Webinar Explores Benefits of Online Occupational Therapy in Special Education

PresenceLearning’s June 19th webinar discusses a new and innovative approach to the delivery of school-based occupational therapy 

SAN FRANCISCO, May 23, 2013 – With the demand for occupational therapy (OT) services growing due to increases in the cases of learning disabilities, sensory processing disorder and autism combined with the rigors of the Common Core implementation, special education administrators are trying – and seeing success with – new service delivery models, including online OT. To help educators learn more about this innovative approach, PresenceLearning, the leader in online speech therapy services for K-12 students, is hosting a free webinar on Wednesday, June 19th at 1PM ET (10 AM PT). To register for the webinar titled, “Online OT-For Real! Real Kids. Real Goals. Real Results,” visit http://pages.presencelearning.com/spedahead12.

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Free Education Metadata Workshop Scheduled on June 5

Event will help educational content providers understand best practices for implementing new Learning Resource Metadata Initiative (LRMI) specification for increased discoverability

WILMINGTON, DE, May 16, 2013 – On Wednesday, June 5, 2013, from 8:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m., the Association of Educational Publishers (AEP) will host a free LRMI Workshop following its annual Content in Context (CIC) conference in Washington, D.C. The workshop will provide background information and updates on the Learning Resource Metadata Initiative (LRMI), a project co-led by AEP and Creative Commons to create an education-specific extension of the Schema.org web markup standard. Like Schema.org’s goal to improve the general search experience, the LRMI aims to make it easier for educators, students, and others to find precisely the right instructional materials at the right time. The workshop is free and open to both CIC attendees and the general public.

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Epson Now Offers Promethean Software to Deliver Complete Interactive Learning Solution for K-12 Classrooms

Promethean ActivInspire Software Now Available for New and Current Epson BrightLink Interactive Projector Customers 

LONG BEACH, Calif. – May 14, 2013 – Epson, the number-one selling projector brand worldwide1, today announced Promethean’s ActivInspire teaching and learning software is now available for purchase for both new and current customers of Epson’s industry-leading BrightLink® interactive projectors. Educators in the United States and Canada now have an easy way to add curriculum software into interactive learning environments.

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Curriculum Associates Releases New BRIGANCE® Early Childhood Screens III to Help Educators Meet Needs of Young Learners

Screens III include new norms, new validity and reliability research, and new content aligned to early learning and Common Core standards

NORTH BILLERICA, Mass., May 13, 2013 – To help educators efficiently and effectively assess children from birth to first grade in order to address early identification and build school readiness, Curriculum Associates has released a complete new edition of its screening tool: the BRIGANCE® Early Childhood Screens III.  The BRIGANCE Screens III provide educators with an accurate assessment of skills that are critical predictors of children’s school success and include new norms, new validity and reliability research, new content aligned to early learning standards and Common Core State Standards, and a new user-friendly design.

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Worried About Summer Slide? Pick up an Educational App

Baltimore, MD – (KidsEducationNews.com) – We hear it every year – our children lose approximately a month of learning during the summer making it difficult for them to jump into new content in the fall.  So what is a parent to do?  With the accessibility and portability of mobile devices, and some pretty robust learning apps, parents can keep their children learning all summer long.

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Learning First Alliance Honors Linda Darling-Hammond with its 2013 Education Visionary Award

Dr. Darling-Hammond heralded for leadership in teacher quality, educational equity and school reform

Washington, D.C. – May 9, 2013 – The Learning First Alliance (LFA), a partnership of 16 leading education associations with more than 10 million members dedicated to improving student learning in America's public schools, has named Linda Darling-Hammond as its 2013 Education Visionary Award winner. The Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University and an accomplished author, Darling-Hammond’s research, teaching and ongoing policy work make her an industry leader in the areas of teacher quality and educational equity and reform.

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New Grant Helps AEP Lay the Foundation for Personalized Learning and Next Generation Education Search

The Association of Educational Publishers will help the learning resource community implement a new metadata standard that improves online search

WILMINGTON, DE, May 7, 2013 – The Association of Educational Publishers (AEP) has been awarded a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to continue its efforts as co-leader of the Learning Resource Metadata Initiative (LRMI). The LRMI has produced a new metadata standard for describing educational content that has since been adopted by Schema.org, a joint effort of Bing, Google, Yahoo!, and Yandex to establish a standard method of tagging webpages across the Internet. The new LRMI standard is a key component in the movement toward personalized learning. LRMI tagging allows content publishers to assign valuable, education-specific metadata to their resources, which makes it easier for search and delivery platforms to serve up results that meet the specific needs of teachers and learners.

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Smart Toys and Games adds Light to its Award-Winning SmartMax Magnetic Construction Line

New sets include LED pieces, pull-back vehicles, and add on components

SAN FRANCISCO – May 7, 2013 – Smart Toys and Games, Inc., a leading producer of award-winning single-player logic games and the award-winning SmartMax® magnetic construction system, has introduced 13 new SmartMax sets that will provide children hours of playtime as they create structures that light up, vehicles that move on their own and all sorts of new items to help create construction masterpieces. 

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i-Ready® Diagnostic & Instruction Now Includes High School Diagnostic and Progress Monitoring

SIIA CODiE Award-winning online diagnostic and instruction program identifies root causes behind students’ challenges and gives teachers tools to differentiate instruction

NORTH BILLERICA, Mass., May 7, 2013 – This August, i-Ready® Diagnostic & Instruction will include monthly Progress Monitoring assessments for grades K–8 and will expand diagnostic assessments through grade 12. These additions will increase the functionality of i-Ready Diagnostic & Instruction, an award-winning online program that helps educators identify students’ strengths and weaknesses and tailors instruction accordingly.

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PublicSchoolWORKS Helps Schools Prepare and Defend Their Students with New Crisis Response Program

The comprehensive program trains school staff on how to effectively prepare for crisis situations

Cincinnati, OH – May 6, 2013 – To meet the essential need for greater school safety, PublicSchoolWORKS,  the signature safety solution for schools, is offering the new Crisis Response Program, a fully automated system to manage the training, safety tasks, interagency support and resources needed for a complete solution to crisis preparation, as well as customization to ensure that schools and local agencies are prepared to act in the event of a crisis. 

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