Children's Holiday Greetings Come to Life Via Mediasite

MADISON, Wis., Dec. 14, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Children's artwork comes to life as Sonic Foundry, Inc. (Nasdaq: SOFO), the recognized market leader for rich media webcasting, lecture capture and knowledge management, partners with Shorewood Hills Elementary School in Madison, Wis. to deliver hi-tech holiday greetings using students' original concrete poems and Mediasite.

To view their greetings visit www.sonicfoundry.com/holiday2010.

Twenty-three fourth and fifth grade students – both individually and in small groups – created concrete poems based upon the broad themes of the New Year, Peace on Earth and Joy of Winter. Under the direction of Rich Hamel and Michele Hatchell, the homeroom and art teachers, the students wrote the poetry, used computers to print out the words and then used the text to create the art. The students then presented their poems via a Mediasite webcast.

"I like to write inspiring poems so I chose Peace on Earth," said Aviv Goldman, fourth grade, who presented her poem entitled "Hope". "I hope people who watch this see that I'm writing about peace. We don't want war; we want good things in the world."

Now, with a click of a mouse, Aviv and her classmates will be able to share their holiday messages with family members at home and abroad. Shorewood Hills Elementary School is an international school with students attending from 39 countries and speaking 30 languages. The students in Mr. Hamel's class represent Israel, Poland, Taiwan, Peru, China, Hong Kong, Germany, Indonesia, Korea, Macedonia and the United States.

Technology in the Classroom

The partnership between Shorewood Hills Elementary and Sonic Foundry is part of the school's Service Learning Grant. Awarded from private STEM funds and passed through State of Wisconsin's Department of Public Instruction, the goal of the grant is to expand student relationships with the community through service learning programs and curriculum. The company also presented the class with a Mediasite RL Recorder. The gift will complement Shorewood's distinction as a Service Learning Center, and support ongoing activities to include technology in the classroom.

"We are thrilled that Sonic Foundry is one of the community partnerships formed as part of this grant. As a school community we're very interested in being more technologically advanced, and we're finding this is a nice marriage between the Service Learning Project and the Mediasite webcasting technology," said Michele Hatchell. "This has been an amazing project to work on."

The project also advances Sonic Foundry's longstanding relationship with Madison-area schools. The company has an employee-tutoring program in place encouraging employees to give their time during corporate hours to mentor students one-on-one.

"I've had the personal honor of seeing our employees donate time to local schools for several years, in many cases mentoring students into high school. Because of this long history, it was a natural fit when the opportunity arose to partner with Shorewood Hills and support their technology initiatives," said Monty Schmidt, founder and CTO of Sonic Foundry. "Sonic Foundry strives every day to help educators and students around the world improve the way they teach and learn, and to ensure that someday our technology will be in every classroom and lecture hall, including schools in our own backyard."

About Sonic Foundry®, Inc.

Sonic Foundry (NASDAQ: SOFO, www.sonicfoundry.com) is the global leader for rich media webcasting and knowledge management, providing enterprise communication solutions for education, business and government. Powered by Mediasite, the patented webcasting platform which automates the capture, management, delivery and search of lectures, online training and briefings, Sonic Foundry empowers people to transform the way they communicate. Through the Mediasite platform and its Event Services group, the company helps customers connect a dynamic, evolving world of shared knowledge and envisions a future where learners and workers around the globe use webcasting to bridge time and distance, accelerate research and improve performance. Product and service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of Sonic Foundry, Inc. or their respective owners.

Certain statements contained in this news release regarding matters that are not historical facts may be forward-looking statements. Because such forward-looking statements include risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those expressed in or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include, but are not limited to, uncertainties pertaining to continued market acceptance for Sonic Foundry's products, its ability to succeed in capturing significant revenues from media services and/or systems, the effect of new competitors in its market, integration of acquired business and other risk factors identified from time to time in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

SOURCE Sonic Foundry, Inc.