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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
Insight 360 (eInstruction)
Insight 360 is a mobile “formative instruction” system designed to simplify the practice of formative assessment in conjunction with interactive teaching. Insight 360 enables educators to obtain instant feedback on student learning through an easy-to-use suite of mobile devices, software, and instructional material that is interoperable with their existing technology and systems, the company says.
“Our third-grade teacher, Ms. Ingrid Oyen, is using the new Insight 360 system for daily formative assessment in her math class,” said Mark Hupp, director of technology for Salt Creek 48 schools in Illinois. “Beginning the year with CPS (eInstruction’s earlier offering), Ms. Oyen has driven math achievement off the charts. Now, Ms. Oyen has seamlessly moved to eInstruction’s revolutionary Insight 360 system—providing her even easier, more natural access to real-time formative assessment data. The Insight 360 system is so easy, so comfortable, and so powerful that Ms. Oyen and I believe it to be the holy grail of response products. The ability to tag almost any file format—including SMART Notebook [content]—means that it is not only platform agnostic, but also software agnostic. Now, Ms. Oyen can use all of her old digital content with her clickers—a huge plus!”
Jing (TechSmith)
Jing is a simple and free software program that lets users capture an image or screen shot of what’s on their computer, as well as record up to five minutes of on-screen video. Two other products from TechSmith, Snagit and Camtasia, are useful for editing screencasts and sharing video and also received several nominations from readers.
“This is an amazing tool, both in its simplicity and in its functionality,” said Jeffrey Getchell, director of learning technologies for Regis University. “Faculty use Jing to illustrate processes for students. Rather than an office visit, faculty can record short tutorials and send [them] to students or post into online courses. Administrators use Jing to provide the occasional tutorial for faculty. Rather than spending inordinate amounts of time on the phone, support folks can create a short screen video or capture and send [it] directly by eMail. And when a computer issue crops up, employees can send screen shots of error messages directly to the IT help desk that illustrate the problem better than time spent on the phone. And it’s free. This is what open resources are all about: simple tools providing specific functions that are easy to use and freely accessible.”
Ko’s Journey (Imagine Education)
Ko’s Journey is a 12-hour middle school math game that takes a targeted approach to math instruction in a part-time, six-week program focusing on the critical areas of the Common Core standards.
“We are using this extensively in multiple pilot schools within the Los Angeles Unified School District,” said Scott Spector, career and technical education advisor for the district’s Office of Curriculum and Instruction. “We have seen dramatic test-score improvement with those students using Ko’s Journey in their math classes. … Students have been engaged in the process of learning math. This has not happened at many of the schools currently using Ko’s Journey. It has also helped the teachers with classroom management—students spend more time on task.”
LabQuest (Vernier Software & Technology)
Vernier’s LabQuest 2 is a standalone interface used to collect sensor data with a built-in graphing and analysis application. The large, high-resolution touch screen makes it easy and intuitive to collect, analyze, and share data from experiments, Vernier says, and its wireless connectivity encourages collaboration and personalized learning.
“The strongest feature of the LabQuest unit is that it is simple enough for an elementary student to use for experiments, and the data that it can produce are detailed enough that it also can be used for high school and college inquiries,” said Connie Bachmann, principal of a K-5 STEM magnet school in the Michigan City Area Schools. “Because it is handheld, it is easy to use by individuals or in a small group setting. … Our students have truly gained a better understanding of scientific inquiry as they personally engaged in data collection with the LabQuests.” Another reader called the LabQuest “rugged and affordable, and customer service is top notch.”
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.