B2E News Alert – Education Business Intelligence

Whew!  Happy Friday – I hope you have had a great week. It is early August, but it definitely feels like Back to School is in full gear, doesn’t it? In my own community and in many around the country, teacher preparation days start next week, so others are already in high gear preparing for their return. Where has summer gone? Each new school year brings excitement (and perhaps some anxiety) to kids and teachers and parents alike. For those of us in this industry, it brings a new year of opportunities, challenges and lessons. I am ready! Read on for this week’s news of our friends and colleagues….

The Texas Council of Teachers of Mathematics Board of Directors has selected Dr. Juanita Copley as the 2008 recipient of the E. Glenadine Gibb Achievement Award.  The Gibb Award celebrates individuals who have demonstrated leadership at the state and national levels in mathematics education. The Texas Council of Teachers of Mathematics established the award in 1995 to honor the memory of Dr. Gibb, a prominent teacher and author in mathematics education. She served as the president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics in 1974, and as a professor at UT-Austin she mentored a generation of mathematics teachers. Juanita is a professor in the Curriculum and Instruction Department, College of Education, at the University of Houston. She is also co-author of Pearson’s new research-based enVisionMATH, a curriculum that combines visual animation and next-generation technologies to engage and entertain students while providing a comprehensive foundation in conceptual development and core math skills. She is the former Program Coordinator of Early Childhood in the University of Houston’s College of Education and director of the Early Childhood Mathematics Collaborative, a professional development project that has involved more than 1500 beginning teachers and 250 practicing teachers.  She served as Chair of the Curriculum and Instruction Department in the College of Education when the Teacher Education Program, Quest, was named the Distinguished Teacher Education Program by the Association of Teacher Educators. Juanita was the Co-Principal Investigator for a 2.6 million dollar grant from the Department of Education for the professional development of more than 800 Early Childhood Educators in Harris County (TX) and recently served as a consultant for the National Head Start Bureau in Washington, DC, working with their new mathematics initiative for young children. She has written and edited four books about early childhood mathematics, three that were co-published by the National Association for the Education of the Young Child and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. What an impressive background! Join me in congratulating Juanita on this much-deserved recognition.

Draper, Inc. has named Jim Hoodlebrink, a 15-year company veteran, as new Rental and Staging Products Manager. In his new role, Jim will oversee Draper’s sales and marketing efforts to dealers in the rental and staging markets. In addition to his new responsibilities, Jim will continue to serve as Information Display Systems Product Manager. We congratulate Jim on his new and expanded role!

Flipside Products has announced that Debra Garvey has joined the team as National Account Manager. She has more than 10 years of sales, marketing and account management experience. Her background also includes financial planning and customer service. Debra’s experience includes serving as Wholesale Sales Manager for DRG, Regional Sales Manager for Riverside Paper Co., and prior experience with Bemiss-Jason Corp.  Flipside Products also welcomes Pam Machenheimer in her role as Customer Service Rep and Kate Law as Marketing Manager. Pam’s experience includes 20 years as an art teacher and private business owner. Kate joins the company with more than 13 years of marketing, sales, strategic planning and customer service experience. Congratulations to Debra, Pam and Kate on joining the Flipside team!

Rock ‘n Learn congratulates Crystle Stewart for winning the 2008 Miss USA Pageant. Crystle appears on Rock ‘N Learn’s Addition & Subtraction Rock DVD, and she is a fourth generation educator. During her reign as Miss USA, she will travel nationwide as an advocate for organizations, such as the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, the National Breast Cancer Coalition, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and Gilda’s Club.  

I was thrilled to hear from Dzana Homan, recently with FutureKids, and to learn of her new position of CEO at Huntington Learning Centers, Inc. She will be relocating from California to Hudson, New Jersey and is looking in Manhattan for a new residence. She is just an amazingly talented woman, and they are fortunate indeed to have her join Huntington. According to Entrepreneur.com, in 2007, Huntington Learning was third in the list of the top ten educational franchised systems in the U.S. Dzana says they will be first! Stay tuned and say hello now to Dzana and congratulate her on her new position at homand@hlcmail.com.

As an independent, global publisher of top-tier journals, college course materials, reference works, and academic titles, SAGE is pleased to announce that it has hired Michele Sordi as Vice President and Editorial Director, Books, Higher Education Group, with the goal of expanding its textbook division and publishing the highest quality books and course materials by the leading researchers and teachers. Michele comes to SAGE after several years at Cengage (formerly Thomson Learning), working as Senior Acquisitions Editor, Executive Editor and Publisher in the Social Sciences division. While there, she earned the honor of “Editor of the Year” five times. Before her stint at Cengage, she worked for Benjamin Cummings/Pearson and Mayfield Publishing Company (now a part of McGraw Hill). Please join me in congratulating Michele on her new position!

Did you see the great “hot-off-the press” interview with David “Dock” Dockterman, Chief Academic Officer and VP of Product Development at Tom Snyder Productions, a Scholastic company? It appeared this week in ednews.org. Rick Abrams, General Manager at TSP, said the interview not only explains why Dock threw out the first pitch at Fenway Park a couple of weeks ago, but also gives a quick synopsis of where we, and the educational software industry, have been and where we are heading.  He adds that his team is pretty confident that even after their nearly 30 years of creating and publishing technology-based materials for schools, the best is yet to come. Enjoy reading the interview at http://ednews.org/articles/27971/1/An-Interview-with-David-quotDockquot-Dockterman--The-Changing-Nature-of-Educational-Software/Page1.html. It will make you chuckle, make you think and remind you of the passion for quality and concern for teaching and learning that is at the core of what we all want to be about in this industry and that has surely driven the many incredible products coming out of TSP over the years. And say hello to Tom and share your feedback with him and Dock at rabrams@tomsnyder.com.

Evye Woldman wrote me this week about a fabulous four days she recently spent when Gary Stager, along with Sylvia Martinez from Generation YES, hosted an institute entitled Constructing Modern Knowledge in Manchester, NH. Evye said that while the group was small, numbering around 30, each participant brought a unique, valuable donation to the whole! Attendees hailed from states including MA, NH, AL, LA, TX, OR, FL and CA, with one woman traveling from the Sudan and another from Tel Aviv, Israel! The mission of the four days, quoting Gary, was “to create a 21st learning environment in which educators spend long periods of time immersed in creative, computer-rich projects collaborating with world-class practitioners. In addition to hands-on activities, leading education thinkers will shape provocative discussions about the nature of learning, creativity and school reform in order to help participants sustain the constructive use of technology back in their schools and districts.” Needless to say, Evye’s report was that they had a ball! In addition to the hands-on, lab and project-based activities, they networked, learned about gadgets and websites, had great meals together and learned till she said her brain hurt. It sounds as though the speakers Gary gathered were amazing: Peter Reynolds from FableVision, who Evye said brought his sparkling, energetic and contagious enthusiasm for creative learning to the group; Alfie Kohn, who, as Evye puts it, has transcended the years, holding on to his ideals and his somewhat radical views; Bob Tinker, from the Concord Consortium – about Bob, Evye says it is impossible to be passive about science when you are infected with Bob’s passion for the subject. He shared several online tools developed at the Concord Consortium, talked about the work that is being done now and what lies ahead. What a lineup? 

This all sounds like a power-packed agenda, but it seems the group also found time for some great social activities. One night, they viewed what Evye wrote was “the greatest baseball in New England”. You are perhaps thinking the Red Sox? Nope – none other than the New Hampshire Wildcats! Our education colleagues enjoyed a barbecue on the field and then a double header – all on the same field. But what really made me laugh was that in the middle of the second game, the team decided they were too tired to play it out, so they quit - in the middle! Too funny! Another evening, some of the group went into Boston for some great seafood and a special experience at MIT where they spent an hour with Marvin Minsky – a memorable event. It sounds like an incredible four days indeed – Evye’s report sure made me wish I had been there. Say hello to our friend at ewoldman@verizon.net.

And our friend Scott Traylor, Chief KID at 360KID, let me know he was writing a blog article about a new social media project out of MIT called Scratch. He shared the idea with Technology & Learning Magazine, and they picked it up as an article this month. He added that one particular part of the article of interest is that the person he interviews, Mitchel Resnick, is a student of and close collaborator to Seymour Papert. I have followed Renick’s work myelf. Scott asks him a number of questions about his work in relationship to what he has learned from Seymour. Check it out for yourself at http://tinyurl.com/6fsx72 and say hello to Scott at scott@360KID.com.

And another friend, Bernice Stafford, Principal Consultant for the Center for Interactive Learning & Collaboration (CILC), is home from the hospital and rehab following her total knee replacement surgery. She is doing great - walking up and down stairs and going outside for exercise and to get her mail. Her therapy is going very well, and she plans to be driving again in 10-14 days. Just terrific news! Tell her you agree at bernice.stafford@roadrunner.com.

I hope you have registered for EdNET 2008 – you know it is the 20th anniversary celebration of the conference, and we look forward to a wonderful event in Boston, September 14th-16th. Important dates:

• TODAY, AUGUST 8TH – deadline for earlybird discount – go to http://www.qeddata.com/Conference/EdNet/YrCurrent/Register.aspx to register and get the earlybird rate.

• MONDAY, AUGUST 18TH – once you have registered, use the password you receive to log in to the online password-protected directory of attendees at https://www.qedconference.com/login.aspx and complete your personal directory information and profile in order for it to be included in the printed directory available onsite for attendees. The online directory will continue to be accessible for searching and editing your own record throughout the year. In the coming weeks, I will let you know organizations planning to come to EdNET that have indicated a particular interest in their online directory listing. Be sure your profile is complete!

• RIGHT AWAY!! – do you have any anecdotes or pictures you would like to send my way to include in the memories pieces we are putting together for our anniversary celebration of EdNET. Send me those right away at bighamv@aol.com. 

Thanks to all who called or e-mailed to ask if we were ok following the storms this week. Honestly, it must have been a very slow news day – we had several inches of much-needed rain in Houston but no real wind or storm damage of any kind here. However – all three news stations did 24-hour coverage. How many ways can you talk about winds getting to 8 miles an hour and water pooling at the curb on some streets – go figure!;-) But we were blessed to miss the storm – that much was true! Have a wonderful weekend, friends….Vicki, the Snoop

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