Friday November 12, 7:04 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
ACTV'S HyperTV Networks Announces a Professional Development Reading Series for Classroom Teachers Through eSchool Online
Standards-Based Reading Instruction Developed in Partnership with San Diego County Office of Education & Supported by The California Department of Education
DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 12, 1999-- HyperTV Networks, Inc., a subsidiary of ACTV, Inc. (NASDAQ:IATV - news), today announced the establishment of a partnership with the San Diego County Office of Education to disseminate state-of-the-art, web-based professional development in reading. The program, funded in June, was developed in collaboration between instructional design experts from the San Diego County Office of Education and HyperTV Networks, and has had input from an advisory committee consisting of reading curriculum and technology experts from around the state and the California Department of Education. The announcement was made at the National School Boards Association's (NSBA) 13th Annual Technology and Learning Conference taking place in Dallas, Texas, November 10 - 13.
The initial series, Struggling Readers: Grades 4 - 8, is directly aligned to the California Reading/Language Arts Standards and Curriculum Framework, and consists of a series of 16 half-hour modules formatted for delivery through HyperTV Networks' eSchool© Online, a leading online learning application in the K-12 environment. The series is based upon pedagogy developed by San Diego's Jane Slater, a state-certified reading staff developer. The San Diego County Office of Education is a recognized leader in curriculum development and educational technology designed to increase student achievement. The Office has received numerous awards and contracts for curriculum program development and delivery.
Dr. Rudy Castruita, Superintendent, San Diego County Office of Education, states, ``This partnership has designed a professional development series which will help teachers deal with the unique concerns and problems of struggling readers in the middle grades. The technology allows teachers to access this training from home or school at any time that is convenient.'
eSchool Online uses ACTV's patented HyperTV(TM) technology to integrate streamed video, the automatic delivery of relevant web content, online collaboration and embedded assessment to provide the project with a web-based software environment that will allow for the scaleable delivery of this content within California and nationwide. The distribution of the series through eSchool will enable the initiative to collect relevant and timely data from teachers utilizing the content. The series will be accessible on-demand by teachers equipped with multimedia computers connected to the Internet. The on-demand experience is likely to be supplemented by scheduled online collaborative events using eSchool Online's live, mediated-chat functionality.
The content, aligned to California's Reading/Language Arts Standards, can be easily modified for adoption in other states, given the flexibility of eSchool Online's authoring environment.
Bruce J. Crowley, president of HyperTV Networks, Inc., stated, ``The San Diego County Office of Education, with support from the California Department of Education, has demonstrated great leadership in supporting a public/private partnership for the benefit of teachers and students throughout the state of California and beyond. New technologies such as eSchool Online allow developers of specialized pedagogy to publish and widely disseminate standards-based curriculum that can take advantage of the investments made nationwide in Internet and video delivery infrastructures.'
San Diego County Office of Education is an intermediary agency between the California Department of Education and the 43 school districts it serves, assisting in the education of over 485,000 students in the greater San Diego area.
ACTV's HyperTV Networks is an application and content service provider in The SchoolTone Alliance Program. The SchoolTone Alliance Program, led by Sun Microsystems, is a joint marketing and sales effort designed to create high-quality portals that provide affordable and easy-to-access Internet content, communication tools, and applications targeting K-12 schools. The program brings together best-of-breed web-based educational content, portal technologies, applications, and services deployed through education service providers to K-12 schools.
ACTV, Inc. is a leader in interactive digital television with its proprietary ``Individualized Television' and ``Individualized Advertising' software and programming capabilities. The company has also pioneered TV-Internet convergence programming with its patented HyperTV(TM) software solution. ACTV offers superior, practical solutions for educators, students, television programmers, cable operators, advertisers and consumers looking to leverage the emergence of digital television and the broadband delivery infrastructure.
ACTV has relationships with many of the dominant players in the Internet, television and digital technology fields, including key strategic investments from Liberty Digital, Inc. (NASDAQ: LDIG - news) and General Instrument Corporation (NYSE: GIC - news). ACTV Entertainment and HyperTV Networks, Inc., are subsidiaries of ACTV, Inc. Visit ACTV's Web site at actv.com.
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Contact:
San Diego County Office of Education
Jim Esterbrooks, 858/292-3719
Public Information Officer
jimester@sdcoe.k12.ca.us
or Jane Slater, 858/292-3880
Language Arts Coordinator
jslater@sdcoe.k12.ca.us
or
For ACTV'S HyperTV Networks:
Bratskeir & Company, New York
Mike Rosen, 212/679-2233
mrosen@bratskeir.com
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