Relentless New Product Releases!

This is an artist's depiction of the never ending tidal wave of press releases coming my way... that's the DA office building in the middle there. Things have been pretty hectic here at the magazine so I haven't been able to post as much as I'd like... hopefully I'll be getting some new videos up here soon as well. But luckily, the education technology industry keeps on keeping on, as they say, and there have been a lot of new releases recently, particularly updated versions of significant products. For example:

-Elluminate released version 2 of Elluminate Plan!, which helps educators organize their content before a live online e-learning session.

-Discovery Education launched Parent Corner, a free Web site of interactive content designed to help advance student achievement at home.

-Califone introduced their Diggiditto document camera.

-Excelsior Software, makers of the Pinnacle Suite learning management system, officially became GlobalScholar after the two companies merged last year.

-Apangea Learning released Version 6.0 of Apangea Math.

-Pearson released Version 5.3 of its online writing and reading comprehension program WriteToLearn.

And there are quite a few more but I'm pacing myself, don't want to overwhelm you. Take a deep breath and absorb those first.

Win a MacBook, iPod and More From iSkin...

The countdown has begun for back to school... so here's a little fun to liven things up. I received a release recently from iSkin, makers of all kinds of protective cases for your personal electronics--and since they have an "i" at the front of the name you know it's mostly for Apple gadgets like the iPod Nano cases seen here--announcing their Back To School contest. The grand prize winner will receive a package worth $2500 that includes:

1 MacBook
1 iPod Touch
1 Mighty Mouse
1 ProTouch Vibes for MacBook
1 ProTouch for Mighty Mouse
1 iSkin touch Vibes for iPod Touch 2G
1 iSkin Soho case for MacBook
Cerulean F1 + TX Bluetooth Set

That could all come in pretty handy around your district, or personal life, I'm sure. Ten second place winners will each receive an iSkin eGift Card valued at $50, and all who enter will get 50 free downloads from emusic. Open to students, teachers, administrators, products editors, pretty much anyone in the U.S. and Canada.

Get Local Businesses to Adopt-A-Watt In Your District...

Adopt-A-Watt is a new program similar to Adopt-A-Highway or other corporate sponsorships: businesses pay for a small solar panel in some public place, and get a sign proclaiming their generosity and acting as advertising.

Among the variety of applications for such a program is lighting for bus stops, and the organization hopes many more schools like the Taylor (Michigan) School District will come on board. Not only is the project free, but it also creates revenue: both the city and school district of Taylor, for example, will be receiving $38,000 a year net income from this implementation. Bus stops are often dark and lonely spots--I remember those cold winter mornings, I almost started a campfire a few times--and if you can brighten them with a solar powered, pollution-free light for free with corporate sponsorship, and make some cash in the process, what have you got to lose? Cool idea.

AP: Schools Adding Cell Phones To Curriculum...Slowly

You may be familiar with DA columnists and Tech Disruptions bloggers Elliot Soloway and Cathie Norris, a big focus of theirs is touting the classroom potential of cell phones. They're obsessed! So when I noticed this AP article this morning that ran in the Columbia Missourian about the slow progress being made in utilizing cell phones in K12... I knew that somewhere in it, Elliot was involved. Sure enough!

And Mayor Mike Bloomberg continues to come off as a villian in this one... same as I remember reporting back in 2007.

Schools For Energy Efficiency Will Help You Change Your Wasteful Behavior

I was intrigued by this company profile that came across the wire this morning... since I wrote a short piece on reducing energy costs in schools for the June/July issue, and just spoke for a DA web seminar on sustainability in schools, I suppose I'm paying more attention to such things. 

When you're looking at energy efficiency, there are two main spheres: changing behavior, and changing the infrastructure independent of behavior. For example: you can order everyone to turn the temperature up a couple degrees in the summer, reducing A/C use, or install more efficient climate control systems and let them set it where they will. Perhaps ideally would be to address both spheres simultaneously, thereby saving the most possible.

Schools For Energy Efficiency is an example of the behavior side, they're a sort of consultancy firm for K12 schools, providing a program for changing the behavior of staff and students, with a systemic plan, awareness materials, training, and utility tracking available with an overall goal of reducing energy use by 10%, though their average thus far since 2002 has been about 13%. They work nationwide. Might be a worthwhile company to check out.

YoLink Is a Cool Internet Research Tool. And It's Free!

I just got off the phone with some folks from TigerLogic, telling me all about their new Internet research tool, YoLink, and how it's a good fit for schools. It's a very interesting product: sort of a second-tier search engine that searches through your searches. Install the toolbar, then when you search on Google, Bing, etc., and want to narrow down those thousands of results, type in more specific terms in the YoLink toolbar. Your screen then splits, and you see your specific terms highlighted in longer abstracts of each link in your original search results. It also saves your past searches in a folder you can access later, and provides a "Search Page" function for when you have a tremendous amount of text on a page and need to find something fast.

I've been trying it out here for a while and I can see how it could help narrowing down online research. Why not download and try it out? It's free!

PolyVision Adds to eno Whiteboard Line

Now there are a lot of interactive whiteboards out there, everyone seems to either have one or want one. SMART, Hitachi, Luidia, mimio, they all have their merits. (Though, to be completely accurate, SMART continues to dominate the field: 63%, to be exact) But I'll be honest, I just love the eno from PolyVision. The whole three-in-one board with no wires thing, it's completely recyclable, and those amazing wireless, nonelectric magnetic buttons that I still can't figure out... well PolyVision has added to the line with the wonderfully simply named click, mini, and flex.

The click is a magnetic mounting frame that makes a whiteboard out of any surface, the mini (pictured) is a wireless remote tablet for the teacher to use or pass around to students, and the flex is a three part board so you can project an interactive image in the middle, write on the dry erase on the left and play pin the tail on the donkey on the right bulletin board. All very cool.

Sharp Extends Free WriteView Calculator Promotion

I'm back from my vacation, and return no longer a bachelor! So now I can get back to my neglected blog.

You might like to know that Sharp has extended the deadline for its WriteView calculator promotion to September 30. Buy one of the new Sharp PG-F267X short throw projectors ($1895 MSRP), and receive a classroom pack of 25 WriteView EL-W535B Educator Scientific Calculators free, an estimated total retail value of $325. And you thought fries and a large soda made a great value combo!