Watch Eli demonstrate Tutor Trove’s software on a PolyVision Eno Interactive Whiteboard at the Texas Computer Education Association conference! Out in Austin, Eli showed a group of teachers and other ed tech professionals just how easy it is to use our drag and drop functionality on the latest in classroom hardware.
Tutor Trove is excited to be attending two conferences in February—Florida Educational Technology Conference (FETC) in Orlando and Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA) in Austin. We’re already feeling fired up about these conferences, and not just because the heat is going to be a relief from the blizzards in the northeast. There will be thousands of vendors, teachers, and administrators at each one, and we’re looking forward to sharing our latest innovations with the virtual schools, learning management systems, whiteboard manufacturers, and publishers who will be there. Conferences provide us with a unparalleled opportunity to learn from and connect with others from across the ed tech universe.
To learn more about FETC, click here: http://bit.ly/gXBhdB
For TCEA, click here: http://bit.ly/emRMYK
Haiku LMS’s fresh new version 5.4 is a tour de force with its latest addition, the Dropbox Annotator. Powered by Tutor Trove, this feature gives teachers and students the ability to exchange materials without using a single sheet of paper. Dropbox Annotator allows student to electronically send in homework to their teachers, who can then add notes and comments and then send it back to the student via the Dropbox. This remarkable innovation will make communication in the classroom easier than ever, complementing conventional teaching methods and enhancing the educational experience.
For Haiku’s video of the feature, click below.
http://www.haikulearning.com/files/media/annotate-dropbox-promo-final.mov
2010 has been a banner year for the Tutor Trove team, earning sterling accolades (see below) and making progress in leaps and bounds. With the winter season fast approaching, founder Eli Luberoff decided to move boldly into the free agency market and acquire fellow Yalie Mark Cotter. Mark hails from the Los Angeles area and met Eli while they were undergraduates. At Tutor Trove he will be responsible for updating our Twitter, Facebook, and blog pages, bringing you the latest and greatest about Tutor Trove and the broader educational technology industry. Join us in welcoming Mark Cotter to Tutor Trove!
With OpenTok launched, we can finally publicly declare our love for TokBox, an awesome startup out of San Francisco.
TokBox will henceforth be powering audio-video chat in our Whiteboard. For our beta clients now, and all clients soon, the Whiteboard will have a button to activate your camera & microphone and share your video, right inside the page:
Here’s what TokBox has to say:
On September 30th in downtown New Haven, Tutor Trove was honored by the Connecticut Technology Council as the Most Promising Tech Product of the year. Out of 115 eligible “Companies to Watch,” Tutor Trove took home one of the top prizes for our Whiteboard and Math Tools during the CTC’s 4th Annual Innovation Pipeline Awards. In the words of the press release:
“The event celebrates the most promising early stage and emerging technology companies in Connecticut that are considered to have the best potential to be a successful enterprise.”
This unexpected honor only strengthens our commitment to our goals of energizing education through software and online collaboration.
Among the other winners were two more ventures affiliated with the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute, HadoopDB (most promising software product) and SilviaTerra (most promising new green tech company) - it was a strong night for the alums of the 2010 Summer Fellowship.
The beginning of August marks the end of the 2010 Yale Entrepreneurial Institute Summer Fellowship. We need a moment to breathe.
For the last ten weeks, Tutor Trove joined 9 other ventures as we immersed ourselves in a gushing fountain of entrepreneurial knowledge, advice, and experience. Speakers from a whole range of backgrounds came to share what they knew with us - Lawyers guided us through the maze of setting up an LLC and filing for intellectual property protection; Media and PR professionals showed us how to walk the publicity tight rope; Entrepreneurs young and old came in to share their stories and talk about their brilliant successes and humbling failures; And mentors provided by the Fellowship melded with each of the teams, bestowing wisdom and shedding light on tough decisions.
Best of all, the enthusiasm of the group was contagious. We were working on projects that spanned the spectrum of innovation. Among others, there were two food ventures, a forestry inventory, a website that aggregated theater reviews, and group of grad students who burned discarded wood chips into biochar. While Tutor Trove couldn’t tell the biochar guys what temperature yields the best soil amendment, we could talk to them about how to reach clients and hone their message.
It was a phenomenal program. Now, the teams have dispersed as they try and apply what they learned. After the frenzy of the summer, it feels a little empty around the office. But Tutor Trove is suited up and better prepared than ever to tackle the problems facing education today.
Tutor Trove just returned from the 2010 International Society for Technology in Education Conference (ISTE) in Denver. It was an experience. Some combination of the altitude and the 18,000 people in attendance left us a little breathless, but we’ve since recovered.
To begin with, the event was held in the Colorado Convention Center, one of the most cavernous buildings we’ve ever been inside. The ground floor was entirely dedicated to workshops and speakers, but the main action was on the second floor exhibit hall. Hundreds of vendors set up shop to hawk their wares to browsing customers. As was the case last year, Interactive Whiteboards dominated the show. SMART, Promethean, Mimio, and numerous others all put on spectacular shows for the public. They were interspersed with dozens upon dozens of software makers, who created everything from curriculum content to Learning Management Systems.
After adjusting to the scope of the conference, Tutor Trove felt right at home. We presented our integrated document editor and Equation Generator with a partner of ours, Haiku LMS, as we successfully tried our software on every Interactive Whiteboard we could find.
One thing was clear from the conference: technology has seeped into schools across the country and around the word. As teachers compete with cell phones for students’ attention, Whiteboards and digital classrooms are becoming standard in the 21st century education. We’ll see what next year’s conference in Philadelphia will bring.
In the last few years, Whiteboards have been emerging as a premier learning tool for students on the autism spectrum. The link above points to an article about a case study at the Spaulding Youth Center in New Hampshire. Once the school introduced interactive Whiteboard technology into its classrooms, autistic students demonstrated a significant jump in attention to daily lessons. With their increased focus, the students began achieving more and advancing beyond what their teachers had previously thought possible. The flexibility of the Whiteboard platform allows students to immerse themselves in lessons and enjoy what they’re doing, which for many children with autism is essential for learning. This encouraging news about Whiteboards may be the beginning of a new direction in the still hazy world of autism education.
The Spaulding Youth Center in New Hampshire focuses on children with psychological and neurological disabilities (http://www.spauldingyouthcenter.org). They began using interactive Whiteboards in their classrooms in 2006.
The latest version of the Tutor Trove Whiteboard has officially been launched! The upgrades include:
1) A redesigned look - the Whiteboard is now full-screen, with collapsible chat and image toolbars
2) Searchable Image Libraries
3) A brand-new document uploader - this tool allows you to import and work on documents directly within the Whiteboard. Simply upload a file and then drag it right onto the Board. This feature recognizes a wide range of file types.
4) Shareable screen shots - when you use our camera tool, any screen shot you take is now shared by everyone on the Board
Check below for some screen shots to get a better sense of the look and feel of the new Whiteboard, and stay tuned for more exciting updates from the Trove.
For more information, contact greg@tutortrove.com.
