Copy Chasers

Linda Winter, President, Winter Group
Bring your most successful campaigns and let's share "best practices" about messaging, positioning, strategy and tactics...it's the education marketers' version of You Show Me Yours...I'll Show You Mine!

Correlating Content for Competitive Advantage

David Moore, Vice President, Academic Benchmarks
State Standards continue to evolve;  so does the environment for using those standards and the range of methods available to correlate content to standards in useful ways.  This session will focus on the changing school technology environment and how this might affect a publisher's correlation strategy.  Examples to discuss will include the growing use of online assessment, links between assessment and content, applications expanding beyond individual states (and beyond marketing uses), an update on alternative methods, technical standards, and whatever the group considers relevant.

Could You Star in a Show Called Software Development Fear Factor?

Yvonne Simon, Executive Vice President/Co-Founder, Six Red Marbles
Do you have a high tolerance for pain inflicted during the software development process? Gone over budget? Missed your deadlines? Eaten your words at the end of the project? If so, your software development experiences could win our contest for being the most unbearable. Or, maybe not...

Come hear and share stories with your industry colleagues about successful and unsuccessful software development efforts and take away advice about:

• What strategies work?
• What are the red flags to watch out for?
• What makes publishers and developers drop out of the game?
• How do you win the game?

This session is moderated by Six Red Marbles, a software developer serving the educational publishing industry with 10 years experience leading successful software development projects (and rescuing not-so-successful ones).

NOTE: To be eligible for Software Development Fear Factor you must be willing to eat worms (gummy).

Evaluations of Instructional Software

Dave Brittain, Partner, MGT America's Learning Technology Evaluation Center
This Roundtable discussion will focus on issues related to the evaluation of software for use by schools. Some of those topics include:

• What is required in order to conduct an evaluation of software products?
• What is required to comply with the scientifically-based research requirements?
• How does a company find schools that are willing to participate in an evaluation?
• What is involved in setting up an evaluation?
• What are the costs associated with conducting an evaluation?
  
  

Exploring Trends in the Effective Use of Interactive White Boards and Related Technologies

Chris Tossell, International Business Development Director, RM Learning; Kevin Pawsey, International Director, RM Learning & Robert Martellacci, President, MindShare Learning
The last few years has seen an explosion in the growth of sales of Interactive White Boards (IWB's) across the globe.  For example, countries such as Mexico are in the throes of purchasing and installing 125,000 IWB's during the next 12 to 15 months.  The UK has seen a huge increase in the numbers of IWB's in use in classrooms with figures from their Education Ministry indicating 20% of all classrooms now have IWB’s installed – a total of 60,000 boards in 300,000 classrooms. 

RM Educational Software has been involved in the development and sale of products specifically addressing the market commonly referred to in the UK as 'Whole Class Teaching'.  This session will inform as to the use and abuse of this new technology in many countries and seeks to garner the views of participants as to how they see this technology developing or advancing in the future.  What other remote presentation technology may supplant or enhance the IWB?

The session will be hosted by Chris Tossell and Robert Martellacci.  Chris is International Business Development Director for RM Plc and has been involved in education for over 16 years around the world.  RM Plc is probably the largest education only technology company in the world with worldwide revenues approaching half a billion dollars.  Robert Martellacci, is president of MindShare Learning, an international learning technology consulting firm that specializes in strategic marketing solutions for k-12 focused technology companies. His client list includes, RM PLC UK, Macromedia and Plato Learning.

Growing Sales Through Third Party Distribution

Randy Wilhelm, CEO and Christine Willig, President, Thinkronize/netTrekker
As small and medium publishers we are pressured to grow revenue at an exponential rate. One option is to consider deploying an indirect sales force, allowing your branded product to be distributed by third parties. Many issues arise with this approach including, territory, price conflict with direct team, commission rates, accountability issues, renewal objectives (if applicable), etc. This discussion will center on these common issues to bring to light some best practices used by participants in the discussion, and to foster a connection between organizations facing similar decisions.

Let's Stand and Be Counted: Creating and Industry Message to the New U.S. Ed Tech Director

Tom Greaves, CEO, The Greaves Group
With new leadership taking the technology helm at the U.S. Department of Education, it is the perfect time for the industry to speak up. During this session, industry leaders will work to draft an Open Letter to the new Director of Educational Technology outlining key messages was as an industry believe it is important to share. Following EdNET, this letter will be shared with other key organizations so that it may be adopted on a wider basis before being sent to Washington. Please join us and make your opinions count.

Managing Identity and Security in a Heterogeneous Architecture

Mark Silzer, Senior Manager, Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Measuring ROI of Technology in School Improvement

SchooNET
Integrating technology in school districts is often discussed as an effective tactic in aiding student assessment and accountability issues, but how is it proven? Teachers have been raving about technology that enables them to access student data in a timely and efficient manner - allowing them to quickly review students' weaknesses and deliver individual instruction quicker. While technology is yielding results in the classroom, school districts face a common dilemma when reviewing the successes - measuring the impact of technology on school improvement. How does a school district measure the ROI on their integrated technology?

Partnering with your customers to conduct cost-effective effectiveness studies for NCLB

Denis Newman, President, Empirical Education
More than ever, government agencies, school boards, and the community at large need to know that school programs are working for students. The No Child Left Behind Act requires that district decisions be based on scientific evidence. But for publishers, getting this evidence in the rigorous form required by the law can be expensive and frustrating. Elements that drive up the cost include recruiting districts to participate, purchasing additional testing, and providing materials for the pilot. Join this discussion on how to lower evaluation costs while building your partnerships with school district customers. We will be addressing topics such as how to design experiments that aren’t disruptive to the schools or burdensome to the district staff; what motivates schools to put their own efforts into the research; how to identify districts that will be least costly to work in; what motivates a sales force to buy into the research; how to use the results to drive increased sales at the district. Empirical Education brings experience in conducting experimental research to benefit vendors as well as school districts.

Technical Standards: Why are they important to K-12?

Michael Jay, President, Educational Systemics
In the not so distant past many K-12 institutions and the companies that served them either selected which standards they wanted to adhere to or ignored standards all together. Those days are quickly disappearing! This not bad news, however, it requires that companies adapt their business practices and provide real differentiation. We will discuss emerging standards including Schools Interoperability Framework and those arising from Project Inkwell to better understand how such standards will benefit the K-12 market, how your business can take advantage of these initiatives, and how you can get involved in directing this important vector of your business growth. Bring questions and be prepared to share with your colleagues.

The Copyright Conundrum: Licensing Digital Content in a Changing Environment

Troy Williams, President and CEO, Questia Media, Inc.
As education technology companies strive to provide teachers and student with adequate research material online, licensed content plays an increasingly important role. But licensing content presents a host of challenges including developing partnerships, negotiating agreements, and creating a viable business model in an ever-changing landscape.

Meanwhile, an ongoing debate regarding copyright issues makes the rules of the game uncertain. While the Internet holds great promise in its ability to democratize information for users of all backgrounds, these legal concerns are basic to our information economy. For example, recent tensions between Google and book publishers over the availability of digital books online have raised many questions regarding how copyright in the digital space will affect education.

Our session will examine the best strategies for developing and marketing education technology products with licensed content, as well as how to maximize incredible new technologies while protecting the rights holders, publishers, and the digital content consuming public, including the education community.

The Future of Educational Content in the K-12 Market

Tim Beekman, President, Safari Video Networks
In the current education environment, where assessment criteria like No Child Left Behind are creating stricter standards for achievement, it is critical that educators be armed with every tool possible to increase student retention rates and performance. Visual learning is becoming an increasingly vital component of the classroom, with video at the forefront. There is substantial research promoting the use of video in the classroom as a dynamic resource for supporting curricula. According to a recent teacher survey, 94% of classroom teachers had effectively used video during the course of an academic year. And most teacher were using it frequently - on average, once per week. The methods and options for content delivery are changing dynamically. Explore the importance of video content for educational purposes, the changing landscape of education and how video can support stricter assessment standards, and the latest methods of content delivery, including a discussion of the necessary infrastructure to implement the different solutions.

The Pace of Change - Will New Technologies Speed UP the Adoption of e-learning Products?

David Roh, General Manager, Interactive Constructs
“Five years from now textbooks will be obsolete and everything will be electronic…” It seems like every year we hear that same prognostication, and the five year window keeps moving out another year. There have been a number of technology related announcements in the past year or so, is the pace of change picking up? Will things like USB drives with copyright protection, and the latest generation of cell phones have an impact on educational publishing? Will school districts giving every student a laptop speed up the adoption of learning technology in general? We’ll talk about some of the recent announcements and have a dialog about what they might mean.