FETC News

AVerMedia Technologies announced today the release of the new AVerVision VP-1 Portable Visual Presenter. The AVerVision VP-1 is a high quality, yet economical document camera solution perfect for first time document camera users, tight budgets, or for those who only need the basics. The VP-1 offers an ultra-portable, lightweight design with key features including Auto Focus and 8X digital zoom. This document camera will fill the fundamental need for basic document or 3D object presentation while still maintaining crisp AVerVision image excellence in a classroom, or corporate presentation environment.

Vernier Software & Technology has added three new probes that are compatible with Vernier’s data-collection device, LabQuest. Students can now collect scientific data with the new GPS Sensor, Wide-Range Temperature Probe and Power Amplifier. Like other probes in the collection, when connected to the LabQuest students can view and analyze data in a meter, data table or graph mode using Vernier’s award-winning technology.

HP unveiled the following at FETC:
· The HP Assessment and Grading Solution for Education, which automates the administration and grading of tests.
· The HP Mini 2140 Notebook PC is a lightweight, portable, fully functioning PC designed with education in mind.
· The HP dx9000 TouchSmart Business PC allows students to learn through visualization and active participation.

Saving educators' time and further enriching their overall user experience, Discovery Education announces several key upgrades to Discovery Education streaming. The digital video-based learning resource now features an enhanced landing page that allows users to access all Discovery Education services, preview new additions to the media library, encourages customization and personalization, and more.

PBS Teachers introduced the PBS Teachers Activity Packs, a growing library of Web-based widgets that contain links to high-quality PBS education resources and activities focused on a specific curricular theme for multiple grade levels. Finding digital resources for the appropriate grade level, subject and lesson among the vast array of material on the Web can be a time-consuming and challenging task for educators, but PBS Teachers is making the search easier and quicker with the new Activity Packs. More than 30 Activity Packs are available free-of-charge for educators to "grab" for classroom use, or to post on their classroom and school Web sites or favorite social networking sites.

Psychological Software Solutions, the industry leader in behavioral improvement solutions for schools, today announced the results from several implementations which demonstrate that the use of their 5 Steps to Improving Student Behavior and Review360™ leads to noteworthy reductions in disruptive behavior, increased rates of inclusion for students with emotional and behavioral disorders, dramatic reduction in school districts’ expenditures on behavioral services and ultimately significant gains in academic achievement.

Millions of students around the country will now have the opportunity to leverage their mastery of video game skills to raise their math scores thanks to a creative partnership between Tabula Digita and the education publisher Pearson. Tabula Digita will create customized versions of its award-winning DimensionM educational video games aligned directly to the math curriculum in Scott Foresman-Addison Wesley enVisionMATH, the nation’s bestselling elementary math program, and Pearson’s two middle school programs, Prentice Hall Math and Connected Mathematics (CMP2).

Teachscape’s new Classroom Walkthrough 3.0 (CWT 3.0) features new look fors, the ability to create custom look fors, hierarchical management, and enhanced reporting. The industry leader in classroom walkthrough technology, CWT is a research-based process that allows building administrators and others to quickly collect data about classroom practice and to use that information to work with teachers to plan and implement improvement and professional development activities. Through brief classroom visits, CWT allows instructional leaders to see what’s happening in the teaching and learning process and to track instructional data as it relates to student performance.