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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
MyLearningPlan is a professional development management and evaluation system that offers fast and easy planning, tracking, and evaluation of all kinds of professional learning in one comprehensive, online system.
“Our district uses MyLearningPlan to organize professional development activities,” said Jennifer Brucker, coordinator of professional development for Pennsylvania’s Methacton School District. “The activities are displayed in an electronic catalog for teachers to enroll in for an in-service day, flex hours, and/or district training. MyLearningPlan then enables an administrator to confirm attendance and send the activity to the state for Act 48 credit to be given. The process is effortless! We also use MyLearningPlan to run district reports to determine where we have spent our federal funds for professional learning. … Overall, MyLearningPlan has changed the way we do business in our district.”
My Big Campus (Lightspeed Systems)
My Big Campus offers a safe, monitored environment for students to blog, hold discussions, and collaborate on group projects online. A standalone version is available for individual teachers or professional networks, while a district-wide version integrates with Lightspeed’s Web Filter to offer cross-district sharing of resources and additional management and reporting features.
“We are using My Big Campus in a variety of ways,” said Sandy Bader, technology training specialist for the Unified School District of De Pere, Wis. “Teachers are using it with their classes to have online discussions. … Teachers are also creating ‘public’ groups as a way of communicating with parents, although the communication at that level is providing information to parents (not two-way). It has allowed teachers to have their own web presence and has given students and teachers a way to communicate online that is safe and controlled.”
NComputing L300 (NComputing Inc.)
The L300 is a virtual desktop client device with a sleek, low-power design that can be mounted on a monitor or secured to a desk. The L300 costs less than other thin- or zero-client options and is a quarter of the cost of a typical desktop PC, NComputing says. With the ability to connect up to 100 users to a single NComputing vSpace server, the product offers a simple, powerful, and inexpensive desktop virtualization solution.
“We use NComputing products to leverage our budget toward a better student-to-workstation ratio,” said Robert Haviland, technology coordinator for the Hickman County Schools in Tennessee. “For a fraction of the cost [of a full PC], we can add seats quickly to our network.”
NetSupport School (NetSupport Inc.)
NetSupport School is a classroom-management solution for Windows machines that gives teachers the ability to instruct, monitor, and interact with their students either individually, as a pre-defined group, or as an entire class. It includes PC monitoring, presentation and annotation tools, a customized testing suite, internet and application control, real-time audio monitoring, desktop security, and print management capabilities. (A corresponding program, NetSupport Assist, can do the same for Mac and Linux-based devices.)
“I use this product every day both to maintain an effective teaching environment when students are spread throughout the lab, and when I’m doing maintenance duties on all the machines when students are not present,” said Jerry Jaco, computer lab teacher and technology coordinator for Holy Angels School in Los Angeles. “From one computer, I can oversee all machines and each machine individually. I can power on and off the lab with one click, login/logout students, execute programs on all machines at once, send and collect documents, administer tests and surveys, and so on. … It is an invaluable tool that I consider the second most important piece of software a computer lab needs after a solid networking OS.”
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.