New Digital Lesson Plan Repository for K-12 Districts

ORLANDO, Fla., Jan. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- A new educational repository product announced today at the Florida Education Technology Conference enables K-12 teachers to easily create and store their digital lesson plans, as well as to align them to state standards and share them with other teachers in their district.  

The product is the result of a new partnership between Promethean, a global leader in interactive education technology solutions, and SAFARI Montage, the leading Video-On-Demand and Digital Media Management school district solution.  Under the partnership, Promethean becomes the only interactive whiteboard provider with a digital media management solution that maximizes education technology investments. Educators who use Promethean's ActivClassroom will have the ability to seamlessly integrate media-rich SAFARI Montage resources into lesson plans and classroom activities.

Sarasota County Schools (FL) Director of Instructional Technology Joe Binswanger explains the benefits his district teachers will see: "Our teachers have extensively used SAFARI Montage's dynamic instructional 'videoetts' with their ActivBoards. Early in our work, Promethean and SAFARI Montage worked together to create a search capability that allowed our teachers to quickly find both flipcharts and videos in SAFARI Montage in one quick federated search. This ease of use gave our teachers quick access to fantastic instructional resources and the capability to share them. This partnership will again offer more great resources for our teachers and that's a win for all."

Jill Hobson, Director of Instructional Technology for Forsyth County School (GA), supports the advancement:  "We were one of the first districts to go with a system-wide implementation of Promethean's ActivClassroom solution which cemented our belief in the need to move away from paper-based resources to digital content. One of our flagship resources is SAFARI Montage. Not only do our teachers absolutely love the high quality and vast assortment of videos available via SAFARI Montage, but ActivInspire makes it so easy to embed movies from SAFARI Montage as well as start and stop the movie whenever needed."

Research shows that by broadening the available resources and creating an integrated approach to use digital content in the ActivClassroom, teachers can more effectively address the academic needs of all students. In fact, a 2009 study conducted by Dr. Robert Marzano found that students taught with the Promethean ActivClassroom achieved 17 percentile points higher on average, than students taught by the same teacher, teaching the same content, using traditional methods. Dr. Marzano's research suggests that experienced teachers may expect even greater results and that the Promethean ActivClassroom is an effective tool for helping to accelerate student achievement. This study can be downloaded at www.PrometheanWorld.com/marzano.

"The marriage of the interactive whiteboard and a digital media management and distribution solution yields dynamic benefits to the school district and teachers. We are proud that SAFARI Montage will be further integrated with ActivClassroom and offered to Promethean customers to enhance their use of Promethean ActivBoard," stated Andrew Schlessinger, CEO and Co-founder of SAFARI Montage.

"The ActivClassroom speaks to proven research about what works in the classroom – integrating the most proven and effective solutions with superior lesson design and delivery software into one seamless system," commented Mark Elliott, President of Promethean North America. "We will continue to build educational solutions and forge partnerships to provide teachers with options for addressing the needs of students worldwide."

About Promethean

Promethean - Lighting the flame of learning

Promethean's aim is to unlock the potential of human achievement in education and training at all ages around the world.  It does so by creating, developing, supplying and supporting leading edge, interactive learning technology and by encouraging the growth of the world's largest online teacher community in this field.  In these ways, Promethean is helping bring to life the promise of 21st century learning, improving engagement and results for learners and teachers alike.

The market for interactive learning technology is fast growing and global. In this market, Promethean is a world leader.  Developed by teachers for teachers, Promethean's ActivClassroom brings together its interactive display systems (ActivBoard), its Learner Response Systems (ActiVote and ActivExpression), and its suite of specialized teaching software (ActivInspire). They change how teachers and classes engage and interact, how students learn and how they are monitored and assessed.

Beyond the classroom, Promethean provides comprehensive training and support and, with over 500,000 members, the rapidly growing Promethean Planet (www.PrometheanPlanet.com) is the world's largest online community for users of interactive learning technology, providing user-generated and premium content and is a forum for teachers to exchange ideas and experience.

Headquartered in the UK, with offices in nine countries, Promethean's technology is today helping educate over 12 million individuals in over 500,000 classrooms in some 100 countries.  www.PrometheanWorld.com.

About SAFARI Montage

SAFARI Montage provides K-12 school districts with a comprehensive solution for their digital media networking and visual instruction needs. The full suite of integrated products provides a single interface for accessing all visual resources from inside the school district intranet or from home. The award-winning SAFARI Montage Video-On-Demand and Digital Media Management enterprise solution is designed to cut costs for school districts by utilizing intelligent digital media delivery, while facilitating visual instruction and learning in the classroom. SAFARI Montage servers come preloaded with educational video titles tied to the curriculum from the industry's leading video publishers. In addition, SAFARI Montage provides the ability for school districts to easily upload and manage their own digital video and other content, and easily disseminate it to all classrooms throughout the district. With the introduction of its new Pathways SM module, SAFARI Montage now provides a solution for districts to control, manage and schedule classroom and district devices. For more information about SAFARI Montage, the total solution for digital media networks, please visit www.SAFARIMontage.com.

SOURCE Promethean