Tech & Learning - August 2008 - (Page 36)

NECC2008/WHAT’S NEW PORTALS A PLENTY Shrinking budgets mean less opportunity for professional development. New (free!) teacher portals let teachers share great ideas. KEEPING STUDENTS ON TASK Classroom management tools help teachers make sure students are doing what they’re supposed to be doing. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Learning Technology and Microsoft Corp. released Learning Village (http://hmlt.hmco. com/LV.php). This teaching and learning portal is a single sign-on solution where educators, students, and parents can access and organize their schools’ instructional content. Learning Village delivers curricula, content, and resources in a unified environment-providing a central point for communication, collaboration, teaching, and professional development. PBS launched PBS Teachers Connect (pbsteachers.org/connect), an online community for preK-12 educators, that provides educators with opportunities to share ideas, collaborate, and support the effective use of instructional technology. The new online community is built around PBS Teachers (pbsteachers.org), the Web portal to the wide-ranging multimedia instructional resources and professional development services PBS offers preK-12 educators. Educators can search more than 3,000 standards-based classroom activities, lesson plans, interactive resources, and other materials on the PBS Teachers Web site—all for free. LanSchool Technologies (www.lanschool.com) adds two new features to their LanSchool v7.1 classroom software—USB Drive blocking and keystroke/application monitoring. Teachers can turn off access to student USB drives without affecting other USB devices. Application and keystroke monitoring saves a history of application usage and gives teachers access to everything students type on their keyboards. Microsoft announced Live@edu, a suite of no-cost, innovative online communication and collaboration tools for schools. Microsoft Live@edu allows students, parents, and the entire school community to access documents from Internet-connected computers, collaborate with a group on projects in a password-protected workspace, store large numbers of documents, photos and videos online, and share Microsoft Office applications via the Web. CrossTec SchoolVue version 10 (www. crosstecsoftware.com) of their classroom management software includes a Tech Console that lets teachers centrally manage all student computers. Also new is SchoolVue’s Journaling feature, which provides a complete record of the information covered during a lesson, including teacher notes, selected screenshots, survey results, and the student’s own notes. 36 | TECH & LEARNING http://hmlt.hmco.com/LV.php http://hmlt.hmco.com/LV.php http://www.lanschool.com http://www.lanschool.com http://pbsteachers.org/connect http://pbsteachers.org http://www.crosstecsoftware.com

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Tech & Learning - August 2008 Contents Editor's Desk News & Trends Q&A: Scratch That Best of NECC 2008 How to Build Better ePortfolios Focus on Digital Cameras Leader of the Year

Tech & Learning - August 2008

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