software & online
ABSOLUTE MANAGE 6.5
(www.absolute.com)
Absolute Software has released Absolute Manage 6.5, offering administrators full BYOD support for Mac and Windows computers and other devices without multiple consoles and products to secure and manage the different devices. Absolute Manage will also support Samsung KNOX, a containerization solution native to Samsung’s hardware and Android OS. Using KNOX, IT can create a secure workspace on Samsung devices that is managed like a separate device. All data and apps within the container are completely separated from personal data and apps.
ALL COVERED IT SERVICES AND SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS
(www.allcovered.com)
All Covered, a division of Konica Minolta, has announced a comprehensive suite of education solutions and IT services to help K-12 schools advance technology-based curriculums. Through a series of strategic partnerships with PassTheNotes, SchoolBrains, Hapara, and Tableau Software, All Covered now offers education customers a suite of cloud-based software and consulting solutions that enable public, charter, and private K-12 schools to meet high-level objectives of improving educational outcomes.
AWESOME STORIES
(www.awesomestories.com)
Awesome Stories has released a new story-based digital teaching and learning platform designed to serve educators, librarians, and students. For each of its nearly 800 stories, Awesome Stories provides the time and place context—videos, original documents, images, or audio. Each class, subject, or grade uses the narrative guides and the library of primary sources surrounding each story to match its own curriculum.
CHANNEL ONE NEWS
(www.channelone.com)
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) has announced the acquisition of Channel One News, a digital content provider that encourages kids to be informed, digitally savvy global citizens. Established in 1989, Channel One News produces Peabody and Telly award-winning daily news programs that are broadcast across the U.S. via satellite and online at ChannelOne.com. Aligned to Common Core State Standards, Channel One and its supplementary educational resources are designed to initiate conversations on current events and foster critical thinking skills.
CLEVER INSTANT LOGIN
(www.clever.com)
Clever has unveiled Instant Login, enabling teachers and students to access all of their learning software with one click. Applications that support Instant Login include Think Through Math, Capstone Digital, Imagine Learning, Achieve3000, Remind101, and DreamBox Learning. Students are able to log in once, to Clever, and open a screen displaying all of their applications in one place. To protect students, no student information is shared through Instant Login, and Clever partners only with applications that are compliant with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
FUEL EDUCATION ONLINE AND BLENDED COURSES
(www.getfueled.com)
Personalized learning solutions provider, Fuel Education, has expanded its portfolio of over 500 unique online and blended courses and titles for pre-K through 12th grade. Fuel Education’s catalog now features multiple new math courses for middle and high school students, new electives designed to promote career readiness, and the new mobile, standards-aligned FuelEd Middle School curriculum. Each course or title has been developed in full alignment with the Common Core State Standards, as well as other state and national standards.
GO MATH! ACADEMY
(www.hmhco.com)
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has launched Go Math! Academy, an educational video series for students to use at home. The series offers one-on-one lessons as students go through each tutorial. Go Math! Academy offers a game-like element to engage students outside of the classroom.
HOODA MATH GAMES
(www.hoodamath.com)
Hooda Math recently launched three new games: Integer Tilt, Sand Grid, and Time Punch. The games review essential math concepts, such as integers, coordinate pairs, and telling time. All three games cover Common Core grade level standards and include an email reporting feature, enabling students to send their scores to a parent or teacher after completing certain levels. Like all new games on Hooda Math’s Web site, they are optimized for mobile use and can be accessed on any device. Integer Tilt helps students understand the concept of positive and negative integers, while Sand Grid reviews coordinate pairs for 5th- 8th graders. Time Punch helps 2nd-4th graders learn to tell time, and reviews analog-to-digital conversion, as well as converting hours to minutes.
ITSLEARNING
(www.itslearning.net)
itslearning, a digital personalized learning platform, has added several enhancements to its latest version. The student-focused lesson planner and customizable, site-level learning objectives help support individual students’ learning goals. The integrated lesson planner, accessible on any device, allows teachers to easily communicate standards-aligned lessons and related activities with students and parents. In addition to the existing national learning objectives repository, schools and districts can build their own custom learning objectives repositories.
MINDPLAY VIRTUAL READING COACH
(www.mindplay.com)
MindPlay, Inc. has introduced a new version of its reading curriculum for grades K-12, MindPlay Virtual Reading Coach (MVRC). All stories within the Web-based MVRC are now assigned Lexile ratings by MetaMetrics. Using explicit and direct instruction by reading specialists and speech pathologists, students work at their own pace. The program is appropriate for special needs, dyslexic, and struggling readers, and intermediate to advanced English language learners.
apps
ADOBE VOICE
(www.adobe.com)
Adobe has released Adobe Voice, an animated video app for the iPad that lets users create and share video stories. The app incorporates a combination of the user’s recorded voice, imagery, music, and motion graphics and effects. Animated videos can be quickly shared via social media, email, personal blogs, and Web sites, by posting a single link, and can be viewed on virtually any device.
GOODREADER 4
(www.goodreader.com)
The latest version of the GoodReader app introduces PDF Page Management features, providing users with new ways to view, share and organize their documents. GoodReader 4 is also the first universal version of the app that works on both the iPhone and iPad. With the latest version, users can insert blank pages for notes and drawings, rearrange pages in a document, rotate individual pages, delete pages from a document, and email individual pages rather than the entire document.
KAI SAYS TABLET EDITION
(www.kaisays.com/getkaisays)
Lakeshore Labs recently developed Kai Says Tablet Edition, the newest version of the cloud-based personal assistant Kai Says. The voice-activated Kai Says enables users to stay on track with scheduled events and provides information for locating destinations, movie show times, weather conditions, and more. The Kai Says ‘Agenda’ module has a built-in calendar system and can sync with Google calendar to announce notifications for events by voice.
SPLASHTOP WHITEBOARD
(www.splashtop.com)
The Splashtop Whiteboard app is now available for Windows 8 tablets and laptops. The app offers complete control over PC or Mac applications, such as Microsoft Office and Apple Keynote, from a tablet. Teachers can interact with students individually or as a class, by controlling the students’ tablets. Users can annotate over documents, using gestures to draw and highlight using different colored and sized pens, highlighters, shapes, and text tools. Additional teacher tools, such as the spotlight and screen shade functions, help maintain student focus in the classroom.
VOCABULARY.COM
(www.vocabulary.com/app)
Vocabulary.com has released an app for iOS and Android devices. The app turns learning vocabulary into a game, where students earn points and badges while competing with friends and improving their vocabulary along the way. The app uses adaptive technology to teach over 12,000 words using 125,000 questions. Students can choose which words to learn, or study from over 350,000 ready-made vocabulary lists.
hardware
Motorola Solutions, Inc. (www.motorolasolutions.com) now offers WLAN technology designed to help schools support BYOD programs. The WiNG 5 operating system allows all the pieces of infrastructure in a wireless network to work together efficiently. Motorola’s centralized controllers provide comprehensive, hierarchical management, enabling security and site-survivability at the edge of the network and seamless roaming between sites. Motorola access points deployed in school buildings deliver a lower cost of deployment, along with the speed required to support demanding applications, including voice and video.
Samsung (www.samsung.com) has released the Galaxy Tab 4 Education, designed to support scalable 1:1 computing initiatives in K-12 schools. The rugged, student-friendly, 10.1- inch tablet can be managed via a Web-based console. Through integration with Google Play for Education, the new Galaxy Tab gives educators access to a wide selection of teacher-approved apps, books, and videos. For districts seeking to scale up 1:1 initiatives, a Web-based console—available from Google for $30 per device for school districts—enables IT administrators to easily manage and update the fleet of devices.
Dexter Industries (www.dexterindustries.com/gopigo) has created GoPiGo, an affordable Raspberry Pi-powered robot. With the kit, students can build an entire robot, from the nuts and bolts to the body, motors, and wheels. The robot is easy to set up, and there is no need for soldering parts together. The company is currently raising funds for the project through a Kickstarter campaign.
NewTek (www.newtek.com) has announced enhancements for its professional line of TriCaster multi-camera video production systems, available at no cost to current TriCaster 8000, 860, 460, and 410 model owners. The latest enhancements to the professional family of TriCaster systems include more comprehensive multi-format, multichannel recording capabilities. All systems now offer full ISO recording capabilities and the ability to instantly recall highlights with integrated replay. Additionally, all systems now offer full support for four VGA outputs, including dual projector configurations. Each display port supports an independently selectable output signal and increases choices for multi-screen monitoring and output.
Acer (www.acer.com) has announced the availability of its B326HUL WQHD LED 32-inch display, which features ultra-high 2560 x 1440 resolution to deliver sharp images and high color accuracy with 100 percent sRGB coverage. An ergonomic stand features adjustable tilt, swivel, and height for finding the best angle, and the display includes multiple connectivity ports, such as HDMI, DisplayPort, and DVI. The large screen is ideal for viewing large spreadsheets and the wide 178-degree viewing angle is useful for presentations and collaborating with others.
Panasonic (www.panasonic.com) has announced the KX-UTG200B and KX-UTG300B Session Initiated Protocol (SIP) phones. The SIP phones are fully interoperable with leading hosted and open source based IP PBX platforms, providing a range of functionality including call forwarding, intercom, voicemail to email, fax to email, dial by name directory, multiple extensions, one touch conferencing, and other unified communications tools. The phones offer 5-inch WVGA and 3.5-inch QVGA color graphical TFT LCD display screens with capacitive touch certification on BroadSoft Metaswitch and Digium Unified Communications platforms.
GORILLAdigital (www.goapedigital.com) has released the KONGcart 2000, an AV cart that is designed to accommodate a projector, a document camera, a tablet or laptop, and a sound system. The equipment is physically secured, yet fully adjustable and within easy reach. This allows teachers to face their students and project to the rear of the classroom without experiencing glare from the projector. In addition, the KONGcart has built-in cylinders that allow the cart’s work surface to adjust from 29” to 42” while in use. KONGcarts ship fully assembled with an equipment bundle option.
InFocus Corporation (www.infocus.com) has added the paperback book-sized IN1142 to its LightPro family of ultra-portable LED projectors. Each model in the series weighs less than two pounds and is small enough to hold in one hand. The light source for the entry-level IN1142 is rated for up to 30,000 hours of use and delivers a high-contrast, WXGA (1280x800) widescreen image at a brightness of 700 lumens. The IN1142 is also easy to set up, without the need for a warm-up or cool-down period. It features an HDMI port, enabling a presenter to quickly get content from a laptop, tablet, or smartphone. The LightPro is great for field trips and substitute teachers, and others who are often on the go. And the tablet is great for students, since it has all of the Windows 8 features.
