Democrasoft, Inc. today announced three milestone developments related to Collaborize Classroom, the company’s flagship web-based education platform. Democrasoft announced (1) the official launch of the revolutionary Collaborize Classroom Topic Library; (2) that over 10,000 teachers worldwide have launched their own Collaborize Classroom sites and (3) a newly redesigned CollaborizeClassroom.com.
Today marks the official launch of Democrasoft’s Collaborize Classroom Topic Library, a free community resource that enables teachers to take the best individual topic-based lessons that they create and share them with other teachers around the world. All teachers using Collaborize Classroom will now gain access to topics that have already proven successful for other teachers utilizing the free Collaborize Classroom online learning platform. The click-and-go curriculum functionality makes it possible for teachers to easily populate their own Collaborize Classroom sites in a matter of minutes, with individual discussion topics and lessons from the global Topic Library, on almost any subject and for any grade level, at no cost. Teachers can also share the discussion topics that they create with other teachers on the Collaborize Classroom network, providing the foundation for a 24 x 7 global repository of peer-reviewed topic-based lessons.
According to Democrasoft Chairman & CEO Richard Lang, “We believe that the introduction of our groundbreaking Topic Library has the potential to revolutionize how education is delivered around the world, and, while the library is already well-stocked, we look forward to an exponentially increasing number of topic-based lessons becoming available to educators everywhere, as teachers continue to share their most successful work.”
Collaborize Classroom also announced the achievement of another key milestone goal this week: more 10,000 teachers worldwide have now launched their own Collaborize Classroom sites. The number of sites launched by teachers has been growing by at least 34% per month since January of this year, except for June and July, when the adoption rate increased by 60% in those months.
“We are extremely gratified to see the adoption of Collaborize Classroom continue to climb,” said Lang. “We have gone from nine teachers using our free online learning platform last October to over 10,000 today, and we expect today’s launch of our global Topic Library to further enhance our adoption rate in the coming months and beyond.”
Democrasoft also announced that the company’s central Collaborize Classroom website has been redesigned and now contains new features to further help teachers engage their students in the learning process. CollaborizeClassroom.com features new sections containing (1) free teacher resources, (2) free professional development courses, and (3) on-demand webinars.
Collaborize Classroom has emerged as a preferred choice in education technology because of its simple and engaging design, its ease of use, the “fun factor” reported by students, and its ability to embed documents, video and other multimedia directly into online discussion topics.
The free, collaborative online learning platform also provides teachers with student participation reports, and teachers using the system have found the quantified results of online student discussions very helpful. In fact, last week, the company received the following unsolicited thank-you note from a teacher in New Jersey, even before the official introduction of the Topic Library: “Beginning my 20th year next week and this ol’ dog is so psyched about this site and the possibilities! Thanks for such an amazing new strategy for my teacher toolbox.”
Today we released the latest and greatest updates to Collaborize Classroom. As many of you know, last month the Collaborize Classroom Topic Library launched. With a single click, teachers can share individual question-based topics that have already been proven successful in individual Collaborize Classroom websites around the world. If you haven’t yet checked out the library you can here: http://library.collaborizeclassroom.com.
This month we’ve added some long-awaited features to Collaborize Classroom:
Permission-Based Categories
We’re excited to have delivered the feature that has been most requested by our users! You can now set group-level permissions on your topic categories. The benefit of this feature is that students will only see the topics that are relevant to them.
To use this feature, start by creating student groups. Roll over Manage at the top of your site and click Groups.
The Manage Groups section will appear, which lists all of the groups you have created in your site. To set up a new group, click Create New Group.
Once you’ve created your groups you can set permissions on any category so that it is only visible to members of the group(s) you select.
On the Manage Categories screen (the second tab in the “Manage Site” area), you’ll see the current visibility setting for each category. Collaborize Classroom defaults the setting to “Visible to Everyone.”
Click Edit and the Category Visibility window will appear. You have the choice to make the category you’ve selected visible to everyone, just the site moderators or the site moderators and the groups of your choice. Check the box(s) for the groups that apply and click Save Changes.
No Email Required for Student Registration
Another request we’ve heard from many of our users is for students to be able to join a Collaborize Classroom site without using an email address. With this release, we provide a link on the registration form for students to register without an email address:
If your students choose to create a username, it must be at least 6 characters in length. Just like an email address, they’ll use their new username to sign in to your Collaborize Classroom site.
Easy Access to Managing Categories
We’ve heard from many of our users that they were having a hard time finding where to go to manage their categories. To address this, we’ve added a simple way to navigate to the Manage Categories section. On the top right of the Categories list, you’ll see a pencil icon. Simply click on the pencil and the Manage Category section will appear. From this menu, you can add, delete, edit and rearrange categories. You can also set your visibility permissions using student groups, as described above in Permission-Based Categories.
We are always looking for feedback from our community of teachers. If you have an idea, feature request, or anything else you would like to share, please send it to us at feedback@collaborizeclassroom.com or find us on Twitter at @Collaborize.
Democrasoft Enters Into Agreement with Major Corporation
By · CommentsDemocrasoft Inc. today announced that it has executed an agreement with one of America’s largest and best-known corporations to participate in a special joint project involving the Collaborize Classroom online learning platform, Democrasoft’s flagship product. Under the terms of the agreement, Democrasoft is not able to disclose the name of the other party. In addition, Democrasoft has agreed to prioritize the development of certain aspects of its technology with a view to accelerating the deployment of various new features that Democrasoft has recently developed.
While there can be no assurance that this agreement will lead to any continued relationship, this agreement represents the first significant revenue event for Democrasoft related to its Collaborize Classroom blended-learning platform. Under the terms of the agreement, the other corporation will make a payment in the low six figures in the current quarter and another equal payment at the completion of the project.
“We are extremely gratified that one of America’s household names has expressed this level of interest in how our web-based platform can potentially create a significant opportunity for both parties in the education arena,” said Richard Lang, Chairman and CEO of Democrasoft. “While nothing is guaranteed, this relationship, if continued, could go a long way toward achieving our long-range goal of extending the reach of Collaborize Classroom around the world,” Lang added.
In an unrelated development, Democrasoft announced that, since its last update on July 5th, the number of Collaborize Classroom sites launched by teachers has now topped 8,300.The monthly growth rate for launched sites has averaged 34% since January; in June the growth rate exceeded 60%, even though school was out of session most of the month in most areas.
Democrasoft Announces Management Update
By · Comments
Democrasoft, Inc. today announced management updates in three areas of interest to the financial community and shareholders:
(1) The last of the legacy patent sales has been completed. U.S. patent #05262875 (also known as the “Mincer” patent) was sold for $50,000 net to the Company in a post-auction transaction through ICAP/Ocean Tomo, the same auction house that sold the rest of the Company’s legacy patents earlier this year. This concludes the process of monetizing the Company’s legacy patent portfolio and does not affect the pending patent applications related to the Company’s Collaborize cloud-based social networking platform.
(2) At last week’s Annual Meeting of Shareholders, all of the Company’s Directors were re-elected.
(3) As a result of ongoing marketing activities, including the Company’s previously announced participation at ISTE 2011 education technology conference in Philadelphia last week and the previously announced appearance of CEO Richard Lang on the Dylan Ratigan Show on MSNBC on June 24, new Collaborize Classroom sites launched last week were the highest weekly total since the Company announced the free online learning platform. The number of launched sites increased from 5,274 on Friday, June 24 to 6,380 at the end of the day on Friday, July 1, 2011 even though schools are generally not in session.
“We are extremely gratified by the growth of the Collaborize Classroom sites launched by teachers,” said Richard Lang, Democrasoft’s Chairman & CEO. “We are very hopeful that, as we launch our global Topic Library and other important new elements of Collaborize Classroom within the education community over the coming weeks, our teacher network will continue to expand to even greater numbers.”
Richard Lang on the Dylan Ratigan Show
By · CommentsRichard Lang, CEO of Democrasoft and creator of Collaborize Classroom visited MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan Show to talk about innovation and technology in the classroom and how Collaborize Classroom can help teachers with in-class discussions, assignments & instruction.
“Gives them something specific to interaction with each other. It’s called blended learning. “
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