ExploreLearning News

ExploreLearning seeks new Director of Professional Development

ExploreLearning is searching for an experienced and dynamic leader for its rapidly growing training and professional development program.  

Primary duties:

• Provide leadership for the successful implementation of ExploreLearning Gizmos in customer districts across North America.
• Manage a talented and growing team of full-time professional developers and per diem trainers.   Recruit and train new team members, as needed.
•  Develop and manage the Professional Development Department budget.
• Design augmentations to the company’s current professional development programming that will increase teacher usage and student success with ExploreLearning products.
• Work with sales team and major customers to plan successful implementations of ExploreLearning products.
• Deliver compelling presentations on Gizmos, the research literature regarding simulations, and best practices for implementation.

Required qualifications and skills:

• Masters degree or higher in math or science education related field.  Ph.D. preferred.
• Strong working knowledge of best practices in the use of simulations for classroom instruction.
• Proven ability to lead a professional development program or organization.
• 7+ years of delivering professional development to math and/or science educators.
• 5+ years of supervisory experience.
• Excellent presentation skills.
• Ability to travel (up to 50%).

 

This position reports directly to the head of ExploreLearning and is based at the company’s headquarters in historic downtown Charlottesville, Virginia.

 

Apply for this position

 

 

ExploreLearning wins another T+L Award of Excellence

ExploreLearning was named a winner in the 27th annual Tech & Learning magazine Awards of Excellence! We are honored to receive this award for the 2nd year in a row. The program honors software, hardware, network, and web products, including innovative applications that break new ground as well as those that added significant enhancements to proven education tools. A panel of more than 30 educators chose the winners. 

Look for details in the December Awards issue of Tech & Learning magazine.

Five more enhanced Gizmos

Enhanced curriculum materials (Student Exploration, Key, Teacher Guide, Vocabulary Sheet) have been added to another five Gizmos as a part of our ongoing project. Check them out!

Freezing Point of Salt Water

Human Homeostasis

Rabbit Population by Season

Solubility and Temperature

Half-life

Enhanced Gizmos feature chemistry and evolution

As a part of our ongoing project, six more science Gizmos now feature enhanced curriculum materials (Student Exploration sheets, Answer Keys, Teacher Guides, and Vocabulary Sheets):

Reading Topographic Maps

Virus Lytic Cycle

Rainfall and Bird Beaks

Rainfall and Bird Beaks (metric version)

Electron Configuration

Stoichiometry

That brings our total up to 60 enhanced Gizmos since the start of the year. Phew! We hope you enjoy these materials and take advantage of all the great teaching ideas and activities that they offer. Enjoy!

Remodeled Phase Changes Gizmo

Prompted by a note from a teacher, we have made changes to the Phase Changes Gizmo. In the original Gizmo, we assumed a "no stirring" scenario in which heat applied to the bottom of the beaker was transferred to the ice through natural convection -- the water heated by the burner naturally rose to melt the ice. This scenario resulted in an average water temperature above zero, even while some ice was still present.

We decided to switch the model in the Gizmo to assume "constant stirring." In this scenario, used in many textbooks, lessons, and labs, heat from the burner is instantly transferred to the ice. Noo heat is transferred to the water until all of the ice has melted. As you can see in the revised Gizmo, this results in a heating curve that is perfectly flat during melting, just as in freezing and boiling.

We hope that this change will make this Gizmo easier to understand and use. If you have comments or suggestions about any of our Gizmos, please send them in! 

Enhanced curriculum and improved Gizmos

As teachers and students are settling into the school years, we have continued to update the curriculum materials for our science Gizmos. The following Gizmos are the latest to be equipped with Student Exploration sheets, Answer Keys,Teacher Guides, and Vocabulary Sheets:

Rock Classification

Ionic Bonds

Covalent Bonds

Determining Density via Water Displacement

Evolution: Mutation and Selection

In addition, we have spent time this month improving some of our Gizmos. Many of these improvements have been suggested by our users! For example, Rock Classification has been equipped with a new set of rock images that will allow students to identify the rocks more easily based on their appearance. Triple Beam Balance now shows masses to the nearest 0.1 g and the "250 g cube" has been swapped for a cube of unknown mass. Finally, Weight and Mass now has a "Clear scales" button and a digital readout on the spring scale. (To see this, place your cursor over the red pointer on the spring scale.)

We hope these improvements will help you and your students enjoy Gizmos even more. Keep those helpful ideas coming!

Labor Day 2009 Holiday -- Office Closed

ExploreLearning's offices will close at 3pm EST on Friday, September 4th and will be closed Monday, September 7th in observance of U.S. Labor Day.

We will respond to customer service and technical support calls on Tuesday, September 8th.

We sincerely appreciate your business and apologize for any inconvenience during this time.

Have a safe Labor Day weekend.

Gizmos and Apple OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard)

Apple released OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard) this morning. Many software companies are working to update their products to work well with this new technology.

Here at ExploreLearning our Gizmos make use of the Shockwave for Director plug-in. If you have already installed 10.6 you may have noticed that you can't see the Gizmos. We don't like that at all! We investigated the issue and wanted to let you know that there is a way for you to start viewing the Gizmos!

The developer of this plug-in is Adobe, and they have stated that they are working on updating the plug-in to work with the new operating system natively, but currently you will have to run in "32-bit" mode. In the future the plug-in will be updated and you will no longer need to follow these steps.

If you have already installed Snow Leopard (OSX 10.6) and previously had Shockwave installed (see further below if you don't have Shockwave installed) follow these steps to view the Gizmos:

1. Print this page (so you can quit your web browser and continue).
2. Quit the Safari browser (in menu choose Safari > Quit Safari)
3. In the dock click and hold on the Safari icon
4. Select "Options > Show in Finder"
   
5. You will now see the main Safari application
   
6. With Safari selected choose File > Get Info from the menu, or use Apple-i keyboard combination
7. You will see a checkbox labeled "Open in 32-bit mode" on the Safari Info panel
8. Select that option
   
9. Be sure that Open using Rosetta is NOT selected
10. Close the "Safari Info" window
11. Restart your computer. After the restart please check once again that Safari is still properly set to 32-bit mode by following steps 3 through 10 again.
12. Start Safari by clicking on the icon in the dock
13. You should now be able to view Gizmos!

If you have any problems following these steps you may have to talk with your technology coordinator or teacher. If you are still having any problems be sure to drop a line to customer support on our contact page and we will work with you to solve the problem.

As the software and technology associated with our content changes we will continue to keep you updated.

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For those that do not have Shockwave already installed you need perform the following steps to install the Shockwave plugin:

1. Download the full Shockwave installer from this location
2. Run the installer. You may receive an alert message like this:
   
   or this:
   
3. Click OK and then continue the installation process.
4. The plugin will be installed. You then need to follow the instructions above to insure that your browser will run in 32-bit mode

Five more make 50

Just in time for the new school year, we have updated the curriculum materials for five more popular science Gizmos:

Golf Range

Pulley Lab

RNA and Protein Synthesis

Chemical Equations

Seasons: Earth, Moon, and Sun

That makes a total of 50 science Gizmos that have been equipped with student explorations, answer keys, and vocabulary sheets this year, in addition to the 40 elementary-level science Gizmos that already have these materials. We will continue to add enhanced curriculum throughout the year! 

Gizmos Make A Difference to Science Results...

Wayne Worthley is a teacher at Redland Middle school - which is part of Dade County School District in Florida. Wayne has contacted us with comments regarding the outstanding results he has seen in his students using Gizmos in preparation for their science FCAT (Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test). The results speak for themselves:

"There were around 350 8th grade students in the school and I taught about 75 of them. Of those 75, 67% passed with a 3 or better. Of the other approximately 275 8th grade students, only 10% of them passed with a 3 or better...

GIZMOS make a difference and are a valuable instructional tool for me."

Wayne, we are delighted that Gizmos are making such a difference to the students you teach, and thank you for your support of Gizmos!