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Fifty of the best ed-tech products for schools
These 50 educational technology products and services are the winners of our 2012-13 Readers' Choice Awards
Salesforce is an enterprise, cloud-based customer relations management program that colleges and universities are using to manage their fundraising and alumni outreach programs.
“Wayne State University uses Salesforce to (1) manage recruitment efforts; (2) provide customer service to prospective and current students who call, eMail, or visit; (3) enhance communication; (4) develop sophisticated business intelligence to improve recruitment and retention; and (5) implement business process improvement,” said Kathleen Lueckeman, senior director of customer relationship management and director of the Office of Graduate Admissions. “We currently have significant increases in new freshman, transfer, and graduate student registration. … Salesforce’s Web-to-Lead and Web-to-Case functions [also] have eliminated lead cards and paper forms, speeding our service and processing times.”
SoftChalk is a content authoring program that makes it easy for users to create interactive online lessons.
“This is a neat, easy-to-learn content producing software,” said Becky Bradley, interim library director at Lone Star College Kingwood in Texas. “I use it in online classrooms to make lessons [that] are engaging and [that] look professionally done.”
Tegrity Campus (McGraw-Hill)
Tegrity Campus is a fully automated lecture-capture solution used to record lectures as well as supplementary course content. Its cloud-based model scales affordably, and students can search the content, collaborate with their instructors and classmates, take notes, set their own bookmarks, and more.
“As an instructional designer, I have used Tegrity Campus over a dozen different ways,” said Trina Kilty of Laramie County Community College. “Since I am responsible for faculty training, I use it to record training and workshops for those unable to attend. As a member of the Learning Technologies Committee on campus, I’ve used Tegrity to record vendor demonstrations of different products so that committee members unable to attend may still view the demonstration. … As an adjunct instructor, I use Tegrity to record myself explaining concepts missed on the exam for students. Tegrity has the ability to create a private link of a recording that is shared just between me and the student. … [It] has been a part of our college for over five years, and the options, service, and ease just continue to improve every year.”
WorldWideWhiteboard (Link-Systems International)
WorldWideWhiteboard is a platform for online tutoring, collaboration, and office hours through either live (synchronous) or asynchronous connections.
“We use this product for our online Writing Center,” said Leah Rogin-Roper, English professor and Writing Center coordinator for Arapahoe Community College in Colorado. “It allows students to work in real-time interactive sessions with tutors. The features of WorldWideWhiteboard are intuitive and easy for students to use, but allow multiple levels of interaction. Tutors can chat with students, have video or audio sessions, and mark up their essays with suggestions, highlighting, underlining, typed conversations, and more. … This product is particularly helpful for students taking online courses or studying at our satellite campuses, to allow them access to the same great, professional tutors who work on campus, from the convenience of the student’s own home.”
8 Responses to Fifty of the best ed-tech products for schools
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peejs66
July 24, 2012 at 12:16 am
DreamBox is thrilled to be included in eSchool News 50 Best Edtech Products for Schools. Thank you! We do want to correct the description of the underlying technology, though, because the intelligent adaptive learning platform evaluates much more than right and wrong answers. The engine evaluates the strategy used to solve the problem, the pace at which the student interacts with the software, the number of hints requested, and more. In fact, the adaptive learning engine collects, analyzes, and responds to about 48,000 pieces of data per hour, per student. The adaptivity is extraordinarily fine-grained.
tfrantz
July 24, 2012 at 3:01 pm
Thank you, eSchool News readers! Lightspeed Systems is honored to have My Big Campus recognized as one of the Top 50 Edtech Products. We encourage you to log on, create a free account, and start creating an engaging, collaborative learning experience for your students. See you around Campus!
britmullins
July 25, 2012 at 9:25 pm
Thank you! SoftChalk is proud to be one of the 50 Best Edtech Products for Schools. As readers of eSchoolNews and eCampusNews, as well as professionals with roots in higher education, we couldn’t be more honored. We know how hard it can be to find the right tools to meet the ever-changing needs of the higher ed classroom, and we’re proud to offer a content authoring solution that meets the mark!
zanepub
July 30, 2012 at 11:41 pm
Zane Education wants thank everyone that voted for them.
We appreciated being the only company selected for actually delivering K-12 curriculum content as opposed to the various platforms and support tools.
Using online video and the innovative use of subtitles (The Missing Piece) to enable all students to study a wide range of curriculum subjects AND improve their reading and literacy skills AT THE SAME TIME, is important to us and we appreciate the support of all those that share our belief in providing equal access for all students.
And for those of you in schools and classrooms that have yet to experience the benefits and positive results of Visual Learning in the classroom supported by online testing for each topic, the use of free Lesson Plans and the interactive study tools provided to help each student to fully explore each topic, you can view out free Curriculum Topic of the Day at the following link:
http://www.zaneeducation.com/Videos/freevideo.php
We believe that enabling each child to study at their own speed is key to helping each child achieve their greatest potential.
And thank you again!
cortboulanger
August 1, 2012 at 10:30 pm
Thanks to eSchool Media readers for including Middllebury Interactive Languages on this list. We are proud to be among the 50 products making a difference in our schools. But this is only possible working with our partners – teachers, administrators, parents and students – to provide access to superior world language instruction for all students.
We hope you’ll visit the Middlebury Interactive Facebook page to keep up to date on our activities. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Middlebury-Interactive-Languages/141015515949753
Thanks again.
presencelearning
August 7, 2012 at 6:49 pm
Thank you so much to eSchoolNews readers! PresenceLearning is honored to be chosen for this esteemed list of ed-tech solution providers. PresenceLearning (http://www.presencelearning.com) is the leading provider of live online speech therapy services to K-12 schools. We are delivering over 5,000 live sessions a month and helping kids master the language and speech skills they need for success in school and life. We are growing rapidly by helping school districts overcome critical shortages of SLPs and serve their special needs students better. See a video of a real online speech session at:
http://presencelearning.com/online-speech-therapy-videos
chris.buecksler@schoolwires.com
August 9, 2012 at 7:20 pm
Thank you eSchoolNews readers for selecting Centricity2 as a Top 50 Ed Tech Product for Schools. Schoolwires sincerely appreciates the selection and is proud to serve more than 10 million users with our website, content management and safe social learning solutions to drive engagement in the classroom and K-12 community.
angiecasteel89
August 14, 2012 at 5:24 pm
Scientific Minds is excited to be included in the Top 50 Ed Tech Products for Schools. Thank you to all who voted for us! At Scientific Minds, we take great pride in making quality, online products for grades K-12 that provide practical, easy-to-use solutions for classroom success. Both teachers and students benefit from the brain research used to develop our main product, the Science Starters, which deliver science content in small “chunks” accompanied by vivid, memorable images and graphics. We invite you to check out our new online professional development for elementary teachers at https://www.scientificminds.com/ProfessionalDevelopment.aspx.