by Farimah Schuerman
Managing Partner
Academic Business Advisors
Its' that time of year
again. You may think we mean baseball season, or crocus and daffodil
time, but no, its the announcement of Codie finalists. Those of you who
know us personally know that we're big boosters of the SIIA, and know that we
believe the Codie Award may be
the most prestigious award in the Educational Technology Industry. And it
really is "a huge honor just to be nominated." While we promise
to return to pithy writings about compelling subjects, we hope you'll indulge
our departure with this entry.
With that in mind, we thought we'd take this opportunity to congratulate six of
our clients who have achieved that honor this year, and some in multiple
categories and mulitple products. We consider ourselves fortunate to be
in the company of excellence. And to each of you, clients, ABA is pround
to tip our hats!
In K12 categories the newest kid on the block is skatekidsonline, a highly
interactive reading game from Quantum Learning Technologies. We were most
impressed when we heard how much they communicate directly with students.
Imagine that, creating games with input from kids! Skatekids is a finalist
in Best Education Game or simulation.
School Improvement Network established a whole new product category when they
created the first on-demand professional development service, PD360. If
imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, they must be flattered
indeed. With over a quarter of a million teachers and administrators
using PD360, it's really taking off. PD360 is a finalist for Best
Professional Development Solution.
LearningExpress, publishers of eFolio
TM and sponsors of The
Writing Teacher blog, have also been recognized for their great work in
creating a tool that permits classroom teachers to assign writing activities
virtually daily, since they've taken the sting out of grading them all.
Practice makes perfect in writing, and they've created a tool that can make
that practice a part of every learning day. eFolio is a finalist for Best
Course Management Solution.
HELP Math is a double nominee,
recognizing that the software is great for teaching math, and great for ELL
students and special needs students. Constructed through years of field
use, Digital Directions International has some of the most meticulous research
we've seen, showing significant and independently verified learning gains again
and again. Help Math is a finalist for Best Instructional System for
Special Needs Students and Best Mathematics Instructional Solution.
If two nominations are noteworthy, what can we say about four? Having won
two Codies last year, ClassLink has been recognized for three of their
products, including ClassMate,
an SIS for vocational schools (Best Classroom Management Solutions), CLIC (Best K-12 Enterprise
Solution) and LaunchPad
(Best K-12 Instructional Solution and Best Virtual School Solution for
Students). While not wanting to be greedy, we're hoping for a repeat
performance.
In the Post Secondary categories, McGraw Hill Learning Solutions is nominated
for Katana (Best
Postsecondary Course or Learning Management Solution), in a category where the
competing companies are all primarily course management providers. It's
great company to be in.
Congratulations to all the nominees, those listed above and countless others
who have created excellent products that help students succeed. We hope
to see you at the Ed Tech Industry
Summit and Codie Awards Gala in San Francisco on May 3 to 5 at the
celebration.
On May 3 we will be presenting the findings from the 2009 SIIA Postsecondary Market Report, which we co-wrote with Matt Villano, at a pre-conference session.
