TAOS, NM — Ko’s Journey has been named the 2012 Cool Tool Award Winner for Academic Gaming Solution by EdTech Digest (www.edtechdigest.com). Ko’s Journey is a first-of-its-kind, story-based, educational online math game, created and distributed by Imagine Education, that leverages the power of video games to send students on an engaging rite-of-passage journey filled with purposeful, meaningful math. Ko’s Journey was also named a finalist for Trendsetting Product or Service.

The EdTech Digest Awards recognize people and projects for outstanding contributions in transforming education through technology to enrich the lives of learners everywhere. The products, services and people that make this list are innovative, respected and outstanding cool tools, leaders and trendsetters moving education forward into the 21st century—and are all highly commended.

Ko’s Journey is a 12 hour web-based math program that targets the most important concepts of 5th – 7th grade math. It’s based on a classroom teaching model with four consecutive years of data showing over 80% gains on state test proficiency with low-income minority students. Ko’s Journey represents an important change in the approach to teaching middle school math: it circumvents the emotions students have for math by using something even more powerful . . . a story.

Already hailed as “The Oregon Trail of Math Games,” Ko’s Journey is already being used by over 6,000 students in public, private, charter, virtual and home schools. “Ko’s Journey is unique in that it comes directly from the classroom,” notes Scott Laidlaw, Ed.D., creator of Ko’s Journey and co-founder of Imagine Education. “The original “Ko” was played on hand-painted deer-hides with stone totems, as the centerpiece to the math curriculum. It’s the first math game where math truly makes conceptual sense within the story.”

For more information, go to www.kosjourney.com.

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About Imagine Education
www.imagineeducation.org
Contact: Martha Riecks, (412) 760-3876, martha@imagineeducation.org

Imagine Education is a self-funded startup established by Scott Laidlaw, Ed.D. and Jennifer Harris, CPA who blended the worlds of education and business to create a dynamic story-based game company focused on K-12 mathematics. Imagine Education is based in Taos, New Mexico, where Dr. Laidlaw previously taught middle school.