Digication Blog

Digication Partners with Whipplehill to Provide e-Portfolios for Independent Schools:
Partnership Enables Schools to Integrate e-Portfolios with Whipplehill's Solutions


Digication™ Inc., a leading provider of e-Portfolios, today announced that it has partnered with Whipplehill Communications, Inc., the leader in independent school software systems, to provide its customers with e-Portfolios for students and teachers to showcase work, collaborate on projects and prepare for college admissions.

Providence, RI (PRWEB) July 7, 2008 -- Digication™ Inc., a leading provider of e-Portfolios, today announced that it has partnered with Whipplehill Communications, Inc., the leader in independent school software systems, to provide its customers with e-Portfolios for students and teachers to showcase work, collaborate on projects and prepare for college admissions.

WhippleHill has been helping advance and market private and independent schools through content-management software and award-winning Web designs since 1998, serving more than 300 schools in 30 states, Canada, Europe and Asia. Adding Digication's e-Portfolio solution to Whipplehill's market-leading Podium product, will provide schools a rich and easy to use e-Portfolio platform for classroom, project, college-prep and marketing purposes.

The partnership with Digication will enable WhippleHill customers to seamlessly integrate and display student work on their portals using Digication's e-Portfolios. Using a single sign-on to access e-Portfolios, students can upload illustrations, poetry, short stories, papers, photography, PDFs, HTML, video and Flash projects. A channel in Whipplehill's Podium can pull student portfolios to display thumbnail images on the portal, increasing exposure to student work.

"The idea of e-Portfolios has long been discussed by our clients, but so far we've never had the opportunity for such an integrated solution, where portfolios can be made this easily," Travis Warren, president of WhippleHill, said. "The potential rewards reach beyond the work students have produced in class. From what we can tell, more and more colleges are looking for precisely this in their admission decisions."

More than 2,000 schools have deployed the Digication e-Portfolio solution. Its Web-based e-Portfolios allow educators and students to share ideas and achievements, improve communication and expand the educational experience beyond the classroom. With Digication, teachers can easily archive classroom progress for future reference. Students' work can be published to the Web to be shared with other students and family members. Since Digication is easy to use, teachers and students can instantly become engaged in building an e-Portfolio and work towards college acceptance.

"We're excited about the opportunity to partner with a clear leader in independent school software systems," says Jeffrey Yan, CEO of Digication. "To look at the current generation of learners - their culture, their lifestyles, their needs - we know that they are already engaged in many social networks and communities online outside of school. The idea of a community is not foreign to them. e-Portfolios will help build a rich and engaging online community that is based on authentic work and will provide additional motivation, better engagement and hopefully even better work."

About WhippleHill Communications, Inc.:
Since 1998, WhippleHill Communications has been helping advance and market private and independent schools through content-management software and award-winning Web designs, serving more than 300 schools in 30 states, Canada, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit http://www.whipplehill.com/.

About Digication, Inc.:
Designed by educators, for educators, Digication is a leading provider of easy-to-use e-Portfolio solutions for teachers and students at all levels, from K-12 to higher education. Students at more than 1,500 schools use Digication's e-Portfolios to easily, flexibly and professionally showcase their work and achievements across schools and districts. e-Portfolios create new opportunities for learning, reflection, communication, assessment and career advancement. Digication is headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island. For more information, visit http://www.digication.com.

You can now embed TeacherTube (http://www.teachertube.com/) videos right in your e-Portfolio.
Other embeddable services include BrightCove, Google Video, Photobucket, SchoolTube, TeacherTube and YouTube. If there is another service you would like to see just contact us and let us know.

Digication at CCSSO’s National Conference on Student Assessment 2008
June 16, 2008

The Council of Chief State School Officers is holding their annual conference on student assessment this week in sunny Orlando, Florida. Jeff Yan, CEO of Digication, will join Angela Fischer of the Omaha Public School District, and Courtney Sivewright of the Shawnee Mission School District in a presentation on using e-Portfolios as part of the formative assessment process in the visual arts.

Here's the session information:

Formative Assessment in the Visual Arts using District-wide, e-Portfolios: Experiences from Two Leading School Districts

Omaha (NE) Public School District and Shawnee Mission School District (KS) are among schools leading the nation in the development of district-based, e-Portfolio, formative assessment. The engaging, skills-based process connects the teacher’s lesson plans with district, state, and national standards and uses the web-based collections of digitized, authentic student work as the evidence of achievement. This session features Jeffrey Yan, creator of the Digication e-Portfolio system, and the visionary art supervisors who have applied the comprehensive process in their schools.

Monday, June 16, 2008
10:45 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

http://www.ccsso.org/Projects/national_conference_on_student_assessment/

From the Classroom 2.0 newsletter:

Saturday, May 17th, at 8am PDT / 11am EDT / 3pm GMT, Michael Staton interviews Jeffrey Yan, Founder and CEO of Digication, at the start of our weekly "Web 2.0 Week in Review."

Digication is one of the most popular e-portfolio sites on the web and also offers a fully-integrated Course Management System with a focus on the k-12 level. Join them to talk about e-portfolios, PBL, and portfolios as assessments.

Log in at classroom20wiki.com/live+conversations or directly into the Elluminate event at  https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=1101&password=M.8DAFD346DA4B268DC185FED8466556

Kelly Driscoll was featured in a slideshow of "Accidental Entrepreneurs" to accompany the article "From Junkie to Software Success"

We appreciate all the feedback you've given us about how we can make our e-Portfolios better. Today, you'll notice that we've changed our editing tools to make them easier, more intuitive, and more flexible.

Here are some of the highlights:

1. Flexible page layouts: Want to customize the layout of your pages instead of being limited to a simple "image and text"? We still offer preformatted page layouts, but now you can modify them or build your own with modules of text, images, and more.

2. New Navigation Editing: Instead of going to a separate area to edit your top and side menus, you can edit them from any page at any time.

3. Better text editing: Our updated text editor is more stable and has added features such as find and replace. We've heard a lot of feedback from those of you trying to paste formatted text from Word - now, you can use the "Paste From Word" button to get better results.

4. Edit and Publish: Tabs along the top of every page let you switch between editing, previewing your changes, and seeing what your published page looks like.

Any customers who would like more information or assistance in updating their documentation and training plans, please feel free to contact us at support@digication.com.

As always, we look forward to hearing your feedback on these changes and thank you for using Digication!

We're very excited to announce an update to our popular e-Portfolio solution in the next few weeks. We typically schedule upgrades during the summer to allow our schools to schedule additional training, however these updates were so strongly requested that we decided to release it early.

The increased functionality can be grouped into two areas. The first are a series of user interface updates that make editing different areas of your e-Portfolio more consistent. We've consolidated editing the navigation and the page content into one easy-to-use screen. For the second update, we broke down our pages into more granular objects to allow more flexibility in designing your e-Portfolio. You'll still have all the same options for creating pages and using our flexible templates, but you can further customize the page afterwards if you choose.

We're running through our exhaustive testing now and will be posting more details and screenshots in this blog in the coming days. Any customers who would like more information or assistance in updating their documentation and training plans, please feel free to contact us at support@digication.com.

As always, we look forward to hearing your feedback on these changes and thank you for using Digication!

The NorthEast Regional Computing Program is holding their annual conference next week, right here in our neighborhood. If you're attending, please visit us at Booth #309 and at our Tuesday afternoon session.

Here's the session information:

Digication and Rhode Island School of Design - Drawing on Technology: A Blueprint for Adopting E-Portfolios

Tuesday, March 11, 2008
4:15 p.m. - 5:05 p.m.
Room 552 A

Speakers:
John C. Chamberlin, Associate Professor, Art + Design Education, Rhode Island School of Design
Michael J. Vieira, Dean, Division of Business & Info Management, Bristol Community College, Bristol Community College
Jeffrey Yan, Educator & Founder, Digication
Session convener: Beth Du Pont, Director, Academic Technologies, Skidmore College

Although located just 20 minutes apart from each other, Rhode Island School of Design and Bristol Community College are worlds apart. A prestigious art school and a community college are both using Digication’s dynamic e-portfolios to assess student learning and showcase their work.

http://www.educause.edu/NC08/Program/13921?PRODUCT_CODE=NC08/CORP05

Michael Skeldon, a teacher and Academic Dean at the art-focused Beacon Charter School, created a portfolio to lead seniors through their Capstone project. This project is a required element in the State of Rhode Island's Performance-Based Graduation Requirements.

For the project, students create an autobiographical film. They use Digication to post each component of the process, from journal entries exploring potential ideas through several revisions of the screenplay. In addition, students must comment on other students' work at each step of the process. Upon completion of their projects, students must present their films to a panel of judges consisting of artists and other stakeholders from the community as well as faculty and staff from Beacon. The Capstone process culminates in a public film festival at the historic Stadium Theatre in Woonsocket, RI.

Mike's portfolio has detailed information for students, such as the Capstone schedule, syllabus, links to each student's portfolio as well as resources that assist with various phases of the project.

Students create an academic portfolio in the ninth grade and update it throughout their studies at Beacon. In addition, students are working on their own portfolios which include some of their Capstone project process as well as other information about their experience at Beacon Charter.

Links:
Mr. Skeldon's Capstone Course 2007-2008
Beacon Charter School e-Portfolio Directory

Digication co-founder Jeff Yan lends his voice to the New England Journal of Higher Education with an article titled "Social Technology as a New Medium in the Classroom".

We found this grant and thought some of you would be interested in applying. It's through the National Endowment For the Arts and focuses on youth art education. By creating the grant, "the Arts Endowment hopes to call attention to projects that recognize and cultivate best practices in the field of arts education for children and youth". The grant offers from $5,000 to $100,000.
For more information, take a look at the following links:
Grant information from grants.gov
Detailed description on the NEA page

The deadline is June 9th, 2008, so don't wait!

Amhrán agus Damhsa ar an Sean-Nós
Catherine Crowe, who teaches at George Brown College, hosts this portfolio, created by Briain O hAirt, which covers the Sean-Nós style of Irish singing as well as the annual Sean-Nós event. Numerous images and videos make it visually appealing as well as informative. It's very comprehensive, with reviews, links to resources, photo galleries and more. Those of you looking to highlight your events or create informative portfolios should look here for inspiration.

We feature our favorite e-Portfolios on the Digication home page and also on our pages of recommended teacher and student e-Portfolios. If you have one you're proud of, send us a link through the contact page!

Davis Publications First to Add its e-Textbooks;Two Public School Districts Already Reaping the Benefits
PROVIDENCE, R.I.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Digication™ Inc., a leading provider of e-Portfolios, today announced that it has partnered with Davis Publications, the leader in art education textbooks, to combine the power of e-Portfolios and Web 2.0 technologies with the content found in traditional textbooks. Teachers will now be equipped with an easy-to-use tool to enhance their own teaching and planning, while also showcasing their students’ accomplishments and enhancing their development of 21st century skills.

Davis is the first textbook publisher to offer its art textbooks online through Digication in the integrated e-Textbook format. Educators who choose a combined e-Portfolio and e-Textbook solution will experience a powerful new way of teaching. Teachers can use the Digication platform to access the Davis e-Textbooks, and create and customize their lesson plans and course curriculum based on the material. Lesson plans can be broken out by days, weeks, content, assignments, discussions and more—all pulling from the Davis content library with standard guides. Davis and Digication chose Texterity, the leading provider of digital editions of printed materials, to provide the e-Textbook technology services.

“Digication made it easy to transition our printed textbooks into digital e-Textbooks that are connected directly to e-Portfolios and professional learning communities for teachers and students,” said Wyatt Wade, president of Davis Publications. “Combining e-Textbook content with the e-Portfolio environment allows teachers to showcase the value of their work in the classroom, including the standards and concepts being covered.”

More than 1,500 schools have deployed the Digication e-Portfolio solution. Its Web-based e-Portfolios allow educators and students to share ideas and achievements, improve communication and expand the educational experience beyond the classroom. With Digication, teachers can easily share customized curriculum with other teachers, principals and administrators across the school district. Substitute teachers can even leverage the tools to continue teaching a lesson plan without interruption. Students’ work can be published to the Web to be shared with other students and family members. Lesson plans and resulting student accomplishments can be archived for future reference.

Omaha Public Schools (37 elementary schools) in Nebraska, and Shawnee Mission School District (73 elementary schools) in Kansas, are among the first districts in the United States to deploy the Davis e-Textbook solution on Digication. Administrators and art teachers within Omaha and Shawnee Mission are benefiting from the combined solution. For example, art teachers at Omaha previously loaded carts with 15-20 textbooks and wheeled them from one classroom to the next. Now with the Davis e-Textbooks on Digication, teachers can simply use a laptop and a projector.

“The system is so simple to use that even teachers with limited computer skills are able to customize this high quality e-Textbook curriculum into their own class schedules, then showcase their students’ finished artwork through e-Portfolios for parents, grandparents, friends and district administration,” said Angela Fischer, supervisor of Art Education at Omaha Public Schools.

Teachers are already reporting improvements during the learning process: the Davis e-Textbooks on Digication enable the entire class to focus on a large visual projection of complete pages of the books, distinct areas of the pages or even to zoom in on individual images. This creates a focused environment that can enable students to learn more efficiently as one unit and help deter students from getting distracted. In addition, the digital solution is helping teachers ‘behind the scenes.’ Normally, teachers would only have the opportunity to meet a few times each school year to discuss a mutual student’s strengths and weaknesses. The Digication e-Portfolio solution provides a daily visual snapshot of where a student stands academically and allows teachers to share information seamlessly.

For more information about the Digication e-Textbook solution and a sample/demo of the Davis digital textbook and information about the benefits of this solution, please visit:

http://www.digication.com/about/etextbook.

About Davis Publications

Since 1901, Davis has held fast to its commitment to art education. The company’s philosophy is simple: Davis believes in the abiding social value of art and art education and the company advocates the role of the visual arts in a well-rounded education. Other publishers offer programs for art education, but Davis is the only educational publisher solely dedicated to visual art in all its forms. The company publishes superior and innovative art education programs, studio activities, and a wealth of fine art resources, images, and multimedia support. For more information, visit www.davisart.com.

About Digication, Inc.

Designed by educators, for educators, Digication is a leading provider of easy-to-use e-Portfolio solutions for teachers and students at all levels, from K-12 to higher education. Students at more than 1,500 schools use Digication’s e-Portfolios to easily, flexibly and professionally showcase their work and achievements across schools and districts. e-Portfolios create new opportunities for learning, reflection, communication, assessment and career advancement. Digication is headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island. For more information, visit www.digication.com.

To counteract falling test scores and high dropout rates, Hope High School was reorganized into three smaller learning communities in 2002. Several teachers from the arts-based Hope Arts have Digication portfolios, including English and Writing Development teacher Megan Thoma, who set up her e-Portfolio "as a tool for the students in my classes, their parents, and anyone interested in the work being done at Hope". She says:

"I like how easy it is to update. When I mentioned that I posted homework every day on my site, my students teased me and suggested I spent hours online. Little do they know, it takes me thirty seconds before I head out the door to go home."

Links:
Megan's e-Portfolio
Hope Arts e-Portfolio

iLearn Technology posted a great writeup introducing Digication. They noted that:

"Digication e-portfolios can be used in the classroom as a means for communication between students and teachers. It can also be used as an introduction to the student for other teachers. Students can use Digication for publishing school work, sharing school-related accomplishments, use for college admissions, sharing ideas and showcasing work, and build powerful learning communities with other students within the school."

iLearn Technology is "an edublog dedicated to giving teachers practical tips for integrating technology into the classroom. All of the resources are free to use and simple to implement."

Read the rest of their post about Digication at http://ilearntechnology.com/?p=220.

Does your school have a central site where students and teachers can log on?  Wouldn't it be convenient if they didn't have to log into Digication separately?

We're developing single sign on capabilities so your school can integrate more easily with Digication. This would allow members of your school to log in to your school site and click over to Digication without having to log in again.  If you are interested and want more information, contact us.

We will be disabling the ability to hotlink to images (display an image uploaded to Digication on a non-Digication page) due to an abuse of bandwidth. If your school needs to hotlink to images for a specific purpose, please contact us and we will enable it for your domain.

Textbooks: A Value Proposition
Campus Technology
Published Online: 11/13/07
link to article

This article discusses new considerations in publishing. Digication is mentioned on page 7:

"Kelly Driscoll, educator and founder of Digication, is both a digital pioneer and a teacher who believes in identifying learning outcomes upfront. Digication has been in the business of helping students, and the institutions in which they learn, to build ePortfolios around student learning outcomes. It wasn’t much of a stretch for her and her content partners to think about an expanded system that grouped digital content underneath learning objectives. Digication offers one model for distributing digital content in a focused, cost effective manner."

E-Portfolios are the newest career tool for recent grads and job seekers. Kelly Driscoll, president and co-founder of Digication, shared some e-Portfolio tips in a recent article called "Stand Out with an E-Portfolio" (featured on CareerBuilder.com and MSN Careers).

Stand Out with an E-Portfolio
careerbuilder.com
Release Date: November 13, 2007
link to article

On Wednesday November 14th, Digication will be at the NYSAIS (New York State Association of Independent Schools) Unconference for Managers of Information Technology and Librarians.  The "unconference" will be held at the picturesque Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, NY.

Did you install the new Mac operating system, Leopard? Adobe has acknowledged a bug in Leopard's Flash player.

What does this mean for you? You might have trouble uploading files on Digication (as well as on other websites like Flickr).

What can you do? It's easy - just install the latest version at http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer9/.

In order to get ready for this year's new daylight saving time change, Digication may be unavailable for a maximum of 15 minutes between 6:00am and 6:15am EST on Wednesday, 10/31.

We wish you all a safe and happy Halloween!

We've made a language change throughout our system - we're now referring to Spots as e-Portfolios. Many of you suggested this, and we realized it would be a more transparent way to let you (and everyone new to our product) understand what Digication does.
Error messages, which were sometimes easy to overlook, are now more visible. This will make it easier for you to know if something needs to be fixed when you're filling out a form.

For e-Portfolios, we've built a new, more robust navigation editor. e-Portfolio pages now default to being taggable, to help Digication users amass a richer and more easily searchable directory.

Plus, we've fixed some bugs in the following areas:

- General - signup form
- e-Portfolios - horizontal and vertical gallery layouts
- e-Portfolios - updated uploader to make it faster
- e-Portfolios - portfolios created from template inherit categories
- Courses - course settings form
- Courses - course import layout
- Courses - course creation form
- Calendar - item export
- Calendar - items ordered by time
- Calendar - supports long urls
- General - accidentally typing www.campus.digication.com will no longer cause problems

Thank you for all your help in making Digication a better tool!

We're going to be at Educause in Seattle this October and would love to arrange an informal get-together. Email us through our contact page so we can find out how many of you would be interested.

At Educause, some of our users will be talking about how they use Digication in the sessions "Drawing on Technology: A Blueprint of Adopting e-Portfolios". The presentation will be on Thursday, October 25th from 3:55 pm - 4:45 pm in room 2B.
Here's some more information:
http://www.educause.edu/E07/Program/11073?PRODUCT_CODE=E07/SESS102

Haven't been to Educause? It's the annual conference of a "nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology". For more information, check out http://www.educause.edu.

Hope to see you there!

E-Portfolios - online spaces for teachers and students to communicate, share, reflect and collaborate in and outside of the classroom - have created exciting opportunities for teaching and learning world-wide. The popularity and wide adoption of e-Portfolios is due to three key factors: easy access, low cost, high impact on teaching and learning.E-Portfolios are easy to access because most are web based, meaning that any computer with an internet connection can access the software and become a hub for communication between teachers and students. Increasingly, e-Portfolios are available at a low cost for both teachers and students to use. Low cost software removes one of the biggest technology hurdles schools face, a limited budget. e-Portfolios have the potential to deliver a high impact on teaching and learning when integrated into the curriculum.

As an educator and co-founder of an e-Portfolio software company, Digication, I have seen the impact of e-Portfolios on teaching and learning first hand. Digication is the campus-wide e-Portfolio software for Rhode Island School of Design and Otis College of Art and Design. At these premier art and design institutions, Digication e-Portfolios give teachers and students the tools they need to easily publish their work online in a professional way within a connected community of learners.

For teachers, e-Portfolios provide invaluable channels to share curriculum, reflect on best practices, and disseminate student work. Likewise, e-Portfolios provide students the opportunity to create and customize a showcase of their knowledge, a history of their process and progress, a reflection on their experiences and a record of their aspirations. It’s a vehicle for expression that creates a powerful motivation for creating great content as part of the day-today classroom experience to share with teachers and peers. Additionally, e-Portfolios are gaining an increasing role in the college admissions process as well as career advancement.

The content of the e-Portfolio can include research papers and presentations for class, digital images of student work, activities or travels to other countries, video clips of student plays, dance recitals, sports events or musical performances, descriptions of life goals or involvement in community organizations – there are a multitude of possibilities.

The process of creating an e-Portfolio not only gives teachers and students an opportunity to build necessary technology skills but also provides an excellent opportunity for acknowledging strengths, recognizing areas for improvement and setting goals and milestones. They are powerful tools for learning and reflection and can provide dynamic platforms for sharing and collaboration using 21st century skills.

I invite you to visit the Digication website today to create your own e-Portfolio, www.digication.com/eportfolioquickstart.

Technology is playing a key role in various types of communication within the classroom today, changing the way communication takes place in a way that is having real impact upon learning. A different breed of technology, leveraging the power of simplistic Web 2.0 design principals, is proving to finally break through with real impact upon both students and teachers. Technology such as online learning communities are proving to offer a more dynamic learning experience, with direct benefits to both students and teachers. It’s a refreshing change for educators who have struggled with the complexity, cost and practicality of the last generation of technology tools.

In the classroom, we see technology being used for different types of communication. Communication is used for presentation, for class interaction and collaboration. All three types of classroom communication are important motivators for teachers and students. Presentation begins with a simple sharing of ideas or information. Interaction expands upon this sharing of ideas, adding feedback. Collaboration engages groups of people in not only sending and receiving feedback, but also in working together to create, build, and edit.

To accomplish these different types of communication, teachers and students today are becoming less dependent on the big enterprise-labeled communication systems that were popular in the 90’s, such as course management and learning management systems. Instead, they are seeking out simple, inexpensive, easy to use tools that accomplish specific communication tasks. Despite all the buzz surrounding technology, there is not one technology that can do it all. Many teachers are finding it is best to mix and match. The freedom to mix and match technology is possible today because of two factors:

1. Easy accessibility of computers and high-speed internet, and

2. A new breed of web-based technologies often referred to as Web 2.0. (including blogs, wikis, learning communities, podcasts, audio and video conferencing and online office applications).

Make it Easy, Make it Affordable

There are common threads that connect this array of communication technologies. The first thread is price. The majority of these new tools and applications are either free or very low cost. This puts cash-strapped public K-12 schools on equal footing with large universities–both have relatively equal footing to access and use these tools.

An important point regarding this price advantage is that a number of these technologies are fully hosted. That means that no expensive infrastructure (servers, data centers) needs to be purchased, no IT staff needs to be bothered, and end users don’t have to go blurry eyed thinking about setup and configuration. Teachers and students can simply sign up and drive.

This “sign up and drive” concept leads to a second key point of this technology trend—ease of use. This movement is grounded in the principle that less is more. Less “bells and whistles” equals software that does its job and gets out of your way. There is only a small learning curve, if any, for a teacher to jump in and start using the technology in their classrooms. This shift has made a dramatic impact on education. The teacher can now focus on the important question, “why do I want to use this technology” instead of, “how do I use this technology”. Instead of sitting in tedious training sessions, teachers are freed to spend their valuable time investigating technology supported learning experiences and how to integrate technology into their curriculums.

Likewise, students using these technologies find them so simple that they can focus on learning course materials and taking advantage of new communication opportunities instead of on learning a new technology. Most of today’s tech-savvy student generation are actively participating in social networking and other online communities, so they not only understand how to use Web 2.0 teaching tools, they thrive in a classroom environment which integrates web communication solutions.

Web Communication Tools: from the Classroom to the Living Room

So what are these new communication opportunities? How are teachers and students utilizing these technologies to present, interact, and collaborate?

Blogs are simple online journals primarily used to support communication in the form of presentation, and provide a great tool for class interaction. Blogs are easy to set up and free of charge. Some of the more popular blog software used in classrooms are Blogger (www.blogger.com) and EduBlogs (www.edublogs.org). Teachers can choose to have one blog to post teaching materials, in forms of images, files, and links. Or, depending on the teacher, additional blogs can be created for each student to form a community of blogs where members of the class can each present their own findings and discoveries.

Blogs are organized chronologically like a journal, a structure many people find very intuitive and easy to follow. New content is displayed prominently at the top and older information gets archived. Additionally, blogs offer RSS (real simple syndication) feeds which allow anyone to “subscribe” to be notified when new blog posts become available. Comments connected to individual postings on the blog give the author the opportunity to receive feedback from visitors.

These comments could be posted by the teacher, by classmates, by parents-- anyone who has access to the blog. Receiving feedback about coursework from not just your teacher, but also your peers or possibly the outside world, can be very empowering to students. From students’ perspectives, having the ability to publish their writing on a blog suddenly transforms them into authors and publishers.

What if a teacher wants students to be able to work together in an online publishing environment, but needs a tool that will not limit students to organize their work by time? What a teacher needs are tools that will be collaborative in a much less structured way. Enter the wiki. Wikis such as PBWiki (www.pbwiki.com) and WikiSpaces (www.wikispaces.com) are very popular in the classroom today because of their flexibility and collaborative editing features.

Wikis are often used for group-based writing projects, collaborative note taking or brainstorming. Teachers can set up wikis for groups of students, giving them the opportunity give feedback with equal footing, make suggestions and changes, and jot down ideas. Everyone is an author of the wiki at the same time. The authors can start with very informal ideas and gradually edit and create drafts of their writing to be further edited and shaped by other authors of the wiki.

The most well know example of this phenomenon is Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.com), a content encyclopedia written collaboratively by users around the world. If someone had approached me ten years ago and said they wanted to create an online collaborative encyclopedia, I would have been very skeptical. Without discussing in detail the use of Wikipedia in the classroom, its global popularity is truly a testament to the strength that a collective has when united to communicate, share, and build content together. At a much smaller and more controlled level, the capabilities of a wiki in the classroom can be a broadening learning experience, as student groups build rich, deep content over time.

Teachers looking for more school-specific collaboration tools may be interested in checking out more established online learning communities that can address school-wide or even cross-institutional or district-wide communications. An example would be Elgg’s educational social network (www.elgg.net) that leverages blogs. Another example is Digication’s learning community (www.digication.com), which is based on e-Portfolios.

One of features that Elgg offers that is unique from the other technologies mentioned is that it allows schools to run and host their own social network locally, on their own servers. If a school has the necessary expertise in supporting such a network, they can download the software free of charge and have complete control over the underlying code.

Digication’s e-Portfolios follow the format of more traditional websites, but with customizable navigation, giving teachers and students the ability to personalize their content to share and showcase. As one of Digication’s founders, I obviously have an interest here. However, I am not touting Digication, but showcasing it as one of the tools available to educators seeking to tap the collaborative learning power of online communities.

Brian Beard of Bellaire High School in Houston, Texas offers a great example of the impact online learning communities can have in the classroom, utilizing Digication as part of his day-to-day communication with students. Beard recently started posting his students’ work online on his class’s Digication e-Portfolio website.

“I’ve organized the content by class so it’s easy for my students to find, and they tell me that they enjoy looking at their published work, and reading their friends' work as well.” Said Beard. ”We’re now working on a personal narrative project as part of a unit of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. When I announced that they would be writing a personal narrative, they wanted to know if it would be published on the site. It motivates them to work to the best of their ability, because there is a huge difference between writing a paper for the teacher, and writing one for your peers."

Recent movements in the world of online office applications can offer access to software for cash conscious schools. For example, the Google Tools for Educators (www.google.com/educators) and other less known web-based office tools such as the Zoho Office Suite (www.zoho.com) are starting to match—and even in some cases exceed—the richness of traditional office tools such as Microsoft Office.

For starters, these tools are free of charge. But aside from cost benefits, since these tools are available online, it means that any user who has even the most basic computing equipment can now access office tools, such as full featured word processing and spreadsheet software, without ever having to install anything on his or her computer. Furthermore, because these tools are web-based, they allow multiple people to edit the very same documents in real-time. By real-time, I mean that when a collaborator or a student is typing in a piece of text, other collaborators - potentially miles away - will see the text appear in the document as it is being typed. Nobody needs to hit “Save“ or even refresh their web browser.

New Media Drives New Teaching Potential

Another exciting aspect of today’s technology is the feasibility of including rich media as a teaching, learning, and even collaborative medium.

With the increase of bandwidth and hardware available in schools, podcasting gives teachers and students an audio distribution and syndication ability to share their research, perspectives, and stories with an audience beyond their classroom. Teachers are discovering many cross-curricular projects such as conducting interviews, creating classroom news broadcasts, recording class discussions and explorations, sharing feedback about books and discussing papers they have written. Through podcasts, English as a Second Language students and those with learning disabilities now have the chance to review lectures at their own pace for better comprehension.

Although podcasting does have a bit of a learning curve and requires some additional hardware such as a microphone and sound editing software, it is much easier to deal with than video. Audio files take less storage space, less production preparation (sometimes even less than the written word), and still provide very engaging materials. So engaging, in fact, that teachers like Lars Brownworth from Stony Brook School are becoming podcast celebrities. His podcast on the Byzantine Empire was listed as one of the top 50 most downloaded podcasts. Who knew a high school history lesson could gain so many listeners?

Teachers are also finding ways to engage their students in real time conversations about projects with students in other countries via audio conferencing, or even video conferencing. MSN Messenger (www.msn.com) and also Skype (www.skype.com) offer free or inexpensive ways for teachers and students to connect with other classrooms. With a single laptop, a webcam, a projector and an internet connection, a teacher can broadcast the classroom and begin collaborating with any other classrooms with similar setups. While this requires access to a high-speed internet connection as well as hardware, the cost of entry has dropped by a significant amount. This is a very progressive use of technology in the classroom, as the price of high speed internet continues to decrease, and more laptops come equipped with cameras.

Collaboration Drives Creativity, Motivates Participation

Logistics aside, why do classrooms want to talk to other classrooms? Utilizing technology to communicate and collaborate across different countries can create a more global learning environment, allow for cross cultural studies, and provide a better understanding and appreciation of education in contexts other than one’s own.

The myriad of technologies adopted in schools today, including blogs, wikis, online learning communities and online office tools, are keeping teachers and students connected in and out of class. They are creating opportunities for groups to share, collaborate, showcase, and grow together. They are allowing for the exchange of information and ideas to happen not only within the confines of a classroom but across schools, districts, states and the world. The new generation of Web 2.0 solutions are easier to use, more engaging, and are making a larger impact upon collaboration and communication in the classroom than complex technologies of the past.

For many teachers, the first step in collaboration is providing opportunities for students to share processes, progress and work. As an educator who works closely with other teachers across the country, I find that they are amazed at how simple tools for sharing work and ideas can positively transform the classroom. Web tools are extending communication well beyond the classroom, to allow continued learning and collaboration anywhere, at any time. Students who may avoid live class participation are leveraging new communication forms to become more active and “vocal” in class. The freedom to publish and share ideas creates a learning environment that empowers and motivates both teachers and students to become active participants in the educational experience.

About the Author

Kelly Driscoll is an active educator, helping teachers to develop effective technology skills for improving the teaching and learning experience. She has taught graduate and undergraduate courses at Bryant University and the Rhode Island School of Design, including current courses titled, “Integrating Technology into the Classroom” and “Visual Literacy in Digital Media.” Driscoll also has extensive background in web application development and user interface design, and in 2001 co-founded Digication to develop free, “Simple by Design” ePortfolio and online classroom technology. For more information, visit www.Digication.com or send the author an email at kdriscoll@digication.com.

e-Portfolios
SchoolArts Magazine
Print Issue: Volume 107, Number 2
Release Date: October 2007
link to website
link to article (PDF)

We are always impressed by the wealth of good work in our directories, and we wanted to give our visitors an easier way to find e-Portfolios that might interest them. Now, school directories can be browsed by category. Schools with admin accounts can easily create categories, such as academic departments, to which portfolios in their directory can be added.

Otis College of Art and Design is already using categories to showcase their productive and abundant community. Check out the Otis directory and click the "By Category" tab to check it out. Otis decided to categorize portfolios under academic departments as well as by the role of their owners (student, staff, faculty or alumni).

Here are some great new e-Portfolios we wanted to share with you. We feature our favorite e-Portfolios on the Digication home page and also on our pages of recommended teacher and student e-Portfolios. If you have one you're proud of, send us a link through the contact page!

Curvin McCabe Visual Arts: 6th Grade Flat Pack Toy Design
Brian Hutcheson, recent alumni of Rhode Island School of Design's Art + Design Education Department, created this portfolio to highlight a fantastic Flat Pack Toy lesson. It's filled with incredible student work and resources for teachers in any discipline to create Flat Pack Toys with their students. The Flat Pack Toy template as well the student creations can be downloaded as pdfs so you can create your own!


Pickerington High School Central Art Department
Pickerington High School
This e-Portfolio helps art students at Pickerington High choose their art classes by offering an interactive syllabus for each class, complete with work samples and detailed descriptions of each lesson. Students can also be inspired by senior portfolios and find out about the school's Art Club.

Artists Abroad
Smithfield High School
Three art teachers take students on an exciting 20-day trip abroad to France, Italy and Greece. Their e-Portfolio includes a detailed schedule, information about the places they're visiting, daily photos, and more.

Bell High Literary Arts Magazine
Bell High School
An art and a writing class at Bell High joined forces to create this multi-media literary magazine. It does a great job highlighting the talents of both classes, including videos, poems, photo collages visualizing poetry, and more.

We'd love to meet our users and anyone interested in Digication. If you're going to be at Educause, drop us a note on the Contact page!

Upcoming Conferences
October: Educause in Seattle, WA
http://www.educause.edu/e07
See some of our users showcase their use of Digication in the session "Drawing on Technology: A Blueprint for Adopting E-Portfolios".

March 2008: NAEA in New Orleans, LA
http://www.naea-reston.org/convention.html

Past Conferences
June: NMC in Indianapolis, IN
http://www.nmc.org/events/2007summerconf/
Digication / OTIS info: http://campus.digication.com/nmc2007

May: AAM in Chicago, IL
http://www.aam-us.org/

February: TCEA in Austin, TX
http://www.tcea2007.org/

Digication Surpasses 1,000th School Milestone in First Academic Year

Heller Reports
Published Online: 7/13/2007
link to article

Boston School Rolls Out Senior Projects with e-Portfolio Tool
T.H.E. Journal
Published Online: 7/11/2007
link to article

Digication welcomes 1,000th client school
Providence Business News
Published Online: 07/10/2007
link to article

Digication Surpasses 1,000th School Milestone in First Academic YearThe Boston Community Leadership Academy Honored as 1,000th School; Senior Capstone Project Showcases Power of e-Portfolios in the Classroom

Providence, RI - July 9, 2007 - The students and teachers of the Boston Community Leadership Academy (BCLA) in Brighton, MA, are pioneering an educational trend to publish projects to the Internet with e-Portfolios. BCLA last month became the milestone 1,000th school working with Digication, an entirely new concept in educational software and web publishing that is Simple by Design. With no training required, and no budget approval necessary (Digication is free for up to 1,000 students at any U.S. school), four senior history classes at BCLA began using Digication's web-based e-Portfolio solution immediately-highlighting an impressive Senior Capstone project where more than 60 students published and archived this culmination of their high school work to the Internet (http://bcla.digication.com/BCLAcapstoneclass/Home/).

"When we launched Digication at the start of the school year, our handful of pilot project schools had shown the simple yet powerful approach to integrating technology in the classroom was effective, but closing the academic year with widespread adoption by users at more than 1,000 schools exceeded even our loftiest expectations," said Jeffrey Yan, CEO of Digication and an educator at several New England universities. "Students and teachers are starved for effective technology that can motivate students and drive a more collaborative learning process. By filling that need, Digication is now creating online learning communities at schools in nearly every state across the nation."

Digication is centered around the creation, publication, discussion and archiving of educational content to the web with dynamic e-Portfolios. Simple by Design, users can skip the typical roadblocks of learning a new technology, and jump right into benefiting from the significant impact that customized technology can have upon today's learning experience.

"The Senior Capstone project was an opportunity for my students to ask important questions about the community they live in and develop significant answers. Digication provided an amazing opportunity to showcase the lessons learned and share their experience with the entire school community, as well as future classes," said James Liou, the senior history teacher, BCLA. "We've understood the opportunity the Internet presented as a medium to learn and reflect, but learning to build a web page is a time consuming task. With Digication, many students immediately said, 'I can do this' or 'I like this' and were excited by the opportunity to incorporate their personality into their e-portfolio."

"Before Digication in my previous years of teaching, the year would often end and I would be left with a lot of exemplary work without a way to effectively archive and share it," continued Liou. "But now each student's project can keep on living on the Internet for others to learn from and appreciate, and ideally, for their ideas of community change to become known and valued."

Recognizing BCLA as the 1,000th Customer
Digication is honoring the Boston Community Leadership Academy as the 1,000th school to sign-up and leverage their web-based software, with the gift of the Digication Admin Tool for one full year. The Digication Admin Tool empowers administrators to leverage the free Digication e-learning software with customization and enhanced management features.

With BCLA having so quickly integrated Digication so deeply into classrooms to enhance the learning experience, Digication chose to provide the Admin Tool as a gift that will help teachers and administrators get even more out of Digication as they plan for the next academic year. The gift is an enhancement to Digication's core e-Portfolio and online classroom/community solution, which remains free for up to 1,000 users at any U.S. accredited school.

The presentation of a plaque commemorating BCLA as the 1,000th customer took place in June, with Digication President Kelly Driscoll and CEO Jeffrey Yan visiting the school in person to interact with the teachers and learn first-hand how students are benefiting from Digication as a motivating and collaborative enhancement to BCLA's classrooms. Photos of the visit are available on Digication's Web site at www.digication.com.

Publishing Student Work for the World to See
Digication's e-Portfolios give students the tools to publish within the framework of their achievements, aspirations, educational experiences, and extra-curricular activities. The process of creating an e-Portfolio not only gives students an opportunity to build necessary technology skills, but also provides an excellent opportunity for acknowledging their strengths, recognizing areas for improvement, setting goals and marking milestones. They are powerful tools for learning and reflection and can provide dynamic platforms for sharing and collaboration to enhance the learning experience.

The Boston Community Leadership Academy is one of the Boston public pilot schools. It offers a rigorous college preparatory program with college acceptance as a graduation requirement, while focusing on developing future scholar leaders through community service learning and adherence to rigorous academic, social and civic expectations. Courses include AP classes, world languages, and arts. Seniors take part in their Capstone projects requiring action research in their communities. All students present portfolios and exhibitions to demonstrate mastery in their coursework. Students also have a voice as members of Student Government, Governing Board and Leadership Team.

Each year students from BCLA assemble and defend portfolios to present their year's work in final assessments. Digication was the perfect compliment to expand this established practice from a print portfolio that could be shared in a one-to-one environment, to a more dynamic, interactive web publishing environment that empowered the school community to share and learn from each individual project. It also acts as an archive, which helps educators document and track work for accreditation and other standards requirements.

The new one-to-many aspect of showcasing BCLA senior capstone projects with Digication extends the reach of student's work far beyond even the school community. Mr. Liou chose to publish his Senior Capstone Class portfolios to the public as well, and they can be viewed by anyone on the web at: http://bcla.digication.com/BCLAcapstoneclass/Home/.

About the Digication Admin Tool
The Digication Admin Tool enables schools to take control over the management of their Digication learning community, from linking user sign-up to existing student databases, to course management and user access privileges within the online community. It allows administrators to customize their school's Digication site, import user data and course lists, review usage metrics and control what users are allowed to do on the school's site. Digication's Admin Tool lets schools decide what e-Portfolios, what communications or online classroom content should be published to individual sub-groups of students, teachers, individual classes, clubs and organizations, or to the outside world - all with the simple by design Web 2.0 principles Digication was built upon.

About Digication, Inc.
Digication represents an entirely new concept in educational software that is simple by design. Easier to master and simpler to use, Digication provides all the connectivity, file sharing and e-Portfolio tools educators and students want. Designed by educators to serve the core needs of educators, Digication opens the lines of communication by creating a secure, private community that can learn and grow both inside and outside the classroom. Digication provides an online digital portfolio and academic social network solution for school communities and alumni across the nation. The e-Portfolio technology is integrated with a web-based online learning community designed for classrooms and internal school communities that supports the development of digital content to be showcased in e-Portfolios. For advanced use, the Digication Admin Tool provides customization and management of online Digication communities. Digication is headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island. For more information, visit www.digication.com.

Rising Above the Crowd with an e-Portfolio
CollegeRecruiter.com
Published Online: 06/2007
link to article

Here at Digication we're always creating new features that will help our users make the most out of Digication. We hope you enjoy our two features latest features inspired by the feedback we receive from users like you. Your feedback plays an important role in the innovation of our products so keep sending your ideas and comments to support@digication.com!

New Feature: Create New e-Portfolio from a Template
We now offer templates to give you ideas and save you time. Maybe you're not sure how to organize your e-Portfolio, or maybe you're a teacher who wants to have a whole classroom of students quickly set up portfolios. Either way, these templates should make the process even easier.

When you're creating a new e-Portfolio (after logging in, click Create under My e-Portfolio Showcase on the right), you'll see a new tab which says Create From Template. Click this tab and you'll be able to preview the available templates and select the template you would like to use to kick start your site. Currently we offer a general portfolio template as well as templates for students and teachers. Once your e-Portfolio is created you can use the template as is or customize it to suit your unique goals.

We plan to give schools that are taking advantage of our Admin Tool the opportunity to create custom school-wide templates very soon!

New Feature: Export to an e-Portfolio
For schools taking advantage of our classroom tools, we now offer the ability to export from a post directly to a portfolio page. This feature provides a quick and easy way to showcase student work and achievements. At the left of any post, click the Export to Spot link and choose which parts of the post you'd like to export. Watch our video demo (2.5 mb) to see this feature in action.

Innovator Spotlight: DIGI[cation]
Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation
Published Online: 05/2007
link to article

Collaboration in Today's Classrooms: New Web Tools Change the Game
MultiMedia & Internet @ Schools
Published Online: 05/01/2007
Print Issue: May 2007
link to article


This article was contributed by Kelly Driscoll. Kelly Driscoll, co-founder of Digication, Inc. (www.digication.com), is an active educator, helping teachers develop technology skills for improving the teaching and learning experience. She has taught graduate and undergraduate courses at Bryant University and the Rhode Island School of Design, including current courses titled Integrating Technology into the Classroom and Visual Literacy in Digital Media.

E-portfolios :: Making Things E-asy
T.H.E. Journal
Published Online: 4/11/2007
Print Issue: April, 2007
link to article

net@nite 16: Geek Is The New Black
net@nite
Published Online: 3/18/2007
link to website

Digication Rolls Out Integrated e-Portfolio Tool
Campus Technology
Published Online: 3/12/2007
link to article

Digication Ships Integrated e-Portfolio Tool
T.H.E. Journal
Published Online: 3/12/2007
Print Issue: March, 2007
link to article

MultiMedia & Internet @ Schools
Published Online: 03/05/2007
link to article

MultiMedia & Internet @ Schools
Published Online: 02/21/2007
link to article

Providence Business News
Published Online: 02/07/2007
Print Issue: 02/07/2007 (Issue 21-43)
link to article

Digication is featured in The Providence Journal
Published Online: 2/7/2007
link to article

Digication is featured in Connection Magazine
Published Online: 2/5/2007
link to article (pdf)

Ken Ronkowitz from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, talks about "Free" CMS for K-12. See his blog post: Is there a free CMS for K-12 schools? Ken makes a great distinction between CMS use for online courses, and CMS being used to support and complement a face-to-face class.

He also talks about an important point that open source software for schools such as Moodle and Sakai require, "IT support, probably more support than a commercial product which comes with at least some built-in/paid for support." Many K-12 and Higher Ed. schools do not have the resources for this support or would prefer support be provided externally.

Digication comes up in his discussion since it is providing free software, hosting and support for K-12 and higher ed. schools across the U.S.

Digication was featured on Richard MacManus' popular Read/WriteWeb blog, January 17, 2007. The article, which provides an informative look at how Web 2.0 software for the classroom, now often referred to as E-learning 2.0, is quickly permeating K-12 and higher ed classrooms. Richard provides useful information about Google's tools for educators, Digication's collaborative, community driven learning tools, and some Web 2.0 tools like blogs and podcasts that are being used in the classroom even though they weren't designed specifically for that purpose. Take a look at the Read/WriteWeb blog to read all about it!

You can hardly pick up a paper today without reading an article about the startling drop out rates of youth from high schools across the country - this epidemic is nationwide and is not just in big cities, but also small town America.

To quote a recent article on the ABC News website, "It is estimated that 2,500 students drop out of U.S. high schools every day." And the percentages(50% of students in the largest school systems across the country, and as reported by the Department of Education, 31% of American students are not completing school in the largest school districts)

As a teacher myself, who works with other teachers across the country, these dramatic numbers are a cold reality - motivation to complete high school ideally starts at home and is supported by the classroom. Unfortunately, poverty, ill equipped classrooms, a significant decline in communication between schools and parents, language disparity and a long list of other factors are contributing to this wide spread epidemic.

I was recently introduced to Robert Morris, founder of the Center for Diversity, www.Center4Diversity.com, and the organization Tailwinds, an innovative partnership propelling students and parents to literacy, English language proficiency, and productive citizenship.

I'd like to share some information about this program with all of you because I think it has such value and directly addresses a major reason for the steady increase in drop-rate rates across the U.S.:

"Tailwinds! is an innovative public-private partnership formed to support schools in meeting the literacy and English acquisition needs of school-age children and parents from low/non-English speaking households. The program targets communities with concentrations of migrants and immigrants of Latino, Hispanic, or Mexican descent. At the same time, Tailwinds! is designed for all who have difficulty meeting basic or proficient academic standards, including students with disabilities.

Simply stated, the goals of Tailwinds! are to:
1) positively and substantially impact English reading, writing, listening, and speaking proficiency of target student groups and their parents;
2) significantly contribute to target schools making AYP as required by NCLB;
3) significantly improve students' attendance and involvement in school - lowering high school drop out and raising high school graduation rates; and
4) notably increase effective integration of low/non-English speaking parents in their local English speaking communities and in turn the United States"

Robert provided me with some additional startling statistics - "40% of high school students in their freshmen year of high school drop out.
Approximately 22% of the total student population is functionally illiterate.

If our children are our future, what kind of future will we have with a significant portion of them having less than a high school education? This is an education issue, a leadership issue, a labor and work preparation and readiness issue, an economic issue, and a diversity and inclusion issue."

Technology is an important aspect of Tailwinds, addressing the needs of students (and their parents) with diverse backgrounds, abilities, and learning styles, so that they can succeed in the classroom and ultimately in life.

To learn more baout the Center 4 Diversity take a look at their website: www.Center4Diversity.com

We can't get enough of teaching and learning success stories here at Digication. We would like to share an article with you that we found on the Infinite Thinking Machine website (www.infinitethinking.org) recently.

This article introduces a 10th grade Computer Science classroom and a 6th grade Language Arts classroom, both incidentally in the Southeast U.S., Georgia and South Carolina respectively.

Both classrooms have put the community building aspects of Web 2.0 technology like wikis, Skype, and podcasting to work in the classroom with dramatic, positive impact on the educational experience of their students.

Their students are engaged, excited, connected, motivated, and HAVING FUN WHILE LEARNING! And they are not just learning about the subject matter introduced in these courses, but are rather gaining significant skills in other areas including technology, effective communication (not just in their classrooms, but with students in other countries!), creative expression, collaboration - the list goes on and on. Isn't that what school should be all about?

Huge pats on the back to Vicki Davis and Chris Craft, the teachers making this all possible for their students.

We found a super blog post today about Digication Campus in a music classroom (Thank you for the fine feedback!). Take a look to learn how this educator has put our technology to great use: The Digital Music Educator: Changing the way we think about Music Education

Good Morning Digi Members-

We are happy to announce the addition of a new file attachment feature which allows you to upload multiple file attachments at one time. This new feature additionally gives you a progress view so you can see what percentage of the attachment has downloaded, and easy to use drag and drop ordering of attachments. In order to take advantage of this new feature, you will need to install the latest Flash player on your computer. To download the latest Flash player click here.
We hope you will all find this new feature useful!

This article, IBM to Add Podcasting to Curriculum at University of Arizona, posted on TechNewsWorld this weekend emphasizes the need for today's students (and teachers!) to become well versed in next-generation, collaborative technologies such as blogs, wikis and podcasts.

The article describes the integration of such technologies into the classroom today as a "natural evolution" for business courses. I would of course argue it's a natural evolution for courses in general. Students need to gain these skills as part of their educational experience in order to communicate effectively in the today's work force and certainly the work force of tomorrow.

Digication Provides E-Learning and E-Portfolio Solutions to Over 200 Schools in First Two Months
New Concept in Web 2.0 Educational Software and Safe Social Networking Embraced by Users at More Than 200 Schools Across the Nation



Providence, RI, - November 6, 2006 - Digication™, an entirely new concept in educational software that is simple by design, has generated nationwide adoption by users at more than 200 schools since the first of the Company's two products was unveiled August 14. Digication Campus, an online classroom designed to facilitate communication between teachers, students and internal school communities, was followed by the second product in the Suite on September 12, Digication Spotlight. Whether used as a stand-alone solution or to enhance Digication Campus, schools leverage Digication Spotlight as an online digital portfolio and academic social network.

"Being educators ourselves, we understood the budget, training and evaluation hurdles that educators face when adopting technology for the classroom, and designed the Digication Suite as a free alternative to complex, traditional e-learning software. And we recognized that students and teachers alike needed a means to easily publish information to the web with a professional look and feel," said Jeffrey Yan, CEO of Digication. "It's been heartening to see our solutions embraced so positively by educators, bloggers and technology experts. After years of development working closely with K-12 schools and universities to refine Digication's solutions, there's no greater satisfaction than to see that in just two short months, students at more than 200 schools are already actively using our technology to showcase their work, collaborate, share ideas and express their personalities."

Digication Campus and Spotlight bring teachers and students together in a seamless learning environment, an entirely new concept in educational software that is simpler to use, more appealing and cost effective. Digication Campus offers a web-based solution ideal for creating, managing, sharing, and accessing educational content - with intuitive navigation and design so simple, first-time users can just sit down and get started. No tech support is needed, and no complex software implementation or customization is ever required. Teachers can design their web-based classroom and begin enrolling students in just minutes.

Digication Spotlight provides an outlet to showcase academic projects and events with a professional look that is flexible and customizable. Simple by design, users can access the intuitive web-based publisher by visiting www.digication.com and immediately have access to all the tools necessary for creating and managing their personal or group-based website or web portfolio, known as Spotlight 'spots." Creating a Spot is an opportunity to stand out and attract attention to academic achievement and performance, and receive praise and acknowledgment for hard work and success. Digication Spotlight creates an academic network for K-12 and higher education where teachers, students and alumni can create Spots to post their original writing, art work, photos, movies, music, important papers, upcoming events and interesting ideas.

Pricing and Availability
With the ability to access materials and educational technology often determined by the budget available to staff and students at a school or a district, Digication is interested in removing this gap and empowering teachers to incorporate new technology into the classroom without needing budget approvals. With these challenges in mind, the Digication Suite (Campus and/or Spotlight) is available for free to the first 1,000 users at any U.S. accredited school.

Digication Campus and Spotlight can be signed up for as an individual, as part of an institution, or even a school district by visiting www.digication.com.

The Digication Suite is a result of years of development and testing within educational institutions across the country. It is less expensive to run, develop, scale and integrate than any other learning management solution. Users include current students, teachers, administrators and staff. Alumni may also participate, and keep, accounts active upon graduating, without counting against your school's 1,000 free users. After 1,000 accounts, the Digication Suite costs only $20 per user annually.

About Digication
Digication represents an entirely new concept in educational software that is simple by design. Easier to master and simpler to use, Digication provides all the connectivity, file sharing and e-Portfolio tools educators and students want. Designed by educators to serve the core needs of educators, the Digication Suite opens the lines of communication by combining elements of social networking and learning management systems to create a secure, private community that can learn and grow both inside and outside the classroom. Current product offerings include Digication Campus, a web-based Learning Management System (LMS) designed for classrooms and internal school communities, and Digication Spotlight, an online digital portfolio and academic social network for school communities and alumni across the nation. Digication is headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island. For more information, visit