This week SIIA recognized four education technology solutions with five key awards for their originality, innovation, and industry promise.
During SIIA’s bi-annual Innovation Incubator Program, held in connection with this week’s SIIA Ed Tech Industry Summit, simCEO and See.Touch.Learn. were voted by 350 attendees as being the Most Innovative and Most Likely to Succeed, respectively. Citelighter was voted runner-up for Most Innovative, and scrible was voted runner-up for Most Likely to Succeed. Citelighter also earned the Educator’s Choice Award based on votes from educators across the country.

The Innovation Incubator Program supports innovation in the education technology industry by raising the profile of promising new technologies while connecting these innovators with captains of industry for mentorship, expert advice, investment opportunities, and partnerships to support growth.

Applicants were assessed for the Innovation Incubator Program on a broad range of criteria, including the education focus, end-user impact, market need for the innovation, representation of K-12/postsecondary market levels, and the level of originality and innovation. Ten finalists were selected for the program

More about the winners:

Most Innovative:
simCEO, Jetlag Learning
simCEO creates online learning simulations where students compete and interact with one another – instead of a program – to make the environment and the learning more dynamic. Students apply skills in real-world environments without right/wrong answers. Our first solution, simCEO targets entrepreneurship and financial literacy where students create their own company then buy/sell shares in each other’s companies. Teachers keep the simulation dynamic through news articles.

Educator’s Choice and Most Innovative Runner-Up:
Citelighter, Citelighter Inc
Citelighter is an academic research platform that allows students to save, organize, and automatically cite content. Once completed they can open Citelighter in a Google doc to have their research next to their writing. As students undergo a critical thinking process (research, organizing, writing) we capture their behaviors and present it back to their teachers so they can see how and where their students need help. This appears like strands of DNA, but they are strands of thought.

Most Likely to Succeed:
See.Touch.Learn., Brain Parade, LLC
See.Touch.Learn., an iPad visual learning & assessment system, improves the social interaction & communication skills of special needs students. Parents & teachers are turning away from traditional, static picture cards towards See.Touch.Learn.’s easy-to-use & effective personalized picture card learning tool. With stunning images, a community of content created by thousands of users, plus their own personal content, teachers & parents can deliver highly personalized instruction & assessments.

Most Likely to Succeed Runner-Up:
scrible, scrible
scrible makes online reading and research apps for students/instructors and publishers. Our Web app lets you annotate webpages in your browser and then save, share and manage them in the cloud. Our Student Edition adds academic features (citations, reports, etc.). Instructors use scrible for collaborative e-reading exercises. Our Classroom Edition will empower them to teach critical reading skills using online reading/research assignments. Our annotation tools help publishers make content interactive.

The other Innovation Incubator finalists were:

• Globaloria, World Wide Workshop
• mAuthor, Learnetic S.A.
• Naiku, Naiku, Inc.
• ParentSquare, ParentSquare
• Shmoop, Shmoop University, Inc.
• zondle, zondle

Video of all the Incubator presentations will be available soon. For more information about the Innovation Incubator Program, visit http://www.siia.net/etis/2013/incubator.asp.

Karen Billings is Vice President for the Education Division at SIIA. Follow the SIIA Education Team on Twitter at @SIIAEducation

SIIA is happy to announce its inaugural Ed Market 101, held Tuesday, May 7, adjacent to the Ed Tech Industry Summit at The Palace Hotel in San Francisco. The Pearson Foundation and Whitestone Communications are lead sponsors for the daylong event, which features sessions that will help startups learn more about their customers: who they really are, how to reach them and what it takes to “sell” to them.

Through Ed Market 101, startups that are new to the industry can explore opportunities the market presents while connecting and collaborating with some of the education market’s leading thinkers. The event is designed to support and nurture the burgeoning contingent of startups in the education space.

In addition to networking activities, sessions at the first-ever Ed Market 101 include:

• How Do You Know if Your Product is Ready for the School Market?
• Who Are Your Customers? What Does Your Customer Base Really Look Like?
• Strategies to Reach Your Customers
• Tips On Getting the Investment Dollars
• Ins and Outs of Building Your Pricing Structure
• One-to-One Business Connections Meetings
• Presidents Panel

Ed Market 101 is co-located with the Ed Tech Industry Summit, which will focus on preparing conference attendees to build the infrastructure, products and services to support the changes that schools want or need in a post-PC world. For more information about Ed Market 101, and to register, visit http://www.siia.net/events/event/default.asp?eID=112. For information about the Ed Tech Industry Summit, visit http://www.siia.net/etis/2013/.

Karen Billings is Vice President for the Education Division at SIIA. Follow the SIIA Education Team on Twitter at @SIIAEducation

The SIIA Education Division will honor Dr. Dustin (Dusty) Hull Heuston, chairman of the Waterford Institute, with its prestigious Education Lifetime Achievement Award. SIIA will also present its Ed Tech Impact Award to Lillian Kellogg, vice president of client services for Education Networks of America (ENA), during the upcoming Ed Tech Industry Summit held in San Francisco May 5-7.

During a special awards ceremony, Heuston will be presented with the award by his son, Dr. Benjamin Heuston, president of Waterford Institute, as SIIA highlights Heuston’s accomplishments and contributions to the education technology industry. Heuston has had a long career as a Wall Street banker, a Naval Air Intelligence officer during the Korean War, a college English teacher, a department chairman, the headmaster of a K-12 school, the founder of the nonprofit Waterford Institute, a for-profit corporation called WICAT Systems, and the co-founder with his wife Nancy of the K-12 Waterford School.

Through Waterford Institute, Heuston produced software for companies such as Microsoft, SRA International and IBM, and created the first educational videodisc for McGraw Hill. In 1996, Pearson took over distribution of Waterford’s products in the U.S. public schools, and today, Waterford Institute’s award-winning reading, math and science curriculum is used in more than 50,000 classrooms in the U.S. and around the world.

In addition, SIIA will present the Ed Tech Impact Award to Lillian Kellogg for her accomplishments and contributions to the education technology industry, as well as to the Education Division of SIIA.

Kellogg has dedicated her career to education and has 30 years of experience in the field of educational technology. She has been elected to and participated in several industry-leading association boards of directors, including the SIIA Education Division. Kellogg has also been actively involved with Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), where she served multiple terms as a board member. She also co-chaired several of CoSN’s high-profile initiatives. Kellogg is the past chair for the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21), where she now chairs the Leadership Development & Sustainability and Membership Committees. She started her career as a high school teacher and owned and operated Computer Plus/Education Access, one of Apple’s largest education sales agents in the U.S. from 1983 through 1997. As vice president of client services for ENA, Kellogg oversees marketing and strategic national partnerships.

Karen Billings is Vice President for the Education Division at SIIA. Follow the SIIA Education Team on Twitter at @SIIAEducation

The SIIA Education Division today announced the participants, and an alternate, for its Innovation Incubator Program. The program will be held during the annual flagship Ed Tech Industry Summit, May 5-7, at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Ten products and services will be featured during the event, and awards will be presented to the Most Innovative and Most Likely to Succeedbased on votes of conference attendees. The Educator’s Choice Award will also be presented based on votes from educators and administrators from around the U.S.

The SIIA Innovation Incubator Program identifies and supports entrepreneurs in their development and distribution of innovative learning technologies. The program began in 2006 and has provided support for dozens of successful products and companies in their efforts to improve education through the use of software, digital content and related technologies. The program is open to applicants from academic and non-profit institutions, pre-revenue and early-stage companies, as well as established companies with newly developed technologies.

“This year’s Innovation Incubator participants stand out as incredibly original and exciting products,” said Karen Billings, vice president for the SIIA Education Division. “It’s a tremendous value for our members to have early access to these technologies.”

Innovation Incubator Program participants were selected from the applicant pool based on key selection criteria, including:

• The extent to which their innovation represents a “sea change” in thinking
• Potential to positively impact education by way of enhanced student achievement, teacher effectiveness, cost reduction and efficiency
• Education focus and end-user impact/market need for the innovation
• Representation of K-12/postsecondary market levels
• Level of originality and innovation

All Innovation Incubator participants will present during the Business Profiles Presentations on May 5, which is immediately followed by the Innovation Showcase & Networking Reception where they will be available for in-depth discussions. After a first round of voting, five finalists will present to a review panel and approximately 300 attendees during the Innovation Incubator Luncheon on May 6.

Innovation Incubator Program participants are:

Citelighter, Citelighter Inc
Citelighter is an academic research platform that allows students to save, organize, and automatically cite content. Once completed they can open Citelighter in a Google doc to have their research next to their writing. As students undergo a critical thinking process (research, organizing, writing) we capture their behaviors and present it back to their teachers so they can see how and where their students need help. This appear like strands of DNA, but they are strands of thought.

Globaloria, World Wide Workshop
Globaloria is a project-based learning platform for teaching any subject through webgame design. A turn-key instructional solution, it integrates an academic curriculum, programming tutorials, and virtual support with professional development tools and a social learning network, making prior programming skills unnecessary. As students research educational game topics and learn content knowledge, they develop digital literacies and STEM & Computing skills by programming their original webgames.

mAuthor, Learnetic S.A.
Learnetic has pioneered an authoring system for creating INTERACTIVE mobile content ideal for publishers and developers and, in its next iteration for teachers. Content displays and functions on any device with any OS/screen size so is ideal for the diverse installed base of mobile devices in schools. Created content can easily be integrated with any website or learning platform. The Cloud based development approach provides maintenance free control of publishing process, content and technology.

Naiku, Naiku, Inc.
Naiku accelerates learning by providing next generation assessment solutions on any web enabled device. With automated scoring and built-in standards-aligned reports, teachers instantly know what each and every student knows. Additionally Naiku’s unique “better assessment” methodology engages students through research backed practices such as confidence based assessment, journaling, and reflection to provide teachers with a more complete picture of student performance than currently possible.

ParentSquare, ParentSquare
ParentSquare is an online platform for schools that makes parent involvement easy. Studies confirm what logic tells us to be true: parent involvement is the key to student success. School-home communication and parent participation are key components of parent involvement and ParentSquare exceptionally simplifies both. Teachers and parents have called it “an effective communication tool,” “an efficient way to recruit volunteers,” “great tool for individual class reminders,” “irreplaceable!”

scrible, scrible
scrible makes online reading and research apps for students/instructors and publishers. Our Web app lets you annotate webpages in your browser and then save, share and manage them in the cloud. Our Student Edition adds academic features (citations, reports, etc.). Instructors use scrible for collaborative e-reading exercises. Our Classroom Edition will empower them to teach critical reading skills using online reading/research assignments. Our annotation tools help publishers make content interactive.

See.Touch.Learn., Brain Parade, LLC
See.Touch.Learn., an iPad visual learning & assessment system, improves the social interaction & communication skills of special needs students. Parents & teachers are turning away from traditional, static picture cards towards See.Touch.Learn.’s easy-to-use & effective personalized picture card learning tool. With stunning images, a community of content created by thousands of users, plus their own personal content, teachers & parents can deliver highly personalized instruction & assessments.

Shmoop, Shmoop University, Inc.
Shmoop is a digital education resources company that innovates education by making learning accessible through understandable language and online materials. Shmoop uses colloquial language & pop culture to make learning fun and easy for students. Also, Shmoop serves as a one-stop education stop from high school to the real world, “specializing” in a gamut of resources, including literature & history guides, online classrooms, teacher resources, online textbooks, test prep, and career resources.

simCEO, Jetlag Learning
simCEO creates online learning simulations where students compete and interact with one another – instead of a program – to make the environment and the learning more dynamic. Students apply skills in a real-world environments without right/wrong answers. Our first solution, simCEO targets entrepreneurship and financial literacy where students create their own company then buy/sell shares in each other’s companies. Teachers keep the simulation dynamic through news articles.

zondle, zondle
zondle is a unique web and mobile platform that enables teachers and students to create, play and share games to support learning. Teachers choose or create questions to match exactly their teaching aims (multiple formats, any subject, any level, any language). Students play and practice those questions (or questions they’ve created) in any of zondle’s casual games (any topic in any game, to consolidate classroom learning, for assessment, or to prepare for high-stakes tests).

Alternate:

Educator’s Professional Inventory (EPI), TeacherMatch

Educator’s Professional Inventory (EPI) is a research-based pre-employment assessment that leverages statistically validated predictive analytics to determine which teacher candidates are most likely to generate relatively higher levels of students’ academic growth. EPI transforms hiring by providing an objective and economical way for administrators to vet candidates. With the knowledge that every school district is unique, EPI’s analytical engine provides insight over time into each context.

For more information about the Ed Tech Industry Summit, visit siia.net/etis/2013/incubator.asp or contact Liderby Portorreal at Education@siia.net.

Karen Billings is Vice President for the Education Division at SIIA. Follow the SIIA Education Team on Twitter at @SIIAEducation