America Online's Free Teaching Tool Makes its Classroom Debut Helping Schools to Harness the Internet's Power Through Age-Appropriate Educational Content, Communications Tools and Safety Features.Business Editors/Hi-Tech Writers DULLES, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 28, 2000 Teachers and Students Embrace Online Resources as They Head Back to the Classroom AOL (A division of Time Warner, Inc., New York, NY, www.aol.com) The world's largest online information service with access to the Internet, e-mail, chat rooms and a variety of databases and services. @SCHOOL Unveils New Features for Start of School Year; BrainPOP Alliance to Enhance Rich Content Offerings As children across the country get ready to return to school this fall, their teachers are taking a different approach to preparing their classrooms. With 95% of nation's schools wired for the Internet Internet Publicly accessible computer network connecting many smaller networks from around the world. It grew out of a U.S. Defense Department program called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), established in 1969 with connections between computers at the , more and more teachers and students are embracing online educational resources, making this year the first "e-Back to School." It's no longer just about the "3 R's" -- Reading, 'Riting and 'Rithmetic -- today there's a new set of rules for the classroom based on the "3 C's" of the Internet -- Clicks, Content and Community. This school year America Online's free educational service, AOL@SCHOOL, is making its debut in schools nationwide. Launched last May, AOL@SCHOOL is a unique online learning tool designed to help schools make the interactive medium a more effective part of the classroom experience. While virtually all schools in the U.S. are now wired for the Internet, studies clearly indicate that educators are not certain of how best to make use of the medium's vast educational resources. AOL@SCHOOL applies America Online's hallmark hallmark, mark impressed on silverwork or goldwork to signify official approval of the standard of purity of the metal, also called plate mark. The hallmark was introduced by statute in England in 1300 and enforced by the Goldsmiths' Hall, London. focus on convenience and ease-of-use to this dilemma, providing a series of safe, age-appropriate learning portals with easy-to-follow links to online content selected by educational experts. The AOL@SCHOOL software also offers schools the ability to provide students with communications features such as e-mail and instant messaging Exchanging text messages in real time between two or more people logged into a particular instant messaging (IM) service. Instant messaging is more interactive than e-mail because messages are sent immediately, whereas e-mail messages can be queued up in a mail server for seconds or , at the discretion of school officials. Additionally, the service features an education-focused search engine, AOL's unique safety controls to protect kids from inappropriate content or limit use of communications features, and special resource portals for teachers and administrators. Dr. Terry Crane, AOL's Vice President of Education Products, said: "In just a few weeks, we will start AOL@SCHOOL's first year in classroom use. We are thrilled thrill v. thrilled, thrill·ing, thrills v.tr. 1. To cause to feel a sudden intense sensation; excite greatly. 2. To give great pleasure to; delight. See Synonyms at enrapture. about the tremendous interest of schools across the country in being a part of this exciting undertaking, and are extremely pleased to be adding key features and content to make the service an even more effective educational tool for teachers and students." New AOL@SCHOOL Features Provide Additional Resources for Teachers AOL has enhanced its revolutionary AOL@SCHOOL service with several new features and content offerings designed to make it an even more powerful tool for leveraging the Internet's educational resources. AOL@SCHOOL's newest features were specifically designed to help teachers more easily integrate online education resources into their lesson plans. These new services include: -- Expanded search capabilities, including a new Lesson Plan Search function on the Teachers and Administrators portals. The Lesson Plan Search simplifies the planning process for educators by allowing them to easily find what they need from more than 2,100 lesson plans provided by such partners as The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times, CNN CNN or Cable News Network Subsidiary company of Turner Broadcasting Systems. It was created by Ted Turner in 1980 to present 24-hour live news broadcasts, using satellites to transmit reports from news bureaus around the world. , and PBS PBS in full Public Broadcasting Service Private, nonprofit U.S. corporation of public television stations. PBS provides its member stations, which are supported by public funds and private contributions rather than by commercials, with educational, cultural, . Additionally, all of the AOL@SCHOOL portals will now feature a News Search button, allowing students and teachers to access not only current news stories, but also the archives of such sites as Time, CountryWire and CNN. The basic AOL@SCHOOL search database has also been expanded to a total of more than 600,000 educator-approved URLs. -- A weekly newsletter for teachers providing a guide to AOL@SCHOOL's focus topic of the week, a feature that lets teachers plan week-long activities around a particular topic. Teachers are provided with detailed descriptions and links to helpful Internet resources and themes for upcoming weeks to help teachers prepare their lesson plans. The newsletter will also contain online tips, message board topics and chat schedules, allowing teachers to help each other make the most of AOL@SCHOOL and the entire online medium. -- Textbook textbook Informatics A treatise on a particular subject. See Bible. activities for teachers, offering one-click access to online guides and study aids relating to relating to relate prep → concernant relating to relate prep → bezüglich +gen, mit Bezug auf +acc the most widely-used textbooks. This feature provides educators with interactive materials that coincide with the books they are using in their classrooms. -- Election Focus pages which will feature state and presidential election coverage. Through its existing alliance with Time for Kids, AOL@SCHOOL will create two election areas where students can learn about the issues, follow the campaigns and get to know the candidates. This new feature will also provide access to Youth-e-Vote.net, a national campaign to increase the involvement and awareness of young Americans in the political process and the first national registration and online voting site in American history. Students can also draw upon AOL@SCHOOL's other resources to learn more about the history of the election process, previous presidential campaigns and candidates. The election focus pages will debut September 16th. BrainPOP Alliance Enhance AOL@SCHOOL's Best-of-Web Educational Content Offerings AOL also announced a new alliance with BrainPOP, an award winning provider of educational content on the Web. Broadening the online content available through AOL@SCHOOL, BrainPOP will provide access to its unique health, science & technology education offerings, including more than 100 age-appropriate animated "movies" on topics from human anatomy Human anatomy is primarily the scientific study of the morphology of the adult human body.[1] It is subdivided into gross anatomy and microscopic anatomy.[1] and dinosaurs <onlyinclude> This list of dinosaurs is a comprehensive listing of all genera that have ever been included in the superorder Dinosauria, excluding class Aves (birds, both living and those known only from fossils) and purely vernacular terms. to computer technology. BrainPOP also features interactive cartoon cartoon [Ital., cartone=paper], either of two types of drawings: in the fine arts, a preliminary sketch for a more complete work; in journalism, a humorous or satirical drawing. lessons, experiments, and online activities featuring characters like teenagers Cassie and Rita, Bob the ex-lab rat, and look-alike father and son "How To" team, gary and Gary. BrainPOP's content is designed to reinforce and amplify the current U.S. science standard school curriculum. "Election Special 2000," the BrainPOP movie designed to explain the presidential election process to kids, will also be available through AOL@SCHOOL. The AOL@SCHOOL software is available free to schools by calling 888-339-0767. The AOL@SCHOOL portals can also be accessed over the Internet at http://www.school.aol.com, so that students, teachers, administrators and parents can view the content included as part of this learning tool from home. About America Online See AOL. , Inc. Founded in 1985, America Online, Inc., based in Dulles, Virginia Dulles, Virginia is an unincorporated census-designated place located in Loudoun County, Virginia, part of the Washington Metropolitan Area. The headquarters of AOL, Orbital Sciences Corporation and ODIN technologies and the former headquarters of MCI Inc. are located in Dulles. , is the world's leader in interactive services, Web brands, Internet technologies, and e-commerce services. America Online, Inc. operates: America Online, with more than 23 million members, and CompuServe, with more than 2.7 million members, the company's two worldwide Internet services; several leading Internet brands including ICQ ("I Seek You") A conferencing program for the Internet from Mirabilis, Tel Aviv, Israel (www.icq.com). It provides interactive chat, e-mail and file transfer and can alert you when someone on your predefined list has also come online. , AOL Instant Messenger See AIM. and Digital City, Inc.; the Netscape Netcenter and AOL.COM portals; the Netscape Netcenter and Communicator browsers; AOL Moviefone, the nation's No. 1 movie listing guide and ticketing service; and Spinner.com and NullSoft's Winamp, leaders in Internet music. Through its strategic alliance with Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA[3]) is an American vendor of computers, computer components, computer software, and information-technology services, founded on 24 February 1982. , the company develops and offers easy-to-deploy, end-to-end and enterprise solutions for companies operating in the Net Economy. |
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