West Virginia Department of Education Selects Bellevue-Based SchoolKiT International's Learning Solutions to Fuel Its Leading Technology Integration Initiative.

Business Editors

BELLEVUE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 14, 2002

The debate over the quality of public education is striking at the hearts of parents, educators and administrators nationwide.

The need to improve student achievement and to prepare children who will work in a world of information and communications technologies is well understood.

The students and parents of West Virginia are well aware of the priority their state department has placed on meeting this challenge. Back in 1996, citing the need to offer business and industry the best-trained workforce in the country, the West Virginia Department of Education established the SUCCESS Initiative. Now nationally recognized for its achievement, the initiative strives to assure that technology continues to be part of West Virginia students' learning and that it is integrated meaningfully throughout the curriculum.

The result of a rigorous selection process, the West Virginia Department of Education selected SchoolKiT International as a key provider of teacher professional development and technology curriculum integration solutions. Integral to the turnkey approach facilitated by project lead Pomeroy Computer Resources, Inc., SchoolKiT's products will work hand-in-hand with the application software, computer hardware, wireless and network communication products, and services that form the foundation infrastructure. Kathy Boone, Assistant Director of the department's Office of Technology said "The SchoolKiT staff and their solutions are strongly aligned with our objectives and can help us to realize our goal of preparing every student in West Virginia with the skills, competencies, and attributes necessary to succeed in school, become lifelong learners, and to attain economic self-sufficiency."

SchoolKiT International has been helping Washington State teachers to deliver on this promise for more than five years. SchoolKiT learning technology products and services are currently used by over 1000 schools across the state.

SchoolKiT's Enactz library of K-12 learning activities revolutionizes the way teachers and students use Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint by helping them to build interactive models to deepen their conceptual understandings, higher-order thinking capacities and creativity. The SchoolKiT PDpoint online professional development workshops provide teachers with a clear path for developing an effective technology and learning framework and pragmatic strategies for embedding technology into their curricula and instruction, making it easy for them to be successful using technology with their students.

The combination of SchoolKiT Enactz and PDpoint is proving to be the enterprise solution for schools, districts and states wanting to achieve both systemic change across organizational levels and an immediate payoff on their investment in technology.

About SchoolKiT International

SchoolKiT International is the enterprise solution for K-12 that helps educators smoothly integrate curriculum and technology. SchoolKiT's ongoing professional development support services ensure that teachers have the resources and skills they need as modern education continues to undergo change.

A privately held company founded in 1997, SchoolKiT International is based in Bellevue, WA, and is the curriculum software component of the ESD189 administered Teacher Leadership Project and the ICT administered Intel(R) Teach to the Future program. SchoolKiT International partnerships also include operational alliances with Microsoft Corporation, Compaq, LearningStation.com, Pomeroy Computer Resources, and Capita UK. Visit www.schoolkit.com or call 1-425-454-3373 for more information.