Recently created website allows educators to access content from specific top-performing schools and teachers nationwide for first time, free-of-charge
San Jose, Calif. – Starting today, educators can search and access nearly 2,000 educational playlists created by specific schools and teachers, thanks to the free website Activate Instruction, the Girard Education Foundation announced today. Activate Instruction (Activate) includes curriculum from some of the nation’s highest-performing public school systems. Recent upgrades allow teachers to collaborate with one another on playlists, regardless of where teachers are located.
These new online features are being unveiled at the launch of the 21st Annual California Charter Schools Conference in San Jose, CA March 3-6, where nearly 3,000 school leaders, teachers and business partners will discuss innovations – including education technology such as Activate – that can be used to drive student achievement.
“Teachers are working hard to prepare their students for Common Core, with limited access to updated resources,” said Michele Hansen, president and CEO of the Girard Education Foundation, whose philanthropic support enables teachers, parents and students to access the website at no cost. “Activate Instruction facilitates teacher collaboration and makes it easy for teachers to access quality content from high-performing schools for free.”
Teachers on Activate – who number nearly 4,000 – can now search for, and follow, sets of more than 18,000 resources (including nearly 2,000 playlists). Many of these resources have been uploaded by high-performing schools that have voluntarily shared their content. Those schools include: Summit Public Schools in the Bay Area, High Tech High in San Diego, and Da Vinci Schools and KIPP LA Schools in Los Angeles. Teachers can even follow other teachers’ specific playlists, creating the opportunity for teachers’ work to be recognized nationally.
“Charter public schools in California have been laboratories of innovation for years and we are pleased to see that several of the top-performers are now sharing their successful curriculum through Activate Instruction,” said Jed Wallace, president and CEO of the California Charter Schools Association – the organization hosting this year’s charter school conference. “With Activate, both charter and traditional school systems can work together in the spirit of our conference’s theme of achievement through innovation.”
The new collaboration feature also allows teachers to follow specific schools. In addition, teachers will now be able to share their playlists and resources, enabling educators to collaborate and organize their resources together.
Activate Instruction is a free website where teachers can browse, search, rate, add, share, and organize their favorite Common Core-aligned resources, and put them together in personalized playlists for students. Activate provides access to comprehensive grade 6-12 curriculum, soon expanding to K-12, in nearly all subject areas, including math, English, and science. Preliminary results of a survey of teachers and administrators found that the majority of teachers using Activate would recommend it to their peers. In addition, the survey found that the majority of teachers found Activate helpful in personalizing student learning and in lesson planning.
About Activate Instruction
Activate Instruction is a free website funded and managed by the nonprofit Girard Education Foundation. Through providing teachers and schools with high-quality educational resources tailored to individual student needs, the foundation hopes to enable every student to have a personally enriching learning experience that prepares him or her to succeed in life. Girard Education Foundation collaborated with technology experts at Illuminate Education, Inc., and outstanding educators at Summit Public Schools to create the new Activate Instruction website over the last two years. To learn more about Activate Instruction, read Frequently Asked Questions and visit: Activate Instruction.
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Contact:
Adam Ratliff
March 4, 2014 Larson Communications
(415) 722-0739
