Category Archives: Encyclopedias

Promethean Introduces ActivEngage To Its Range Of Learner Response Systems

Promethean, a global leader in interactive learning technology, has launched ActivEngage, a new software version of its market leading Learner Response System*. This new application enables laptops or desktop computers to act as personal response devices, meaning schools can provide voting capability in classrooms via individual student computers instead of specific handsets.

Computer-per-pupil initiatives are increasingly being promoted by governments as a means of underpinning schools’ ICT strategies. That, along with schools focus on developing problem-solving and technology skills makes these a valuable classroom resource. The introduction of this software only version of Promethean’s Learner Response System has been designed to complement these initiatives and widen access to their assessment and engagement capabilities.

Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland has welcomed the development of the new software application, becoming the first local authority in the UK to adopt ActivEngage. It plans to introduce the software to primary and secondary schools across the region, following an initiative to ensure all pupils in its 122 schools have access to their own laptop, netbook or PC.

John Tait, Education Officer for Dumfries and Galloway local authority, explained: “It is vital that ICT is embedded into the teaching and learning process. Having enjoyed previous success with Promethean’s handheld voting systems, we wanted to maximise our ICT investment by providing all schools in Dumfries and Galloway with access to this assessment and opinion-gathering capability, without having to purchase additional hardware devices. ActivEngage was the perfect solution.”

Schools using ActivEngage can use the technology in a single classroom or across an entire campus. The voting interface floats over other software applications, enabling it to be deployed at any point in a lesson.

Promethean’s Head of European Education Strategy, Margaret Allen, commented: “Learner Response Systems have proved invaluable for providing teachers with flexible and exciting opportunities to engage, motivate and assess learners. Teachers gain instant insight into students’ understanding and can use the self-paced learning mode, whereby students work through different levels of question sets, to personalise learning to the capabilities of different individuals.”

Students are able to respond to a wide range of questioning formats using numbers, free text, symbols, or likert scales. Responses can be instantly displayed on an Interactive Whiteboard laptop or desktop computer and saved by the teacher for later analysis.

Promethean is also offering schools the chance to ‘try before you buy’, by enabling trial copies of ActivEngage to be downloaded and used free of charge from PrometheanPlanet.com, the world’s largest online interactive whiteboard community. This will give schools the opportunity to explore the benefits of ActivEngage and Learner Response Systems before purchasing the programme.

Via EPR Network
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Promethean Brings World’s Fastest Car To Maidenhead

Promethean, the interactive learning technology provider, organised a rare opportunity for pupils from Maidenhead and Reading to see a life size replica of the Bloodhound Supersonic Car. They were also able to meet and question Richard Noble OBE about the Bloodhound project, and its attempts to set a new World Land Speed Record and exceed the 1,000mph milestone for the first time.

The event was organised by Promethean to mark the official opening of its new offices in Maidenhead. The company is the Bloodhound project’s official interactive education technology partner and aimed to create a genuinely exciting educational opportunity in the area to mark the occasion.

Promethean’s President of European Sales and Marketing, Paul Berry, commented: “Through our partnership with Bloodhound, we are working to give young people access to inspiring content, resources and tools to help engage them in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects that will improve their life chances. This is an ideal way to give pupils a day to remember, and set them thinking about the exceptional things that can be achieved through science and technology.”

Pupils representing Wessex Primary in Cox Green, Maidenhead; Cranbourne Primary in Winkfield; Emmbrook in Wokingham; Ranelagh in Bracknell; and Maiden Erlegh in Earley had the chance to see the 13.4m long Bloodhound replica and take part in interactive sessions involving rocket power, distance, time and speed using Promethean classroom technologies.

Building of the actual Bloodhound car is underway in Bristol. Powered by both a rocket and a jet engine, it has been designed to achieve speeds of up to 1,050mph, and is expected to become the world’s fastest car when it makes a new attempt on the World Land Speed Record in South Africa in 2012.

Along the way, the team behind the project also hope to foster a lifelong interest in science, technology, engineering and maths in young people and help develop a pipeline of talent for the future.

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Promethean Launch ‘Give Every Child A Voice’ Recycling Campaign

Promethean, the interactive learning technology business, is launching ‘Give Every Child a Voice’, a recycling campaign among Scottish schools to support the NSPCC’s ChildLine, the 24 hours-a-day helpline for children and young people.

Promethean is bringing together schools across Scotland to help raise funds for ChildLine by recycling old or unwanted mobile phones. For every 250 mobile phones a school collects, Promethean will donate £500 to ChildLine in Scotland and an ActivExpression Learner Response System will be awarded to the school.

The ActivExpression Learner Response System is a set of handheld pupil devices which allow every child to respond to questions by texting their responses.

All schools are encouraged to participate in the campaign and can sign-up via www.giveeverychildavoice.com, a dedicated campaign website.

There are around 2,150 primary and 375 secondary schools in Scotland, and Promethean hopes to enrol as many schools as possible to help generate a target of £250,000 for ChildLine in Scotland.

Once signed-up, schools will be provided with collection bins, literature and resources to help promote recycling, fundraising and awareness for ChildLine in Scotland.

X Factor finalists John and Edward Grimes, aka Jedward, are lending their support to the campaign by making a school appearance in Scotland where they will discuss recycling and raising awareness of ChildLine’s service.

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Promethean And BrainPOP Announce Integrated Assessments For Learning

BrainPOP, the award-winning creator of animated, educational resources, is pleased to announce that its curriculum-based quizzes are now fully integrated with Promethean’s learner response systems, ActiVote and ActivExpression.

The integration of ActiVote and ActivExpression, the industry-leading learner response system, with BrainPOP’s quizzes – including all BrainPOP Jr. (K-3) topics – makes it easier than ever for teachers to improve learning outcomes by providing highly individualized instruction and assessment. Linking BrainPOP’s content to learner response devices opens the door for increased student participation and higher academic achievement.

Earlier this year, educators in Georgia’s Forsyth County Schools piloted the functionality, which is powered by Promethean’s software developers’ kit.

“The ability to gather formative and immediate student responses while using BrainPOP’s dynamic content adds a new dimension to classroom instruction. The integration of these learner response systems with BrainPOP’s quizzes has been incredibly well-received by both teachers and students,” said Jill Hobson, Director of Instructional Technology for Forsyth County Schools in Atlanta, Georgia.

Administering BrainPOP quizzes with ActiVote or ActivExpression not only engages students but also helps teachers quickly identify who is struggling and might need extra assistance. By fully integrating BrainPOP quizzes into Promethean’s software development kit, teachers can work assessments into their lessons in just a few easy steps. The reporting functions allow teachers to see individual student progress and to view responses in a number of formats. Student and class results can be printed or downloaded, and then incorporated into grade books and learning management systems.

“BrainPOP’s collaboration with Promethean on the engineering of this new capability exemplifies our commitment to 21st century learning,” said Avraham Kadar, M.D., CEO and Chairman of BrainPOP. “The pairing of our quizzes with learner response systems brings a new level of engagement to the classroom, one that is sure to have a tremendous impact on student performance going forward.”

“Our partnership has provided an unprecedented opportunity to demonstrate how interactive technologies and rich digital content can help real teachers in the classroom with real education improvement,” commented Mark Elliott, President of Promethean North America. “A digital learning environment empowers teachers with the tools and resources they need to support today’s student, and, in turn, boost participation and overall academic achievement.”

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Promethean Sponsors First Irish Teaching and Learning Festival

Promethean, a world leader in the rapidly growing global market for interactive learning technology, has announced that it is to be the lead sponsor of the inaugural Irish Teaching and Learning Festival, held in Citywest Conference Centre, Dublin on 15th and 16th October, 2010.

The conference will feature education thought leader, and Oscar winning producer, Lord David Puttnam, presenting his vision of how Ireland can better meet the educational needs of its new generation of learners. As a former president of UNICEF UK, and non executive director of Promethean, the Cork resident will bring some very thought provoking ideas to his keynote.

Graham Byrne, head of Ireland and Scotland at Promethean said: “There has been very strong demand for an Irish event to highlight the very latest resources, technologies and trends in teaching. As a global leading educational technology company and creator of the ActivClassroom suite of classroom solutions, we are delighted to support Ireland’s first ever interactive conference and exhibition.”

Promethean will be demonstrating how its ActivClassroom solutions, comprising of interactive whiteboardslearner response systems and specialist teaching software, are bringing to life the promise of ICT in education, improving engagement and results for learners and teachers. There will also be a host of practical teaching workshops, live demonstrations and an exhibition of the latest education tools for visitors.

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Promethean Acquires SynapticMash

Promethean World Plc (LSE:PRW), a world leader in the rapidly growing global market for interactive learning technology, has announced that it has agreed to acquire SynapticMash Inc, a start-up US education formative assessment software company. The acquisition is expected to complete before the end of July 2010.

The initial consideration is $10 million in cash, of which $1 million is deferred for 18 months. A further performance related consideration of $3 million may be payable in 18 months, dependent on retention of key SynapticMash employees and sales targets.

Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Seattle, SynapticMash has developed a sophisticated and modular cloud-based formative assessment platform that is being marketed to US school districts through a subscription model. Its learning management system, LearningQube, transforms the way schools collect and manage classroom data, enabling teachers and administrators to better assess and track student performance.

Formative assessment is the evaluation of student performance instantaneously during the learning process rather than by formal exam typically at the end of a term or school year. It enables teachers to modify lessons during the progression of a course, based on their students’ levels of understanding, leading to differentiated instruction and improved academic achievement.

SynapticMash directly fits Promethean’s education strategy and significantly strengthens Promethean’s formative assessment and learner response systems (LRS) offering. LRS are handheld devices that allow students to contribute in real time during lessons, and enable teachers to instantly gauge student understanding.

SynapticMash’s LearningQube software will be fully integrated with Promethean’s LRS devices and specialised educational software, ActivInspire, to create a new and powerful formative assessment proposition for the education market, enabling teachers as well as school administrators to improve student assessment and performance.

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Promethean Announces Triple Success At 2010 Worlddidac Awards

Promethean, a world leader in the rapidly growing global interactive learning technology, is delighted to announce that it has won three prestigious awards from the Worlddidac Foundation for excellence in education.

Promethean’s specialised ActivInspire education software, ActivExpression Learner Response System and teacher web community, Promethean Planet, were all honoured in the ‘Information and Communication Technologies’ category.

These awards, which are held biannually, were judged by a jury of teachers and industry experts based on educational and didactic capabilities, design and sustainability.

Promethean has a long tradition of success at the Worlddidac awards, recognising its leading global position in interactiveeducational resources and technology. This year’s triple win follows previous successes for Promethean Planet and its ActivPrimary software, the precursor to ActivInspire.

Iwan Streichenberger, Chief Marketing Officer, commented: “We are delighted with this triple success, which is overwhelming recognition for the significant educational benefits Promethean’s ActivClassroom brings to learning. Once again, this demonstrates Promethean’s ongoing commitment, through the development of innovation interactive learning solutions, to improving engagement in the classroom and raising student achievement across the world.”

The Worlddidac Foundation has been presenting Worlddidac Awards internationally for the past 25 years, recognising excellence in educational resources. Worlddidac is the global trade association for companies providing products for education and training at all levels. It has 180 member companies and organisations from 43 countries on 5 continents. The 2010 award ceremony will be held in Switzerland in October.

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Promethean Partners With Bloodhound Supersonic Car Project

Promethean, a global leader in interactive learning technology, has become the official interactive education technology partner of Bloodhound SSC (SuperSonic Car) Project.

Bloodhound team members have held the World Land Speed Record for the past 26 years, however the new Bloodhound project aims to design and build the first car capable of achieving 1,000 mph and smash the World Land Speed Record. The three year project is lead by Richard Noble OBE and Wing Commander Andy Green OBE who set the current record of 763mph (1228kmh) in October 1997.

Promethean will work with the Bloodhound SSC team to support its international education programme and engage young people in the science that underpins this challenge. Supported by an array of global technology companies and universities, a key objective for Bloodhound is to inspire young people to pursue Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) education and careers.

The project will provide open access to its science and engineering research data and design iterations involved in the development of the Bloodhound SSC. Ultimately this will be the catalyst for a raft of cutting-edge research in fields such as; aerodynamics, materials technology, composite manufacturing and sustainable high-tech engineering.

“In the 1960’s, the goal of putting a man on the moon inspired an entire generation to take interest in STEM. We hope Bloodhound will have the same “Apollo Effect” for this generation” said Jim Wynn, Chief Education Officer at Promethean.

Promethean will be installing its ActivClassroom technology in Bloodhound’s education centres, creating the ‘classroom of the future’ and will be equipping Bloodhound’s education ambassadors with relevant software and educational resources for use in schools.

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Promethean Planet Is Changing

Promethean, a world leader in the rapidly growing global market for interactive learning technology, has unveiled a new look Promethean Planet to provide members with a faster, easier and more enhanced user experience.

Promethean Planet Is Changing

Available free in 11 languages, this next generation of Planet aims to provide its 600,000 plus teaching members with new functional enhancements. These include a one-click mega-menu and enhanced resource search and filtering, making it quicker to search for and access over 20,000 free teaching resources.

Proving once again that Promethean Planet is all about its members, the new site enables users to personalise their experience by customising their interactive whiteboard community homepage with their favourite content and resources, exchange private messages with other members and create bookmarked quick links to any Planet page. In addition, Planet’s free online storage means each member can save and store up to 1GB of resources securely in their free, personal storage space.

With its enhanced website, Promethean Planet continues to lead the way to encourage the true spirit of community. Promethean Planet’s new innovative private group functionality has been designed to meet the needs of educator groups, schools, districts and education authorities. Planet members can apply to set up a private group that includes private forum, blog and wiki functionality as well as the ability to file-share within the private group environment.

Brent Taggart, Head of Promethean Planet said: “Promethean Planet is the world’s largest online community of its kind and its success is due to its members who span 150 countries. We provide the platform for teachers and educationalists to share lessons and ideas, source training, and interact with their peers. The enhancements and improved functionality unveiled today have been designed with our members in mind in order to further improve their Planet experience and to build on its market leading position.”

Promethean Planet’s popular online store has also been given a new facelift, making it even easier to buy publisher created interactive whiteboard resources from leading names such National Geographic, Dorling Kindersley, Scholastic, the Waterford Institute and Collins. These low-cost, ready-made lessons are completely customisable, aligned to educational standards and can be purchased in US dollars, GBP and now Euros.

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Promethean Technology Key To Improved Results At St. Aidan’s

Promethean ActivClassroom solutions help the new £16 million campus at St. Aidan’s Church of England Academy, Darlington, achieve a dramatic turnaround in school attendance and academic results.

Since the implementation of the Promethean ActivClassroom with interactive whiteboards (IWB), the Academy has been transformed from one of the country’s “least effective” schools to a thriving centre of secondary education and beacon of ICT best practice.

Assistant principal, Alan Dick, commented: “We know that technology is a vital part of students’ lives, and we were determined to place it at the heart of our improvement strategy. This approach has paid immediate dividends, renewing students’ enthusiasm for lessons and giving a welcome boost to their results.”

Whereas only 19% of students left the school with five ‘good’ (A*-C) GCSE grades in 2006, this had doubled in 2009, with 39% of students achieving the benchmark – well above the national target of 30%.

Key to this transformation has been the role of classroom technology in addressing student attendance and improving the former school’s ranking as eighth worst in the national truancy league.

Alan Dick added: “Since the opening of the Academy, attendance levels have increased from 81% to over 90% – in a class of thirty, that’s the equivalent of three students turning up to class who were previously disengaged from lessons. The improvement has been influenced by a number of factors but it’s clear that students are more motivated by the use of tools such as electronic whiteboards and learner response keypads, meaning that they look forward to lessons and find it easier to participate.

These results support a recent poll by Becta, the Government agency responsible for promoting the use of ICT in schools. It reported that 95% of teachers now recognise that use of technology is raising standards in schools and colleges (Becta Raising Standards, 2009).

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Promethean Joined By Jim Wynn As Chief Education Officer

Promethean, a world leader in the rapidly growing global market for interactive learning technology, has announced the appointment of Jim Wynn to its senior management team as chief education officer.

Jim has over three decades of experience in education technology across more than fifty countries. He joins Promethean from Cisco, where he led their public sector consultancy for emerging markets, with an emphasis on education. Jim’s previous appointments include head teacher of two secondary schools in the UK where he pioneered the use of ICT, head of research at RM Plc, and partners in learning lead for EMEA at Microsoft.

Jim’s in depth global experience, both in education systems and serving education for highly recognised technology players, will further strengthen Promethean’s leading global position in the interactive learning technology market.

Jean-Yves Charlier, chief executive officer of Promethean, commented: “We are delighted that Jim is joining Promethean. His knowledge of education systems across the world, together with the benefits technology can bring to learning, will be invaluable in further shaping Promethean’s strategy and continued development of innovative products for the classroom.”

Jim’s appointment will help to strengthen Promethean’s pledge to bring to life the promise of 21st century learning, improving engagement and results for learners and teachers alike through the use of interactive whiteboards and other interactive learning technologies.

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Promethean Helps School Host Premiere Of Diary Of A Wimpy Kid

Promethean, a global leader in interactive education technology solutions, presented Riverside elementary School in Fairfax County, Virginia with an ActivClassroom after the school emerged triumphant over 5,000 other schools competing in a nationwide contest to mark the gala premiere of the motion picture Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Riverside submitted an impressive proposal to convert its auditorium/gymnasium into a movie theater, and promised that its students would generate Hollywood-style excitement for the unveiling of the long-awaited film based on the first of Jeff Kinney’s best-selling books. The prize consisted of an ActivClassroom including an ActivBoard interactive whiteboard, a set of 32 ActivExpressions, ActivSlate and ActivSound and the opportunity to hold the gala premiere of the film.

The premiere event was held in conjunction with the National Education Association’s (NEA) “Read Across America” program, which focuses on motivating children and teens to read through events, partnerships, and reading resources; the NEA has designated March as National Reading Month. NEA also sponsored the contest, along with 20th Century Fox, School Library Journal, and publisher Harry N. Abrams Inc.

The Riverside Elementary safety patrol had special “security” duties on the red carpet. Also providing key assistance was WRES-TV, where some Riverside pupils – and budding news anchors – served as part of the morning news team.

F r o m its origins as a series of online cartoons, Diary of a Wimpy Kid exploded onto the pop culture scene when Jeff Kinney’s first “novel in cartoons” was published in 2007. Diary of a Wimpy Kid spent almost three years on The New York Times’ children’s best-seller list, and was translated into 33 languages. The book captured the imaginations of an army of formerly “reluctant readers,” and launched countless video reviews, social networking fan groups, and parties celebrating the release of each new Wimpy Kid book.

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Promethean Wins Major Spanish Tender

Promethean, a world leader in the rapidly growing global market for interactive learning technology, has been awarded a multi-million euro contract to install 4,550 of its ActivBoard+2 interactive whiteboards, together with ActivInspire, Promethean’s specialised teaching and learning software, in 1,900 schools in the Spanish region of Andalucia. This represents around a 70% share of the total number of interactive whiteboards available under this tender.

Promethean Wins Major Spanish Tender

With over 8 million inhabitants and over 6,000 primary and secondary schools, Andalucia has the largest population of Spain’s 17 autonomous regions. Completion of this roll-out of IWB systems will see some 8% of the estimated 78,000 classrooms in Andalucia equipped with interactive whiteboards*. This project is being funded through the Spanish Government’s Escuela ICT 2.0 programme, one of a number of financial stimulus
packages targeted at education technology currently being implemented across the EU.

Beyond the classroom, teachers are able to join PrometheanPlanet.com, the world’s largest online community for users of interactive display system technology. Promethean Planet is available in ten languages, including Spanish, enabling more than 530,000 members from around the world to connect and exchange ideas, share new and innovative lesson resources and access a wide variety of professional development materials such as interactive whiteboard tools.

Paul Berry, Promethean’s President of European Sales and Marketing, said: “We are delighted with this significant contract win, which follows a comprehensive tender process and demonstrates Andalucia’s preference for Promethean’s interactive learning solutions. We believe that one of the key reasons for our success was the quality of our integrated ActivClassroom offering, which brings together our ActivBoard interactive whiteboards, ActivInspire educational software and training, and our teacher community, Promethean Planet. This contract is further evidence of the growing adoption of interactive learning technology in Europe, which is a key growth market for Promethean.”

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Promethean Launches Test Prep Course

Promethean, a world leader in the rapidly growing global market for interactive learning technology, has launched a new programme to help prepare students for college entrance exams.

Promethean Launches Test Prep Course

Created in collaboration with the Chicago International Charter School (CICS), the Preparing for Standardized Tests program is designed to improve student’s performance on the reading and math sections of the PSAT, ACT, and SAT exams.

The Preparing for Standardized Tests program, a collection of interactive whiteboard (IWB) lessons, engages students in mastering essential college readiness and provides them with advanced test preparation. Students can practice how to answer questions from standardized tests using the guided practice lessons and the innovative interactive whiteboard tools of Promethean’s ActivClassroom. Every week, they will complete two essential skills lessons and answer the corresponding practice questions that are presented in a formal testing format.

“This innovative collection of lessons has been carefully designed to support the development of core college readiness skills using our ActivClassroom technology. We believe students will find these unique interactive lessons helpful when preparing for important college-entrance exams,” commented Brent Taggart, Chief Strategy Officer for Promethean.

Preparing for Standardized Tests extends CICS’ ACT Practice Tests, an earlier series of test preparation courses developed by the school. In creating the new program, CICS licensed its intellectual property from their tests and consulted on the development of the core content of the lessons. In keeping with the mission of CICS to prepare all students with a college preparatory education, this new IWB program fully utilizes the interactive power of ActivInspire software and the ActivExpression learner response systems from Promethean.

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Promethean Gets The Scottish Vote

Following the implementation of Promethean’s ActivExpression learner response system, an innovative handheld voting device, Students in Scotland are getting the vote early at the Scottish Parliament’s on-site education centre in the Holyrood building.

Promethean Gets The Scottish Vote

ActivExpression is being used to enhance the Parliament’s education programme, by making activities more interactive, engaging and relevant to the young visitors. Using ActivExpression, students are given the chance to ‘vote’ on key political issues and their responses provide education staff with opinions to encourage, debate and enhance review sessions at the end of the visit.

Alongside ActivExpression, Scottish Parliament chose to implement additional ActivClassroom solutions, including Promethean’s ActivBoard interactive whiteboard solution and accompanying interactive whiteboard tools and ActivInspire software. Bringing topics to life, education staff have used the technologies to create lively resources on the history of Holyrood and daily duties of parliamentary members, incorporating a variety of multimedia, including images, videos and sound.

Margaret Allen, head of European market development at Promethean, commented: “This is a fantastic example of how the ActivClassroom is being used in an alternative learning environment to promote participation and collaboration in a way that appeals to today’s digital learner.”

Beyond the Parliament’s on-site education centre, ActivClassroom technologies have been integrated into Holyrood’s ‘chat room’, a space where visiting students get the chance to question Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs). To ensure the effectiveness of these questioning sessions, Parliament staff decided to implement Promethean’s ActivSound audio enhancement system, to make sure that students are fully engaged and involved in the experience.

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Promethean Announce New Collection Of Interactive Grammar Courses

Promethean, a world leader in the rapidly growing global market for interactive learning technology, has announced a new collection of interactive grammar courses designed to help students develop critical language arts and writing skills.

Promethean Announce New Collection Of Interactive Grammar Courses

The new English Grammar II Essential course is being offered through a strategic partnership between Promethean Planet and Core Learning, an innovative publisher of K-12 digital content.

“Our goal is to give teachers a curriculum that encourages student participation and fosters a greater understanding and use of language arts concepts. We are delighted to offer this resource to the hundreds of thousands of teachers who are exploring new ways to make their Promethean ActivClassrooms even more effective,” said Core Learning President and CEO, Douglas Hatch.

The course has forty-one lesson plans which explain sentence structure and development, punctuation and capitalization as well as how to properly use speech when writing. Different course activities allow students to participate in the classroom using the ActivPen, ActivBoard and a Learner Response System, such as ActivExpression or ActiVote. Each lesson includes notes and teacher resources to help guide instruction and pre-built assessments designed for the interactive whiteboard to help teachers gauge how well students understand the concepts as they are being taught.

“As more and more teachers join Promethean Planet, our goal is to provide them with exceptional resources that help make learning more interactive for students. Beyond offering teachers access to a vast collection of quality content, we give them the opportunity to share best practices and ideas on how to build a 21st century learning environment,” commented Chief Strategy Officer Brent Taggart.

A free lesson from the course can be downloaded from the Promethean website. The course can be purchased and downloaded individually or as a complete program at the Promethean Planet Shop, an online store where educators can find a wide variety of digital content, including ActivInspire, the software needed to run this program and interactive whiteboard resources.

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Promethean Unveils Self Paced Learner Response System

Promethean, a world leader in the rapidly growing global market for interactive learning technology, demonstrated the self-paced learning functionality of its popular ActivExpression Learner Response System at the British Education & Training (BETT) Show 2010. With its unique ability to allow each student to work through question sets at their own pace on individual handsets, while also allowing teachers to instantly view progress via a ‘teacher dashboard’, the self-paced learning proved an immediate hit with learners and educators of every age group.

Promethean Unveils Self Paced Learner Response System

Using self paced learning, teachers can pose a series of questions to the class, grouping them into categories, for example, by levels of ease. The system then automatically allows a learner to progress to the next level of difficulty if they correctly answer questions. Teachers can programme rules, determining the number of questions a learner needs to answer correctly before they are moved up to the next level or alternatively set the software to randomise questions and prevent learners from conferring on an answer.

Alison Lydon, Head of Junior School Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) at The Mary Erskine and Stewart’s Melville Junior School, was involved in a pilot of the new self paced learning application. The response from the seven and eight year olds involved in the trial was extremely positive: “We had great fun,” said Alison. “The children loved it, the ease of use was staggering, and the teaching and learning potential was massive.

“The children really were able to work at their own pace. Questions appeared quickly on their screens and children who were able to answer questions easily were not held back by others who took longer. Children could progress to harder questions when they were ready to, rather than when a teacher thought they should.”

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Promethean Announces Southampton To Adopt ActivExpression City-Wide

Promethean, a world leader in the rapidly growing global market for interactive learning technology, has announced that, as part of its pioneering Assessment for Learning project, Southampton City Council has adopted Promethean’s ActivExpression Learner Response Systems across all of its 77 primary and secondary schools. This is the first time that a UK Local Authority has implemented such a large-scale, comprehensive adoption of ActivExpression, recognising the significant benefits they bring to teaching by improving the way students engage and interact.

The ActivExpression device, which is similar to a mobile phone in appearance and features an alphanumeric keypad, allows students to text responses to a range of question types from multiple choice to ‘open’ questions, and offers teachers an innovative way of assessing student progress and stimulating debate in lessons. Results can be instantly displayed on an interactive whiteboard for discussion in class, anonymously if required, and stored to help teachers assess students’ performance.

The funding for this project was a Harnessing Technology grant from Becta, the Government agency dedicated to promoting effective use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in education. Promethean’s ActivExpression Learner Response Systems will be rolled out to primary and secondary schools throughout Southampton in the spring term 2010. Teachers will be provided with comprehensive training to ensure they make best use of this new innovative technology.

Daryl Misselbrook, e-Learning Consultant for Southampton City Council, said: “We wanted to implement a technology that could offer students a more differentiated and personalised learning experience, which would improve engagement levels of all learners regardless of their abilities. In consultation with schools, we evaluated several systems and found Promethean’s ActivExpression offered the most benefits. It is simple to use, can be incorporated at any point during a lesson and is compatible with a range of interactive whiteboards. Teachers also liked the range of response and assessment options and found it the most durable and visually appealing.”

Duncan Wells, Deputy Headteacher at Hollybrook Junior School, participated in the initial pilot and described his experience using the new educational software: “One of the most valuable contributions of ActivExpression has been its ability to engage pupils, and this was something that teachers witnessed straight away – every child has a say and can take part, without fear of embarrassing themselves if they get it wrong. It makes it a highly inclusive tool, ideal for working with pupils with special educational needs or with mixed ability classes.”

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Promethean Planet Membership Passes The Half Million Mark

Promethean, a world leader in the rapidly growing global market for interactive learning technology, has announced that membership of Promethean Planet has passed the half million mark, doubling in only one year. Promethean Planet was launched in 2006 and in less than four years has become the world’s largest online community for users of interactive learning technology.

Promethean Planet Membership Passes The Half Million Mark

Available in ten languages with members in more than 150 countries, Promethean planet is free to join and enables teachers from around the globe to exchange ideas, share new and innovative lesson plans and have access to a wide variety of professional development materials. The site contains more than 16,000 fully customable lesson resources for all ages, representing more than 225,000 pages of teaching resources, and includes interactive whiteboard resources and premium interactive educational content from leading publishers such as Dorling Kindersley, National Geographic, Scholastic, Waterford Institute, Harper Collins and Oxford University Press.

Promethean Planet received the Worlddidac Foundation Award for Excellence in Education in 2008. Recent monthly statistics show that there were more than 250,000 unique visits, five million page views and more than 550,000 downloads on the site (November 2009). Planet is currently supported in English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Kazakh and Arabic.

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The Swedish National Encyclopedia (NE) Presents For Free The Largest Swedish Educative Quiz With Over 6,000 Questions

Millions of Swedes find a question like this amusing. This is why the Swedish National Encyclopedia (NE) presents for free the largest Swedish educative quiz with over 6,000 questions. You can find all the answers on the website NE.se.

The Swedish National Encyclopedia (NE) Presents For Free The Largest Swedish Educative Quiz With Over 6,000 Questions

In our digital world, people ask for knowledge through new channels. Therefore, the Swedish National Encyclopedia has gone from being a traditional printed encyclopedia to acting in several ways on the Internet and in mobile phones. Our aim is, wherever you may be, to provide answers and inspiration for you to learn new things. This new quiz is the largest Internet quiz in Sweden , and our aim is to attract people who are eager to acquire factual information. Players can test their knowledge in areas such as history, geography, science and sports. Excellent results will appear in a top-ranking list.

Anders Hansson, quiz editor and developer at NE, says:

“Our aim has been to develop a quiz that is both entertaining and challenging for people to learn more. The aim of a quiz should be to arouse interest, not to discourage. ”

On the Internet there are three versions of NE.se:

•  The free section which gives everybody access to 64,000 entries which are more concise than the entries to be found in the subscription section of NE.se. These entries are also available on mobile phones.

•  The main section of NE.se includes some 530,000 verified articles. With its new design, additional functions and regularly updated content, the main section has become a website offering rapid answers and easy access to in-depth information. Also, there are smart add-on features, such as maps, illustrations and crosswords.

•  NE school is a section of the website which primarily addresses teachers and students. You will, for example, find theme packages, study questions and learner packages. A learner package is a function which enables you as a teacher to create your own theme packages or materials to form part of a lesson.

In addition, NE has its own social networking sites on Facebook and Twitter. Also, NE publishes the blog Kunskapsbloggen.se, which is a way for us to communicate with our subscribers as well as other people searching for knowledge.

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