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East Dorset, VT. October
29, 2001- Bringing technology into schools across North America
involves more than just outfitting classrooms with the latest hardware
and software. Creating lesson plans takes time, and teachers are very
busy people. Tool Factory, Inc., an educational software company, is
helping teachers meet these challenges head on, by providing time-saving
resources on the internet. The Vermont company, whose staff includes
a certified teacher with experience in the classroom, has created a
companion website full of lesson plans showing teachers how to integrate
technology into the curriculum, so that it contributes to meaningful
learning.
When teachers go to www.toolfactory.com
and click on "Curriculum", they will quickly discover a diverse collection
of lesson plans in Language Arts, Science, Social Studies, Math, Visual
Arts, and Technology. Tool Factory has already posted over 50 lessons
plans complete with detailed instructions, standards correlation, material
lists, follow-up activity suggestions, clip art, and worksheets. Each
lesson plan has been carefully correlated to the McREL standards so
that teachers can be sure they are helping their students meet educational
goals as they assign each activity.
For current users of Tool
Factory software, the "Interactive Worksheets" can be altered to suite
the needs of each teacher. However the site is still useful, even if
teachers don't yet have Tool Factory software. "Printable Worksheets"
are also provided, giving all teachers immediate access to resources
built using Tool Factory Workshop, Junior MultiMedia Lab,
or MultiMedia Lab V. Some lesson plans include a whole series
of worksheets designed to progressively help students build stories,
databases, school newspapers, and other projects. Lesson plans have
names like Show and Tell, State Database, Weekly Weather
Tracker, We the People, and Come to My Book Party!. Students
will quickly find themselves creating button-linked presentations replete
with animation, colorful graphics, and informative text.
Have you ever seen an interactive,
online school newspaper? The Tool Factory curriculum website shows you
how to build one using MultiMedia Lab V. Make a front page photograph
change from a hot air balloon to a red maple leaf, or picture an athlete
transforming into the whole team simply by passing your mouse over it.
It's easy to link text to statistics, art reviews, and classifieds.
Animate the school mascot, then make it dash across a headline! You
can even create interactive ballots for student voting.
Tool Factory Workshop,
MultiMedia Lab V, and Junior MultiMedia Lab each contain
huge banks of clip art, including many high-quality photographs. Students
and teachers can also take their own digital photographs and easily
add them to projects. Tool Factory, Inc. distributes Toshiba digital
cameras in addition to software, and offers digital camera training
workshops to teachers and students who want to learn how to put this
technology to use in the classroom. For example, one school is training
a whole class to be reporters for their school newspaper, giving each
student a digital camera to take into the field!
Tool Factory knows that teachers
are full of many creative ideas for communicating knowledge to their
students. The curriculum companion website posted at www.toolfactory.com
is designed to make it easier for busy teachers to implement those ideas
in ways that keep pace with the current advances in technology.
The direct link to the curriculum
website is http://www.toolfactory.com/cgi-bin/gencur.py
About Tool Factory
Tool Factory conducted an
exhaustive search for unique educational software in various markets
around the globe. Their flagship product line consists of 17 educational
software tools, which were hand-picked for their innovative contribution
to computer-based learning. To complement the tools and applications,
Tool Factory is also distributing an extensive range of curriculum titles
throughout North America. Their first catalog includes over 100 CD-ROM
products, most of which are new releases in North America.
For
press inquiries, please contact Kendra Ericson at kendra@toolfactory.com
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