Slate Science Launches SlateMath: A Game Changing Math Learning Apps Series

 

Slate Science, an educational technology company offering STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education products for tablets, today launched SlateMath, a series of educational apps the company will bring to market during 2013. SlateMath can be downloaded for free in multiple languages and is immediately available in Apple's App Store .

In conjunction with the launch, Slate Science announced the closing of a $1.1 Million angel round of funding led by private investors. The funds will be used for continued product innovation, marketing and operational costs.

Slate Science was founded by an A-team of educators and engineers with more than 100 years of combined experience in science education, instructional software development, and mobile platforms. The company developed a proprietary technology and a field-proven methodology for teaching STEM fields. Rather than oferring frontal videos and drill and skill practice, the company is focusing on crafting constructive learning environments that guide children through a rewarding process of self-discovery and intuitive exploration. The company's proprietary authoring technology enables it to develop and deploy its learning apps in a remarkably efficient and timely manner.

The company's first launched product –  SlateMath K-1 – takes children on a journey of playful explorations that guide them through the process of intuitively acquiring seven kindergarten and first grade math fundamentals: Counting, Writing Digits,Addition, Comparison and Order, Parity, Patterns, and Problem Solving. These topics are learned through a progression of 30 engaging activities, each designed to endow a well-defined mathematical concept, skill, or insight. The SlateMath methodology offers fun and interactive ways to learn math and develop analytic skills, and is driven by the Common Core Mathematics Standards adopted by 45 U.S. states.

TheSlateMath series was conceived to address a global frustration with math learning. The company's breakthrough learning methodologies tap into children's natural and intuitive learning processes, and help them acquire knowledge and competence constructively, using self-guided as well as teacher-guided exploration. "SlateMath has two purposes," said Prof. Shimon Schocken , one of the company's co-founders, "to teach math proper through self-paced and engaging discovery, and to expose children to the ways mathematicians think and reason about the world. We see a tremendous opportunity to use tablet technology and constructive pedagogy to endear math to children, and to help them develop into confident and competent thinkers."

The SlateMath series was designed from the ground up for an environment consisting of tablets, cloud computing, and standardized curricula. The series is based on a huge portfolio of modular, richly-indexed, and recombinant educational apps that Slate Science is now developing. Subsets of the SlateMath portfolio can be assembled to support existing textbooks and learning programs as well as the new wave of emerging digital textbooks. The software also adapts the contents dynamically, to address the learner's revealed strengths and weaknesses in real time.

"SlateMath is a game changer because it offers a new and innovative approach to teach math. The product is based on an experiential context, hands-on learning, and self-discovery, making the best utilization of the tablet's touch interface I've seen thus far in educational apps. This approach allows children to acquire and understand math 'in their bones'. The Slate Science technology and learning methodologies are applicable not only to math, but to many other STEM subjects as well," said Robert Scoble .

About Slate Science

Slate Science builds portfolios of educational apps designed to support standard STEM curricula while allowing students to develop, deeply understand, and experience hands-on conceptual learning. The company's first series of products isSlateMath, intended for the consumer market and aimed to support math instruction according to the Common Core Standards. A school version of SlateMath, intended for classroom use and equipped with a suite of teaching aids, will be released soon. Headquartered in New York, Slate Science has R&D facilities in Israel. The company's mission is to help students, teachers, and schools reach their highest potential using advanced technology and constructive, hands-on pedagogy. For more information please visit www.slatescience.com or follow us on Twitter at @SlateScience.

 

Social Media Training for Kids: A 60-Minute Class Workshop

Worried about kids and social networks? While services like Facebook, Google+, Twitter and Pinterest are among the most public of online spaces, it may help to recall that a little education can go a long way towards teaching children how to behave and act more appropriately on these sites.

Granted, thanks to COPPA laws, guidelines are pretty clear that kids under the age of 13 aren't welcome on the majority of social media services. But that doesn't mean you have to wait until young adults reach their teenage years to provide appropriate supervision and guidelines, let alone that you should just hand over the keys (or, in this case, keyboard) and let them run wild upon doing so. Following is just one of many possible social media workshops for kids that teachers, parents and other caring adults can use to educate sprouts about these sites, and surrounding issues.

Start with Basic Training: A good place to start, perhaps even before you connect with tots or tweens in person, is to use a site like Grom Social, which is designed for kids, and has safeguards in place such as filtering and strict rules against forbidden activities. It's a good way to get a feel for the types of actions and activities one can engage in via social media, and in some ways functions like a social network with training wheels. But whether you're using a service such as Grom Socialor talking specifically about Facebook or Twitter, you need to educate children up-front about communications basics, including what these types of platforms are good for and why people use them. Begin by spending about 15 minutes showing them kids the ins and outs of your social media account, or working together on a COPPA-compliant site.

Move on to More Formal Discussions: It's also worth noting that kids and adults use social networks differently. Open the discussion by asking tots, tweens and teens why it is that they want to be on social networks, and share with them some of your own motivations for utilizing these services. It's also imperative to have a discussion about the different types of content that can be shared through such platforms, e.g. text, videos, audio and photographic images.

Questions to Ask:

What types of communication do you think social networks are best for?

What kind of information do you hope to get via and share over social networks?

What kind of information is appropriate to share, and what isn't?

At the crux of all social networking is sharing. Talk about what makes social networks effective tools for interaction, how people commonly utilize them and best practices when doing so -- including what to know about how and why these companies offer their services for free. In short, spend another 15 minutes having a conversation about all aspects of social networks, before moving on to the following step.

Review the Pitfalls: You don't want to focus your entire conversation on the dangers of social networks, but at the same time, it's also important to highlight what can go wrong on these platforms as a way to encourage proper behavior. Discussion topics may include, but are not limited to:

Cyberbullying - Discuss what it is, and what to do when you encounter inappropriate behavior online.

Privacy - Kids' personal information is the most important asset that they have. Educate them as to why they must work hard to protect it.

Scams - Learn how to spot fraudulent content on social network services, whether it's Twitter DMs or fishy status updates on Facebook, and potential consequences of falling prey to these schemes.

Information Permanence - As a way to impart the permanence of information, go ahead and Google yourself (chances are your students or kids have already done so) and talk about the results that show up. It's the perfect illustration of how much of what appears online tends to stay there forever, impact public perception and is not something you can always control any longer.

We also suggest checking out videos from the annual Trend Micro What's Your Story contest. These are put together by kids, and highlight issues of online safety and privacy, including the very ones you'll be having in this conversation. Visit the official contest page and look at the winners together, then discuss what you saw.

Setup an Account Together: When you're ready to get kids setup on social networks, take steps to configure an account together. Work together on establishing proper privacy settings, and discuss each one and what they mean. In other words, walk children through the process, providing insight and guidance all the way. This should be the last part of your meeting, and a crucial step to take, once you think they are ready (and you're ready) to setup an account.

Teachers, educators and parents may also wish to remember the following tips:

 

Go Straight to the Source. All major social networks including Facebook, Twitter and Google+ offer resource guides for families and parents, which include explanations of the services, descriptions of how to use key features, and specific discussion topics for adults and kids. Examples include:

 

Facebook Family Safety Center - Facebook safety page featuring broad overviews as well as detailed categories for teachers, teens, parents and law enforcement.

Google Family Safety Channel - Videos from Google on helping to keep kids safe online.

Twitter Safety Tips for Parents - Twitter Basics page designed for parents to help answer questions about aspects of teen safety for users of the service.

 

Be There for Them: At the end of the conversation, kids need to know that they can come to you with ANY questions or concerns. While your job as a teacher or parent is to be an educator and guardian first, it is important that they see you as a partner in online explorations. Failure to do so runs that risk that they'll work to educate themselves without your knowledge and they won't come to you if something is wrong.

 

Respect Kids' Boundaries: Once children up and running, you need to let them spread their wings. When they start, you may want to like or comment on posts where appropriate, but quickly taper off this behavior and let them establish online relationships on their own terms, without constant reminders that caregivers are able to see everything that they're doing online.

 

Soon Indian School Teachers to be Trained in USA

This year, a six-month training programme for Indian school teachers will be launched under the Fulbright-Nehru Fellowships programme in the U.S., said Maya Sivakumar, director of United States-India Educational Foundation (USIEF).

Talking about ‘Experience America’, a three-day programme organized by the U.S. Consulate General, Sivakumar said that the Indian teachers will get an opportunity to enhance their skills on a variety of academic subjects in the U.S. universities as a part of the programme, as reported by TNN.

Judy Reinke, the U.S. commercial service minister counsellor for commercial affairs, American Embassy informed that the programme has been organized to encourage business ties between Indian and the U.S. companies and to support Indian students to pursue a range of courses in American universities.

Judy further said that "We will help the agricultural sector of India by organizing Pack Expo, an event about packaging technology of agro products at Las Vegas on September 25," as reported by TNN.

It was noted that the programme ‘Experience America’ will have nine U.S. companies and universities presenting their catalogues.

David J Gainer, public affairs officer of the U.S. Consulate General talking of the education sector, said, "Fifteen years ago about 30,000 Indian students were pursuing courses in American Universities, but today there are more than 1 lakh Indian students. Similarly about 4,000 American students are pursing various courses in India," as reported by TNN.

 

Schools, governments charge into the cloud -- why not businesses?

According to a study recently released by CDW Government, a provider of government technology products and services, 40 percent of K-12 schools are turning to cloud computing for storage. However, the cloud is finding other applications at schools, with conferencing and collaboration the second-most-used cloud services (36 percent), and Office and productivity tools running close behind (33 percent).

Considering that most school systems are underfunded, how they can afford cloud-based services? The truth is that they can't afford not to use these services, because cloud computing lets them get much more IT for the money.

Indeed, state and local governments are all making the move to cloud computing faster than most Global 2000 enterprises, which should concern both stockholders and employees. Although the reasons cited for not moving to cloud computing include the lack of clarity around the use of cloud-based technology, in most cases it's simply the fear of something new and the risks around migration, as I've covered in this blog many times.

If the Global 2000 gets anywhere near 30 percent use of cloud services in four years, it will be a miracle. Unfortunately, I think it will be more like 3 to 5 percent for the aggressive enterprises. Even with the U.S. government's Cloud First initiative, the feds are likely to be at about the same low level of adoption as enterprises.

Of course, businesses would argue that they are not schools. True -- however, when you get down to the fundamentals, schools and enterprises have similar IT needs at the user-facing layers. This includes storage, collaboration, and office automation, all of which are low-hanging fruit for cloud computing and have clear advantages for both types of organizations.

What's interesting is that organizations with the least amount of money will move more quickly into the cloud, and thus find the strategic benefits faster than those that have more IT dollars to burn. The result is that where "poor" once meant poorly automated, it will start to mean "modern."

The next time your children come home from school, you may want to consider that the organization where they spend every day is likely making better strategic IT decisions than the organization where you spend every day. Perhaps you should start having recess at the office and get to work on your cloud strategy.
 

Microsoft and STEM Education

An old adage says that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. A Microsoft executive’s recent call for more federal government spending on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education fits this definition to a tee. What’s the real solution to the dismal status of American education, particularly when it comes to the kinds of technical fields necessary for a skilled IT and data center work force?

News Flash: The Education Bubble Will Burst

According to USDebtClock.org, student loan debt in the U.S. is quickly approaching $1 trillion, exceeding even credit-card debt by a substantial margin (some 10%). According to CollegeData.com (“What’s the Price Tag for a College Education?”), “a ‘moderate’ college budget for an in-state public college for the 2011–2012 academic year averaged $21,447. A moderate budget at a private college averaged $42,224.” For a four-year college, that’s anywhere from about $85,000 to $170,000 per student. And in an economy where recent graduates are having an increasingly difficult time finding a job, these numbers are even more dreadful. For some students, particularly those who also incur graduate-school debt, the result could be a lifetime of debt—and a debt that is notoriously difficult to get rid of by other means.

The system has all the makings of a bubble, and one that cannot help but burst. The only question is how soon. The situation for K-12 education is slightly different, but the economics are similar. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (“Policy Basics: Where Do Our State Tax Dollars Go?”), “About one-fourth of state spending on average, or about $260 billion, goes toward public [K-12] education.” State debt—although still dwarfed by the federal debt—resides at around $1 trillion. The difference in K-12 education is that it’s “free”—meaning no one (unless they look) sees the cost by way of taxes. Everybody has access to the system, and everybody pays the taxes whether they use it or not.

The results? PBS (“Math, Science, Reading Scores Show U.S. Schools Slipping Behind”) cites U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan: “The United States came in 23rd or 24th in most subjects [on the PISA standardized tests]. We can quibble, or we can face the brutal truth that we’re being out-educated.”

So, how’s all that spending working out?

Microsoft’s Success

If Microsoft had followed the business model of the state (wantonly throw other people’s money at a problem and hope the problem goes away), it would be far from a household name. It certainly would have no share of the computer OS market. Nevertheless, CIO.com (“Microsoft Calls for $5 Billion Investment in U.S. Education”) reports that Microsoft general counsel and executive vice president Brad Smith has called for “Congress [to] invest $5 billion in the country’s education system—particularly in math, science and technology education—over the next 10 years and pay for it with increased fees on high-skill immigration.” In other words, impose tariffs of a sort to fund more spending into the black hole of U.S. education.

Is this insanity? Well, how far has two centuries of ever-increasing government control of and spending on education brought us?

Microsoft should look to its own model of success (at least idealistically): compete for business, provide a superior product (or, at least, one that people prefer to buy) and engage in voluntary commerce. If it worked for Microsoft, why can’t it work for education? Private education is generally known to be better than public: just look at the actions (not words) of politicians, like President Barack Obama.

At this point, one hears all the howls of how certain children will be left behind: what will poor families do if the government doesn’t control education? Well, how is state-controlled education working for poor families these days? Are the Chicago teachers—who, incidentally, are making on average between about $71,000 and $76,000 annually (and that’s not for a full 12 months of work, like most people must do to earn their salaries)—providing a commensurately high level of education for their students? The recent teachers’ strike was largely a fuss over teacher evaluations: something that wouldn’t even be an issue if teachers were actually doing a good job overall.

So, yes, Microsoft is advocating utter insanity.

What to Do Instead

Instead of calling for charity by proxy, Microsoft could consider implementing an apprenticeship program for young people that focuses on learning real, marketable skills. If the company believes there are returns to be had on investments in education, what is it waiting for? Why use other people’s money? Five billion dollars over 10 years amounts to $500 million per year: why not ask the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation for funding? A private company like Microsoft could implement a stellar apprenticeship (or other style of education) program with that kind of money. Why waste it on an institution—federal and state governments—that are known to be spendthrifts?

For the U.S. to excel in STEM areas, the first task is to get government out of the education business. It is a failure. It’s time to move on. Stop trying to tinker with it. Unfortunately, this is something that won’t happen soon.

Companies in the data center and IT sectors should look beyond traditional schooling if they want skilled employees. With the widespread availability of powerful computers—and the cloud—a dismal state-run education system is no excuse for a lack of talent. Everything one needs to know to be an outstanding data center designer, software programmer, technician or almost anything else is available for free (or at a low cost) on the Internet. Companies should consider how to invest in future employees through their own educational systems, via apprenticeships, mentoring, internships and other means. To be sure, the myriad logistics would need to be worked out, but the alternative is to continue taxing the economy into recession to fund, among other things, a failed education system.

The data center and IT sectors—of all industries—have no excuse to whine about education. They build and (to some extent) govern the ultimate tool of education: the Internet. Microsoft knows the power of putting relatively inexpensive tools into the hands of consumers: how much work is accomplished because Word and Excel, for instance, are available relatively cheaply? And for those who don’t want to pay anything, there’s OpenOffice. And the Internet has innumerable free (and paid) resources to teach people how to use these tools. So why the incessant calls for dumping more money in a system that is inefficient, ineffective and even destructive?

Science, technology, engineering and math are areas that have seen amazing progress over the past century—and even the past decade. Although data centers seem commonplace, they are actually an amazing feat of engineering at a variety of levels, from the silicon that composes microchips up to the interconnects among servers and even surrounding infrastructure that keeps everything running. These advances have come in spite of the current education system, not because of it. It’s time to stop the insanity.

Use technology as educational tool, not for constant entertainment

Throughout history, technology has been viewed as a tool primarily intended to aid in our survival, but throughout the last 50 years or so technology has accelerated to the point of transcending even this need.

Increasingly, much of our technology serves only as a social luxury. Yet with each passing year it becomes interwoven into the fabric of society. We’ve let it into our homes, into our schools, and we’ve given it to our children.

Do we run technology, or does it run us? The world is becoming more and more impersonal by the day, transitioning away from meaningful face-to-face social interaction. In the younger generations this will continue to become more and more apparent if nothing is done.

Technology needs to be viewed as an amazing educational tool, not a toy for constant entertainment.
 

Middle school using cloud computing for down-to-earth education

Jessica Macias missed a day of school recently due to illness but she didn't miss her social studies class.

Macias, a Hobart Middle School eighth-grader, was able to log into class from home using Google Apps, an online document system that allows people to use it just by logging on, much like the Web-based email services Hotmail and Gmail.

Called cloud computing, data is stored on servers at a remote location rather than in their laptops. It's also interactive, allowing teachers to post homework assignments and other information online for students.

The School City of Hobart is using the latest technology, with each student using a computer in the classroom and classrooms using social media like Facebook and Twitter. Several elementary and secondary teachers in the school district are using Google Apps and social media in their classrooms.

Macias said her teacher, Matt Whiteman, puts the assignment and agenda online and students can view it any time. She said when she logged in to the system, she was able to view the presentation like a slide show.

"I could see the other students using the system," she said. "It's really nice the way it works. I was able to stay current with my class."

Hobart Superintendent Peggy Buffington said Google Apps has provided an interactive platform for students with their peers and teachers to learn in real time with instant feedback.

"Students can challenge one another critically with information and facts the moment it shows up in a presentation they are collaboratively working on with each other," she said. "Besides the academic component, the digital citizenship side of this open source product can be used as a tool to show students how to engage in healthy debate and dialogue using media tools respectfully."

Whiteman said technology is an integral part of life, and students need to be able to use computers and other devices because that's what they will see in college and on their jobs.

"This generation needs to be excited about technology and what it can do," he said.

Whiteman said his students also will design Web pages this year to create an online "portfolio" to document their progress during the year. Students also will blog. Whiteman said he'll post a question for students, requiring them to provide more than a yes or no answer in their blog. The blog will give students an opportunity to "debate" questions and improve their critical thinking skills.

Eighth-graders Madeleine Leonard and Jovanni Olavarria like the ability to use laptops in class. They also have computers at home.

"It makes it easy," Olavarria said. "It's faster and much better to do work this way than having to write everything out."

Whiteman garnered a modicum of local fame last January when his question during the Republican presidential debate in North Carolina was broadcast live on national television. He tweeted a question about whether the candidates believed the federal No Child Left Behind law was a success.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich responded the law was a failure. "I think it has led teachers to be forced into a bureaucratic system of teaching to the test," Gingrich said.
 

Northern Ireland education turns to the cloud

 

One of the largest cloud education projects in the UK is in Northern Ireland, where monthly billing has smoothed the path to acceptance

It’s just ten years since Apple launched the iPod (and unveiled iTunes), creating a DNA code for the foundation for the iPhone and iPad, devices that are having a significant effect on all manner of established IT infrastructure.

 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the areas where this revolution in devices is being most keenly felt is education. Ten years ago, few students would have owned a personal computing device of any type but now a significant proportion own a smartphone, tablet or laptop.

 

The bring your own device (BYOD) phenomenon is often discussed as a means of accommodating users at a corporate level, some times in terms of matching the expectations of graduates joining the workforce accustomed to using their own devices. But this tends to overlook the point that those graduates were once students and increasingly students are bringing their own devices into school expecting to be able to use them for their studies.

 

This creates similar types of pressures for schools as those faced by the workplaces. In addition to enabling access from personal devices, they are faced with the requirement to provide networks and infrastructure with strong connectivity and security that support media-rich content, document creation, video editing, collaboration, communication, email and messaging. These are all activities that students are accustomed to in their life outside school and are beginning to expect from their school environment as well.

 

One way to make this happen is by using the cloud. That’s the approach being adopted by C2k, the organisation established to help schools in Northern Ireland get the best for teaching and learning from education technology.

 

One of the largest and most comprehensive educational ICT initiatives in the UK, C2k provides schools in Northern Ireland with a comprehensive managed ICT service. The service includes a LAN in each school with access to a Northern Ireland WAN, administration and management systems for schools, access to the Learning NI managed learning environment (including filtered access to the internet and e-mail), the Virtual Classroom secure videoconferencing system and full service support.

 

The contracts for the managed service were previously split across a number of lots provided by different suppliers and when those contracts expired in 2009, C2k extended them for a further period while it set about the procurement process for a single education network managed by a sole provider.

 

The five-year £170m contract, awarded to Northgate Managed Services (NMS), is designed to give students and teachers increased access to learning resources via a cloud-based network that allows them to use mobile devices, such as tablets, laptops and smartphones, for their work.

 

The Education Network Northern Ireland cloud-based network, which C2k claims is Europe’s first education cloud, will also centralise education materials for 1,200 secondary and primary schools and 350,000 teachers and students in Northern Ireland, making it the largest project of its kind in Europe.

 

NMS has taken responsibility for all aspects of the service, including the WAN and LANs, while connectivity to the cloud will be delivered by Eircom. NMS is using VCE’s Vblock Systems that converge Cisco’s networking, EMC’s storage and security and VMware’s vSphere virtualisation software for the private cloud infrastructure.

 

Commenting on the network, Andy Ross, chief executive at NMS, says it has "built a very modern, very flexible hybrid solution that takes advantage of private cloud and public cloud to create a big hybrid cloud. We’re providing something that’s platform independent, operating system independent, browser independent and device independent." Having a single education network means NMS can provide schools across Northern Ireland with “a standard service using a standard interface and at a standard price."

 

Cloud-based content, including a personal learning environment for students, a learning management system, collaboration and communication tools and a learning content management system, is provided via the Pearson Fronter virtual learning environment on a SaaS basis.

 

Other public cloud services available to students include Office 365 and Google Apps. Pupils and teachers have a single sign on to access applications, educational resources and toolsets, via Northgate’s My-School portal, backed up by Novell Identity Manager.

 

Stuart Gunning, regional director at NMS, says the portal enables personalisation for pupils using school IT equipment, giving them access to a chosen text editor, for example, whether it’s installed on the machine they’re using or not. They will also be able to use their own personal device because once they have signed on to My-School the machine is part of the network with the same level of security and access to schools-based content.

 

The system can be personalised or customised for whether the user is a pupil in primary or secondary school, a teacher or parent or someone with special needs. Personalisation can follow the individual wherever they log on with whatever device they happen to be using.

 

One significant area of concern was around the use of Web 2 and collaboration tools. Gunning says having “any time anywhere” access can create its own teaching issues. For example, instances of cyber-bullying via instant messaging or SMS. With My-School, these messages can be trapped and something can be done to address the problem.

 

The nature of Northern Ireland’s society and the unique demographic there places a very strong emphasis on ensuring there is no inequality of provision to schools, down to the smallest rural primary school. Gunning estimates there are around 35-70 "hard to reach" schools where it has been especially difficult to install broadband connections and alternatives, such as microwave or satellite, have been deployed instead.

 

The service provides C2k and the schools with more predictable budgeting because they pay a monthly charge that can never be above an agreed maximum. “They know exactly what the maximum monthly charge is for the next five years,” Gunning says. And if a school doesn’t receive the service for a certain period of time, NMS will not receive payment from the affected school for that month.

 

According to Gunning, the New Education Network should enable pupils to complete every task they are required to achieve to meet the Northern Ireland national curriculum using video editing, document creation, communication, research and collaboration. "There shouldn’t be a limitation to it," he claims. "If there is, it’s because we haven’t thought about it yet."

 

With the official launch of My-School for post-primary schools taking place in September, one thing pupils returning from their summer break to Northern Ireland’s secondary schools shouldn’t be stuck for is somewhere to compose their "what I did in my summer holiday” essays.