This is teacher appreciation week, and somehow it seems that as a mother and an employee of an educational publishing company, I should be and am extremely grateful to our teachers out there. I just read a great article by Sally Ride, the first American woman in space about how grateful she is to her high school science teacher, and the vital importance of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) in our educational system today in order for us to remain competitive in the future. You can find the article here: http://mashable.com/2012/05/08/sally-ride-stem-programs-teachers/.
On that page was a link to another article about teachers adjusting to digital learning environments. I’m just interested in what our readers think about things like digital science programs, eLearning, and the variety of content delivery systems now available for educational materials. Do they make your teaching lives easier? Is kids not having computers at home ever a problem? Do you find that you spend less money out of your own pockets when using online course materials? Submit a comment if you have an opinion.
And again, thank you for all you do!!!
On August 1, Kendall Hunt Publishing Company added to its roster of inquiry- and standards-based mathematics programs with the purchase of six high school mathematics programs from Key Curriculum Press. This means that we can now offer a comprehensive selection of high-quality, hands-on math curricula from PreK to grade 12!
Adding high school mathematics curricula to the company's bookbag has been a major goal for Kendall Hunt, but finding the right programs was challenging. K-12 division vice president Charley Cook explains that "the high school curricula needed to be a good fit with our inquiry- and standards-based curricula at the elementary and middle grade levels. The new programs from Key match well with both and represent a logical progression of Kendall Hunt’s PreK-12 publishing philosophy.”
The newly-acquired high school math programs are:
· Discovering Algebra
· Discovering Geometry
· Discovering Advanced Algebra
· Precalculus with Trigonometry
· Calculus
· Statistics in Action
The first three programs are part of the Discovering Mathematics series and are fully aligned to the Common Core State Standards. The remaining programs are part of the Advanced Mathematics series, which helps prepare students for Advanced Placement exams and the study of college mathematics.
Kendall Hunt's future plans include working with each curriculum's author teams to transform the texts into fully interactive, digital mathematics programs available in Flourish, the Kendall Hunt digital learning network.
As you can imagine, bringing six new programs to Kendall Hunt involves a lot of work behind the scenes, so the next 30 days will be a transition period for us. In the meantime, you can click on the above links to learn more about these new programs for grades 9-12. And be sure to visit here often to get up-to-the-minute information about how to bring them to your classroom!
It's hard to believe another NCTM annual conference is upon us. The big talk at this year's meeting is about the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for Mathematics, as educators and publishers alike are working hard to make sure the curricula they're using are aligned to the new standards.
Fortunately for Kendall Hunt, our core math products like
Math Trailblazers and
Math Innovations already align very well with the CCSS. And as a digital publishing company with a strong focus on the development of digital learning resources, we can provide CCSS-related program enhancements to our customers easily and economically without the need to purchase additional print materials.
If you're attending NCTM, stop by booth 1235 to learn more about the ways we can help you address the new standards in your districts and classrooms. We're also sponsoring some great workshops that will provide additional product information -- you can learn more about those
here.
And if you're not attending NCTM this year, don't worry! Just call your Kendall Hunt sales representative at 1-800-542-6657 -- they'll be happy to speak with you about all of our math product solutions -- including
Flourish, our new digital learning network -- and the ways they can help you not only meet, but exceed the new CCSS standards!
How can we keep up with all the new and ever-changing technologies that have kids mesmerized? Teachers often feel overwhelmed with the challenges and options this digital culture presents to students. We want students to take advantage of all technology has to offer; however, how familiar are teachers with technology? Teachers often throw up their hands and say, “My students know how to work this stuff and I don’t” or “How can I utilize and implement something that I don’t understand?”
The digital world is growing and changing very fast. Technology companies release products so rapidly that there is little time for anyone to stop and think of the many issues that may arise with their use. Too often when schools and districts purchase new digital technology for their elementary school textbooks they look at all the bells and whistles and don’t think of how will this fit into an inquiry based science classroom or a teacher's daily lesson plan.
Technology offers exciting opportunities in the science textbook publishing arena, but for some teachers this strange new world can be intimidating. Thankfully, there is help available…
The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has developed the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) for students, teachers, and administrators. With these standards, ISTE provides structure for utilizing technology in an effective and responsible way. This site offers a plethora of information, tips, direction, and support. You can even visit a school that has embraced the digital world: http://www.istevision.org/watch.php?vid=fc10dbd9251623e4379652fd1cb0ac54e5ad04a5
As an educational publisher we are committed to assisting teachers to best educate students. Inspiring teachers to transform their classrooms away from traditional teaching toward a new vision of student-centered learning is our mission.
We aim to offer technology that is relevant and to provide implementation support in our teacher edition textbooks. And if you are still struggling with turning on the laptop or downloading the Nano Legends game that came with your KH high school biology textbook, just ask your students for help...they love to show off their expertise.
I love what I do.
I love working at an educational publishing company.
I love that we make things that help teachers teach and children learn.
And I love that we still make physical books with covers and pages.
Don’t get me wrong, the digital learning tools, kits and online resources we put out are amazing, and I think they add such an important dimension to our elementary school textbooks, secondary school textbooks and everything in between.
But for book junkies like me, there’s nothing like a book hot off the press, as it were. Opening a new book for the first time is a sensory experience. The first crackles of the adhesive in the spine as I flip open the cover. The feel of the crisp, new pages as I rifle through them, and the smell. Oh, that printing press smell. You’d laugh at us here because we all do it. We get in a new high school science textbook, for example, and the first thing we do is stick our noses in it to get a whiff of the fresh ink on the new paper. And I’d hazard a guess that you’d find employees at any other educational textbook publisher doing the same thing.
This has been a lifelong thing for me. As a child, my mom always wanted me to get books from the library. Okay, fine, I did, and I love the library, but I wanted to own the book, to keep the book, to watch my books line up on my bookshelves like a literary growth chart, showing me where I’d been and where I might be going. My son has inherited this from me. He told me once when I was ranting about the mess in his room, that I could, “get rid of everything but my football, my baseball glove, and my books.” I almost took him up on it. It’s no wonder I ended up at a school textbook publisher, my love of books brought me here. I wonder where his love of books will lead him.
Powered by Compendium