTech grad and now EdTech Assistant Professor Chris Haskell received the coveted Innovative Practice Award from the International Association for K-12 Online Learning for his work in quest-based learning and his co-development of 3D GameLab; in December, EdTech student Gretel Patch received the U.S. Secretary of State Award for Volunteerism for her harrowing travels in the mountains of Nepal to teach technology tools to teachers and students in cities far from her home in Kathmandu. Patch, originally from southern Utah, earned her master's degree while living in Nepal. Boise State EdTech has 14 full- time faculty members and a pool of world-class adjunct instructors like Cathy Morton, who serves on the TCEA board of directors, and Jackie Gerstein, whose writings are ranked 49th in the world by the Teach 100 list of top educa- tional blogs. Visit Boise State University at booth 2247. For more information, go to edtech.boisestate.edu, call 208-426-4008 or email jfoster@boisestate.edu. BREAKTHROUGH TECHNOLOGY INCREASES LEARNING AND REDUCES COST uSave LED has developed a new tech- nology that is going to change the direc- tion of the entire lighting industry. The company has introduced its new patent pending Adaptive LED Lighting System known as the WalaLight™. The WalaLight adap- tive LED lighting system can be set to provide bright, neo-natural day- light (6500 kelvin), warm light (2500 kelvin) and any level of light inbe- tween, all with the convenience of remote control operation. The WalaLight system is also very energy efficient, provid- ing over 50,000 hours of quality, glare-free light, and result in an average of 75 percent reduction in energy costs as com- pared to other types of light bulbs. Continued on Page 31