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EdTech Show Daily 2 5 Tuesday, February 7, 2017 TEXAS STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION ADOPTS CEV MULTIMEDIA INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS An interview with Dusty Moore, President, iCEV. ESD: Tell our readers about your prod- ucts. DM: We have seven areas of curriculum in which we specialize: agriculture sci- ence; architecture, construction, trans- portation and manufacturing; business, marketing, finance, IT and media; career exploration; family and consumer sci- ences; health science; and law, public safety, corrections and security. Each product consists of pre-built courses and lessons. Each lesson fea- tures either a video or slide deck as the main instructional vehicle. Also, each lesson has project-based learning ideas and templates as well as interactive activities and assessments. Finally, each product contains industry certifications students can earn to increase career readiness. iCEV is the most comprehensive online resource for CTE educators and students, offering learning-on-demand features and video clip streaming, along with testing and grading capabilities to any device with Internet capabilities. Through iCEV, students can earn indus- try-backed certifications across multiple areas of CTE that prepare them for col- lege and beyond. ESD: What is your goal for the show? DM: We want to make contact with and promote our products with CTE teachers, CTE directors and school administrators. We want to promote our 87 CTE courses that were recently approved by the Texas State Board of Education through Proclamation 2017. Proclamation 2017 focuses on adopting instructional materials for all Career and Technical Education subject areas to coincide with the implementation of the new Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for CTE courses. Schools are cur- rently evaluating adopted resources to decide what materials they will purchase for Fall 2017 implementation. ESD: What is your company most proud of? DM: We are the nation's leading produc- er of CTE educational materials. The approval of our materials is not just an exciting moment for us, but also for stu- dents and teachers throughout Texas as they will receive increased exposure to CTE learning materials. We look forward to working with educators in communi- ties across Texas to integrate our CTE courses into their classrooms to help pre- pare students to meet the needs of an ever-changing workforce. ESD: Are you launching any new products this year? DM: We recently launched three new product areas: architecture, construction, transportation and manufacturing; health science; and law, public safety, correc- tions and security. ESD: How do the CTE products and services help your education clients? DM: iCEV products provide pre-pack- aged courses and automatic grading along with abundant resources to help reduce teacher workloads and improve performance. Also, our engaging multi- media content, paired with interactive coursework, makes learning fun and interesting for students. Finally, with iCEV, students can work toward their career goals and gain essential skills while earning industry certifications. For more information, stop by booth #311, visit www.icevonline.com or call 800.922.9965. the industry with a hope of better under- standing more about the trends and emerging service issues and technology needs that industry experts expect to cap- ture the sector's attention this year. Through interaction with these technolo- gy leaders working directly in educa- tion's technology trenches on a daily basis, we can continue to improve our products and services. In particular, we want to become more in touch with organizations that could use our products to help them with their service manage- ment needs. ESD: What is your company most proud of? PS: We are very proud of our high cus- tomer retention and the high net promo- tor score our clients give us. Our cus- tomer retention rates are higher than 95 percent. The fact that our clients choose to work with us time and time again is proof, I think, of how effective our prod- ucts and services actually are. I think that speaks volumes about our connection to those we serve. ESD: Are you launching any new prod- ucts this year? PS: Our software is continuously deployed. This means we do not launch or release big updates just a couple per year, but that we continuously bring new functionalities to our clients as upgrades TOPdesk (Cont'd. from p. 1) are developed and become available, sometimes every day. This means small- er updates with low impact for clients. In this way, we can make sure our clients are up-to-date with the latest security requirements and newest func- tionalities. ESD: Who are your target customers? PS: Our customers are K-12 school dis- tricts, universities, community colleges and other service-oriented organizations. ESD: How do your products or services help your customers compete in their marketplace? PS: TOPdesk helps organizations add value to their business by providing a great service management in place. Users are able to focus on their jobs without interruptions, while being empowered to solve problems and request help for any issues that may arise in one place. Users in departments, such as IT and facilities, are more able to work much more proactively so they are able to do less repetitive and more challenging tasks. TOPdesk also enables departments to collaborate in an effi- cient manner for different processes, such as onboarding and offboarding of employees. Visit TOPdesk at booth #1249. For more information, visit www.topdesk.com or call 407.613.5410. in the richness of diversity and experiences in classrooms around the country, with more than 87 percent of our eBooks and lessons featuring diverse protagonists. ESD: What kinds of services and educa- tional products does Genius Plaza offer? AC: Genius Plaza's educational platform is a quick and simple way to personalize learning by offering thousands of multi- leveled teaching resources. Working across all devices, and with math and lan- guage arts mobile apps, learning has no boundaries. Educators can personalize the reading level for each child, and in both English and Spanish. Our products offer co-creation, where you can cus- tomize the questions within our games, exercises and eBooks. Some of our free apps include: eBook Plaza, Hangman Plaza and Mad Minute Plaza. ESD: How can teachers and parents use Genius Plaza to focus on whole child education and personalized learning? AC: Our learning bank of resources allows you to instantly find hundreds of books, in English and Spanish, and related assessments for each individual student. It can often take a teacher hours to differen- tiate lessons for a class on different levels. We believe that lesson planning for the various levels in one classroom should be as easy as planning for one child. ESD: How does the Genius Plaza plat- Genius Plaza (Cont'd. from p. 1) form method work? AC: When a district, school, teacher or parent sign up for Genius Plaza, they have access to our resources for a calendar year. Students choose a career goal and an avatar reflecting a motivation for their aca- demic success. We incorporate a learning, reflection, re-teaching and peer-review process built into our platform. With this method, we can ensure that a child not only absorbs important information, but also critically thinks about a lesson, becoming the protagonist of their learning by co-cre- ating and through peer-review. At each step of the way, we offer culturally relevant touch points, in songs or lessons from our STEAM Career Champions. ESD: How do educators with English Language Learners (ELL)/Multiple Language Learners (MLL) use Genius Plaza? AC: Genius Plaza works to combine mod- ern advances in technology to bring the best tools for innovating ELL/MLL instruc- tion in math and language arts. We believe that the proven benefits of differentiating learning should be easily accessible to ELL/MLL educators. The Genius Plaza platform helps bridge the gap by showing educators metrics and resources at the right level for each student in both English and Spanish. A newcomer can be properly chal- lenged in his or her native language and contextualized before embarking on the English version of an eBook. Visit Genius Plaza at booth #1756. MAKEBLOCK: THE ONLY LIMIT IS YOUR IMAGINATION Makeblock was founded in 2013 in the Chinese city of Shenzhen. Shenzhen is a fast-growing city which is at the center of technological product development, so it was the logical place for Makeblock to be based. Makeblock was created to make STEM education accessible to as many learners as possible. As Jasen Wang, Chief Executive and Founder of Makeblock says, "I started Makeblock because I wanted to help people turn their ideas into reality. There are many people out there like me who want to create different kinds of robots, but do not have an engineering background. Makeblock helps to reduce the barriers to entry in robotics." Makeblock currently has a variety of products for sale, ranging from easy-to- use robots targeted at children as young as six all the way up to 3D printers and laser engravers. The main staple for robotic edu- cation though consists of mBot, mBot Ranger and the Ultimate 2.0. Continued on Page 29