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Hall of Fame
Anne Wujcik — Friday, December 09, 2011
First an apology to a number of companies whose news got left out of last week's issue. I forgot to adjust dates to account for our Thanksgiving publishing break. Their stories are included this week. I also want to look back a week myself. Many of us make the trip to New York City the week after Thanksgiving to participate in a series of education industry events starting with the Ed Tech Business Forum, sponsored by the Education Division of the Software & Information Industry Association, and wrapping up with the Association of Educational Publisher's Hall of Fame Awards. It's a great time to learn about industry trends, catch up with long-time friends, meet industry newcomers and celebrate the hard work and dedication that keeps the industry growing. Read More »
Award Program Lessons
Anne Wujcik — Friday, December 02, 2011
I've been inundated with news about companies who have been recognized in any one of several industry award programs. I don't pick up those various announcements for inclusion in the News Alert; there are just too many. I do recommend that you check out the award sites of the various organizations. The EdTech Digest awards (http://edtechdigest.wordpress.com/etd-awards/winners/), District Administration's Readers' Choice Top 100 Products (http://www.districtadministration.com/article/district-administration-readers-choice-top-100-products) and Tech & Learning magazine's Award of Excellence (http://www.techlearning.com/portals/0/PRESSrelease_AOE_2011_FINAL_v3.pdf ) provide a quick look at which products educators find useful in their classrooms and districts. The Readers' Choice Top 100 Products winners were selected by the editors of District Administration from hundreds of nominations submitted by readers, including school superintendents and district-level directors in districts across the United States. T&L uses a panel of more than 30 educators who test all of the award program entries in several rounds of judging and select the winners. Read More »
ESEA Flexibility, RTTT Round Three
Anne Wujcik — Friday, November 18, 2011
The Department of Education continues to move forward on a number of fronts. Eleven states, (CO, FL, GA, IN, KY, MA, MN, NJ, NM, OK, TN) submitted requests for ESEA flexibility by the November 14 deadline. The Department also announced that the nine states that are eligible (AZ, CA, CO, IL, KY, LA, NJ, PA, SC) to apply for a share of the remaining $200 million in Race to the Top funds have until November 22 to submit the first part of their application. Even though these states will be retooling their Round Two Race to the Top proposals, it will be a big job. The same was true for states applying for ESEA flexibility. Most states needed more time to get their requests together. Thirty-nine states have submitted non-binding intents to request ESEA flexibility, so if everyone follows through, at least 28 states will be submitting flexibility requests. Read More »
Head Start, the Learning Registry, Potential i3 Grantees
Anne Wujcik — Friday, November 11, 2011
It was a busy week in Washington, as the Department of Education made a flurry of announcements, seemingly intent on pushing ahead on a number of fronts in the face of Congressional inaction. Monday, the Departments of Education and Defense launched the Learning Registry, a tool that facilitates sharing educational resources. On Wednesday the President and Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services announced new rules for Head Start. Thursday the Department of Education announced the potential grantees for the second round of investing in Innovation - i3 - grants. Read More »
Technology in Higher Education
Anne Wujcik — Friday, November 04, 2011
I received two e-mails from long-time colleagues this past week, both dealing with the higher ed market. The first came from Casey Green, director of The Campus Computing Project (www.campuscomputing.net), the largest continuing study of computing, eLearning and information technology in American higher education. Casey is one of the leading experts on higher ed information technology and when I actively covered higher ed was always high on my list of people to consult when I needed to understand campus technology trends or policies. The second message came from Peter Grunwald, founder and President of Grunwald Associates. Many of you know Peter from various aspects of the work his firm does on media and technology, including the annual PBS K-12 Education Technology Survey. Peter wanted to alert me that EDUCAUSE had just released a report and infographic that his company developed based on a survey of student technology use and attitudes. The infographic (http://www.grunwald.com/pdfs/InfoGraphic-EDUCAUSE-GRUNWALD-survey-results.pdf) is a great visual depiction of the research highlights. Read More »
Children's Media Use
Anne Wujcik — Friday, October 28, 2011
Common Sense Media released its new study on media use among young children, Zero to Eight: Children's Media Use in America. I doubt anyone is very surprised to learn that young children are spending more and more with the many forms of media available to them. Common Sense reports that children age 8 and under spend an average of about three hours (3:14) a day with media, including screen media, reading, and music. Most of that time is spent with screen media: an average of 2:16 a day. Music and reading occupy an average of about a half-hour a day each (:29 for reading, :29 for music). What is surprising is how young all this starts. Children under two spend roughly an hour a day (;53) using screen media, 2- to 4-year olds spend just over two hours (2:13) and 5- to 8-year olds spend nearly three hours (2:50). And despite all the options available, most of this screen time is spent with old-fashioned TV. Read More »
RTTT Early Learning Challenge
Anne Wujcik — Friday, October 21, 2011
Despite a relatively small award pool ($500 million), 35 states, D.C, and Puerto Rico submitted applications for the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge, a joint program of the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services. The interest reflects the states' high interest in moving their early childhood programs forward. The applicants were required to create comprehensive plans to improve early learning and development programs around five key areas of reform: establishing successful state systems, defining high-quality, accountable programs, promoting early learning and development outcomes for children, supporting the early childhood education workforce, and measuring outcomes and progress. Applications will undergo peer review by early childhood experts from across the country with winners announced in mid-December. Awards will range from around $50 million up to $100 million, depending on a state's population of children from low-income families and proposed plan. Read More »
Senate To Markup ESEA Reauthorization
Anne Wujcik — Friday, October 14, 2011
Senator Harkin (D-IA), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, has released a draft of the Senate ESEA reauthorization proposal. The bill is scheduled for markup in the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on October 18. As might be expected, the proposal does not suit everyone. The civil rights community is worried about an apparent backing off from accountability targets; a number of Republicans believe the federal role is still much too large, despite added flexibility provisions; and teacher advocates have concerns about the teacher evaluation process. State and local education agencies and state governors seem pleased to be relieved of some of the more onerous aspects of NCLB, but have their own concerns about other aspects of the proposal. It's also not at all clear how this comprehensive legislation will (or could) be reconciled with the more piecemeal approach the House of Representatives is taking, though that concern may be premature, as first the bill has to make its way out of the Senate. Read More »
Pre-K Education
Anne Wujcik — Friday, October 07, 2011
EdNET 2011 was a wonderful event, full of energy and reflecting the commitment of the education industry to working side by side with American schools to ensure that every child achieves his or her full potential. I've been at all but one of the 23 EdNET conferences and every year I am amazed at the number of new companies that join us and the number of organizations, both new and well-established, that are EdNET first timers. The PowerPoint presentations are available now. Just go to the EdNET 2011 agenda page and click on the name of the speaker for their presentation. Audio recordings of the sessions will be available soon. Having taken last week off, there are a lot of headlines in this week's issue. Headlines in the Announcements section and multiple releases from the same company are posted at the News Alert web site this week, so click through to the web to be sure you don't miss something of interest. Read More »
Odds and Ends
Anne Wujcik — Friday, September 23, 2011
I'm looking forward to seeing many of you in Denver for this year's EdNET Conference. Safe travels and some food for thought along the way... Well, it seems like we are about to begin the process of endless wrangling over the FY 2012 federal budget. With the new fiscal year beginning on October 1, 2011 and no appropriations bills passed, the House Appropriations committee introduced a Continuing Resolution (CR) that would have funded government operations between October 1 and November 18 at a rate of $1.043, the FY2012 spending level set in the Budget Control Act of 2011. The CR also included $3.65 billion in disaster relief funding with $1.5 billion of that amount to be offset by cutting funding for the Department of Energy's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program. The House rejected the CR on a195Yes/230No vote earlier this week. Read More »
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