Vista Del Lago High School Students Win ALapalooza ALthusiasm Award

Congratulations to the students at Vista Del Lago High School (Moreno Valley, CA) who won the ALapalooza ALthusiasm award, a national math contest sponsored by Apangea Learning. A special event will recognize these students for their accomplishments at Vista Del Lago High School on Thursday, August 28 beginning at 1 p.m. PST. 

 

Vista Del Lago High School competed with other summer school programs nationwide in Apangea Learning’s ALapalooza: Summer of Math Tour contest.  Vista Del Lago’s summer school students beat out more than 100 schools across the nation to win the ALapalooza ALthusiasm award, a prize given based on the number of after-school hours spent learning math — hours worked during their personal time that went above and beyond what was required for their summer school requirements!

 

“Our goal at Apangea Learning is to motivate students to want to learn math.  The students at Vista Del Lago showed amazing determination to succeed academically by working on Apangea Learning Math during their own time – even on nights and weekends.  It’s great when educators can get students fired up about learning!” said Apangea Learning CEO, Louis Piconi.

New Version of Apangea Learning’s Online Math Tutoring Solution Launched and Now Available to Parents for First Time

Today, we release a new version of our flagship math solution (formerly known as SmartHelp). Rebranded as Apangea Learning Math, a number of enhancements have been made to the product. Additionally, this new version is now also available for direct purchase by parents for use at home.  Previously, Apangea Learning Math was sold exclusively to schools/school districts.

 

Apangea Learning Math provides each student one-student-to-one-teacher differentiated math instruction through a unique integration of “intelligent” computer-animated learning coaches and live, certified teachers who instruct students online. A student’s learning pathway can be individually customized based on state standards, the student’s grade level and his/her proficiency level. New enhancements found in Apangea Learning Math include:

 

·         The Practice Zone – After completing all of the core problems in a module, students will complete a series of problems in the Practice Zone. This facilitates the transfer of skills learned in Apangea Learning Math to not only classroom exams, but also to high stakes assessment exams. Students can also select the design of their own Practice Zone page (customized skin) further personalizing their learning experience.

·         Altruistic Motivation – In addition to earning gift cards to their favorite retailers, Apangea Learning Math’s motivation system now allows students to donate the monetary value of their earned “ApangeaPoints” to a charitable cause of their choice.

·         Enhanced Page Design – The teacher and student homepages have been redesigned to a three column format to provide easier navigation and access to critical information.

 

“Launching Apangea Learning Math into both the retail and B2B platforms marks a very important milestone for the company,” explained Apangea Learning CEO, Louis Piconi. “Additionally, the Practice Zone will significantly help students improve their test scores. Many students feel a great deal of anxiety around test taking. To help alleviate this and build academic confidence, Apangea Learning Math’s Practice Zone is designed to teach students how to transfer the skills learned online to their written exams.”

Live from the NECC Tradeshow Floor

Greetings from the National Education Computing Conference (NECC) tradeshow floor!  NECC is the world’s largest technology education tradeshow and conference in the world and Apangea Learning is in the thick of things!  

 

I thought I would take some time this week to bring the show to life for everyone, not just for the handful of us here in San Antonio.  As with most of the large education conferences, Sunday is not a day of rest.  Rather, it is a day of building the booth.  What starts as a huge, messy convention center ends up as a glamorous exhibit hall after a long day and night.  It is absolute chaos:

 

And in the middle of this mess is the 10’ x 20’ space that we will call home for the next three days. 

 

After many hours, the booth is almost ready to go…just a few last preparations in the morning…and a team meeting…and then 12,000 plus people will descend onto the tradeshow floor.

 

Watch your for the next installment of “Live from the Tradeshow Floor”.

 

Best regards,

Matt

Texas PTA Combats Summer Learning Loss While Raising Funds

According to John Hopkins University Center for Summer Learning, students lose (on average) approximately 2.6 months of grade-level equivalency in mathematical computation skills over the summer months. Making matters worse, teachers spend four to six weeks reviewing what was learned in previous years once students return. To combat this summer learning loss, the Texas Parent and Teacher Association (PTA) has joined forces with Apangea Learning to provide students unlimited math tutoring over the summer months.

 

Apangea Learning provides students personalized, one-on-one math tutoring through its unique combination of Web-based instruction and live, online teachers. Students tutored by Apangea Learning are automatically enrolled in the company’s motivation program, which includes a rewards system for work completed, contests and random opportunities to win meaningful prizes (iPods, Nintendo DL Lites, gift cards, etc.).

 

Utilized by school districts throughout Texas (and the United States), Apangea Learning’s proven approach to math tutoring has helped thousands of Texan students achieve significant academic success within the classroom. 

 

According to Mayen Nelson of the Houston Independent School District, 21 of her 26 eighth graders passed the TAKS exam because of the Apangea Learning program.

 

“I passed my TAKS exam. I’m going to high school!” Powerful words that Frida, a student at Grand Prairie Independent School District, thought she would never be able to say.

 

Through this partnership with the Texas PTA, parents can now purchase a full summer of individualized math tutoring for $100, of which $20 will be donated back to the parents’ local PTA. Parents can enroll their children at www.apangealearning.com/TexasPTA.

 

“The Texas PTA is very excited about our partnership with Apangea Learning. Not only are we helping to overcome summer learning loss, but also providing our members a great and easy way to raise funds this summer,” stated Isaac Simon, Texas PTA’s Director of Marketing and Fund Development.

Pittsburgh Innovates

As featured in the September 19, 2007 edition of Pop City. 

Apangea Learning will launch new writing product; hires 10

Apangea Learning, the Pittsburgh company offering online differentiated math tutoring for students, will launch an innovative new writing product next January and has announced the hiring of 10 additional employees this year. The writing software, still in the development stage,  will operate similarly to Apangea’s flagship math product, SmartHelp, helping students to develop writing and literacy skills through software and on-demand teachers, says CEO Louis Piconi.

Since March Apangea has added staff in the areas of sales, service, account management, and service teams that work with the schools, increasing its size by 25 percent and bringing the total number of employees in its downtown office to 28 full-time and 5 part-time, Piconi says. Apangea, with revenues of $1.4 million this year, tutors 50,000 students in math in 18 states.

Apangea also has established a school district partnership program that offers unlimited tutoring to parents for $100 a year while giving districts $25 back for each student. This is a substantial savings to parents who often pay upward of $40 an hour for a math tutor, Piconi says. “It’s our mission at Apangea to find a way to make tutoring available to everyone who needs it,” says Piconi. “Parents who hire tutors are paying a really big bill. We want to give them the option to purchase high quality tutoring at an affordable price.”

To view Pop City’s story on Pittsburgh’s successful software tutoring companies, click here.

Writer: Deb Smit

Source: Louis Piconi, Brian Wallace, Apangea Learning

California students now have access to low cost one on one tutoring

Apangea Learning is pleased to inform everyone in the blogosphere that our flagship product, SmartHelp, meets the California Learning Resource Network (CLRN) Supplemental Electronic Learning Resources Review Criteria and Process. SmartHelp is now included on the CLRN database and Web site, which can be found at www.clrn.org.

 

Approved by the California State Board of Education, the CLRN Supplemental Electronic Learning Resources Review Criteria and Process provides California educators with a “one-stop” resource for critical information needed for the selection of supplemental electronic learning resources aligned to the State Board of Education academic content standards.

 

“SmartHelp is a valuable supplemental mathematics resource to improve achievement for the students of California,” stated Kelley Day, publisher liaison for CLRN. “The California Learning Resource Network is pleased to add SmartHelp to the CLRN database.”

 The CLRN review process for supplemental electronic learning resources utilizes the State Board of Education approved review criteria which covers three major components: legal compliance review, California Content Standards Alignment verification and CLRN minimum requirements review. 

“CLRN’s review criteria and process is extremely thorough and as a result, California educators have come to rely on its guidance, insight and expertise when choosing the best supplemental electronic learning resource for their classroom,” said Apangea Learning CEO Louis Piconi. “We are excited to bring cost-effective supplemental math instruction to a vast number of California students, including ELL and those struggling with language comprehension in mathematics.”

 ~ Matthew Hausmann, Vice President ~

SmartGrowth

There are a lot of new faces here at Apangea Learning!

Over the past few months, the company has been strategically growing our account services, sales and academic tutoring departments. As a result, the company has grown its staff by more then 20 percent.

 Academic Tutoring Department 

Mary Frances Thorn, P.E. was hired as a SmartHelp faculty tutor, where she will provide live online tutoring via Flash Communications and develop advanced math content for SmartHelp.

Previously, Thorn was a junior high mathematics and science teacher for a Diocese of Pittsburgh Catholic School. She was also a senior engineer at Westinghouse Electric Corporation. Thorn has both her Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering and her Master of Science in Industrial Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh. She also holds a Master of Education from Duquesne University.

 Account Services Department 

Arthur Allen and Christine Nass were both hired as account managers and will be responsible for client services and onsite/online training.

Previous to joining Apangea Learning, Allen was a Pennsylvania-certified mathematics teacher at City Charter High School, Schenley High School and Neighborhood Academy. He has a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from the University of Pittsburgh and is a graduate of the Teacher Education Program at Duquesne University.

Most recently, Nass was an account representative at Thomson West. She has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Robert Morris University, a MBA from Duquesne University and her JD from Duquesne Law School.    

 Sales Department 

Kevin Parent and Mark Stefanik were both hired as sales executives.

Parent’s sales territory includes the Midwest region. Previous to joining Apangea Learning, he was an assistant director of admissions with Education Management Corporation. Parent has both his Bachelor of Science in Education and a Master of Science in Education (Behavioral Science) from Duquesne University.

Stefanik is responsible for growing California as a new territory for the company. Most recently, Stefanik was the territory business manager for PT Marketing Group. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from the University of Pittsburgh. He achieved the Gold Belt from Sandler Sales Institute.

 ~ Matthew Hausmann, Vice President ~

As a system, we need to do better

These were the words of Andres Alonso, the city chief executive officer of Baltimore.  

Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, schools are expected to have a greater percentage of students passing the tests each year until the 2013-2014 school year — when every child in the nation is supposed to be passing their state’s test. 

A school gets the “needs improvement” label for failing to meet federal standards two years in a row. Across Maryland, 176 schools are on the list — including more than 60 in Baltimore City and, for the first time, two in Howard County.  

Educators across the state continue to delve into why so many schools have failed to meet AYP and what can be done to improve student performance there. 

According to Howard County’s coordinator of testing, Portia White, “We are not focusing on the label as much as we are focusing on what the students need.”  

Baltimore County spokeswoman Kara Calder stated “We really need to strike a balance between the time and effort on compliance and delivering instruction to the children.” 

Although both are heading down the right path, as a system, we DO need to do better.  This “system” can only improve if and only if we give our teachers the resources they need to understand the individual needs for each student and address those learning challenges one-on-one.  

Utilizing technology in the classroom for this purpose is not a band-aid. It is a necessary system overhaul to prepare our students not only for AYP, but also for success in the 21^st-century. 

 ~ MATT HAUSMANN, Vice President ~

Apangea Learning Welcomes Laurel School District and Salado Independent School District

We are pleased to announce that the Laurel School District (Lawrence County, Pennsylvania) and Salado Independent School District (Salado, Texas) will be using Apangea Learning SmartHelp this fall.

 

We look forward to working with your teachers and students during the 2007-2008 school year.

 

~ MATT HAUSMANN, Vice President ~

Go back to school with the latest tools

Great news!

Apangea Learning SmartHelp 4.0 was selected as one of Technology and Learning’s “Top 100 New Products for the New School Year.”

New Product Trends

In demos, at meetings, on the Web, and at the National Educational Computing Conference this past June, T&L editors scoured the new-product market to bring you the latest …

… on the rise are online tutoring sites—for both kids and educators—from publishers like Atomic Learning and Apangea …

Apangea Learning
The SmartHelp 4.0 online learning environment offers math-based problems and provides one teacher for every student. Features include a reward-point motivation program, the ability to select problems based on student interest, and expanded algebra content. www.apangealearning.com

For the entire article and list of top 100 products, please go to: URL: http://www.techlearning.com/showArticle.php?articleID=196604604

~ MATT HAUSMANN, Vice President ~