Innovation Incubator
The Innovation Incubator program promotes innovative developers of education technology products or services.
Developers in non-profit organizations or young companies will be featured in the Business Profiles Session and at Innovation Showcase & Welcome Reception on Monday, May4, 2009.
For the Ed Tech Industry Summit, many of the applicants came from non-profit institutions or from young companies. 26 applications were reviewed by members of SIIA Education Division Committees, then selected to participate in the Ed Tech Industry Summit.
The Innovation program is partially funded by the Summit's Innovation Incubator Sponsors: Academic Business Advisors, Educational Systemics, The Greaves Group, and Spectrum K12.
The 2009 Ed Tech Industry Summit Innovation Incubator Participants Are:
Adobe Flash Catalyst
Megan Stewart, Director, Worldwide Higher Education, Adobe
Adobe Flash Catalyst is a new professional interaction design tool for rapidly creating application interfaces and interactive content without coding. These can range from interactive ads, product guides and design portfolios to user interfaces for applications. Flash Catalyst enables designers to start from static compositions created in other Adobe products and convert the artwork into applications and interactive content. The designer does this by visually defining events, transitions and motion and can output a finished Flash SWF or AIR application that's ready to publish on the web.
ArchieMD Interactive 3D Platform: Virtual Autopsy
Robert Levine, President, Chief Medical Officer, ArchieMD
Virtual Autopsy is an innovative state-of-the-art 3D interactive platform which is ideal for the K-20 markets. It emphasizes inquiry based learning, simulation, critical thinking, assessment/documentation, and the incorporation of multi-media technology. One example is our Virtual Autopsy. This interactive tool enhances middle and high school forensics/biology. Success is achieved by interpreting case history, identifying relevant medical evidence and drawing upon scientific inferences
ClassLink Inquiry
Berj Akian, CEO, ClassLink
ClassLink Inquiry takes the guesswork out of instructional technology decisions. Patent pendingClassLink Inquiry is the only tool that accumulates and analyzes all your instructional technology usage data. When combined with grading and attendance; now you can correlate technology usage to instructional results.
Kidos Computer
David Van Osdol, Founder and CEO, Kidos Computer
Kidos Computer is like iTunes for children's content. However, in addition to simply aggregating great children's content from around the world, we are scaffolding it with interactive tools and applications for kids and parents. Even the interface is interactive and fun for children, and purchasing content is as easy as iTunes. Although we carry all types of digital content for ages 3-7 including games, books, video, music, we are emphasizing foreign language, math, and science applications and content
Math Learning Exchange
David Hoo, Executive Director, Math Learning Exchange
MathLearningExchange.org will be an online community for improving K-12+ math education with a moderated wiki of user-generated videos for math instruction that address and engage different learning styles. There will be a complete library of NCTM standards-based video courses and assessments that are accessible via PCs and mobile devices for teacher development, classroom use and self-paced, individualized student learning. Users will be able to rate lessons, post questions and match tutors and students. MLE will harness the collective experience and creativity of thousands of teachers, students and volunteers.
MixedInk Collaborative Writing Tool
Vanessa Scanfeld, Founder, MixedInk
MixedInk provides a fun & collaborative way for students to grow as writers, building on student’s online behavior outside the classroom. Within minutes, a teacher sets up a text for the class to create together. Students submit their own versions of the text and weave different versions together to form new ones. At the same time, student ratings bring the best written, most popular ideas to the top. At the end, the class explores the strengths and weaknesses of the top-rated collective texts.
PLEX Labs
Dan Norton, Founding Partner, Filament Games, LLC
PLEX Labs are a series of educational science games designed to parallel existing classroom
activities. Deployed via a web-based game portal, teachers can reduce materials costs and setup time while providing students with an engaging method of interacting with key science concepts and mastering objectives traditionally conveyed through the classroom lab.
The Predictive Assessment of Reading
Paul Zimmerman, General Manager, Child’sMind Publishing
The Predictive Assessment of Reading (PAR) is a breakthrough, universal diagnostic test for students in K-4th grade that is based on 20 years of NIH funded research. In 15 minutes, it can, produce the WJBR score with 90% accuracy, diagnose the single most important reading skill that needs to be corrected for the child to improve and then prescribe a targeted plan for each child.
Skatekids Online/ Ramps to Reading
Hugh Conway, Sr. Vice President of Sales, Quantum Learning Technologies
SkatekidsOnline and Ramps to Reading are virtual online worlds filled with activities and games that teach literacy, reading comprehension, and critical thinking skills. Intelligence built into the programs automatically creates a tailored approach to help each individual student build skills and develop learning processes at their own pace. This tailored approach ensures that young learners remain on task: they are sufficiently challenged and never frustrated while engaged in stealth learning.
Straighterline
Burck Smith, CEO, SMARTHINKING
StraighterLine combines on-demand tutoring from SMARTHINKING with off-the-shelf content to create developmental and general education courses that have more instruction per student, can be started immediately, are self-paced and are priced far below traditional tuition levels. Students can enroll with a credit card for $399 per course or $99 per month. StraighterLine has relationships with numerous regionally accredited colleges who have agreed to award credit for these courses.
The 2009 Ed Tech Industry Summit Innovation Incubator Finalists Are:
edWeb LLC
Lisa Schmucki, CEO, edWeb LLC
edWeb is a professional/social networking website for the education community that helpseducators discuss issues in education, share resources, and collaborate. Educators and partners can use the edWeb to create professional learning communities, improve teacher quality and technology skills, and provide professional development, mentoring and support. The edWeb facilitates conversations between educators, industry, associations, and legislators to achieve systemic change and improvement.
GradeCam
Tami Porter, Executive VP & COO, GradeCam Corporation
GradeCam is advanced image recognition software that works with a camera to grade tests and post scores to any electronic grade book. The immediate statistics and reports provide students and teachers with immediate feedback and make GradeCam a tremendous formative assessment tool. Teachers who already have a document camera can use GradeCam with it to grade multiple-choice tests with up to 100 questions. GradeCam forms can be printed from the software, and all are reproducible.
