Four-year-old Christopher Gómez lined up a set of specialized word and animal cards, including one with the letter ‘I’ and a picture of an iguana under a camera to compose the sentence, “The iguana can eat.”

Christopher shifted his eyes toward a projection screen, smiled and said, “I like the iguana!” as the reptile appeared to pop off the card and onto the screen to eat an insect. A woman’s voice simultaneously spoke the sentence displayed above the screen.

Teachers at the Baldwin Park public school say “Letters alive,” software that combines interactive 3-D technology with sounds, words and realistic animal actions, is helping the school’s 50 autistic children overcome the challenges they encounter when learning to read.

“A static image has little meaning to Christopher, but a three-dimensional image that interacts with him through movement and sound makes a lasting impression because it becomes functional,” said Mary-Elizabeth Langston, Audubon Park’s primary special education teacher. “I hear the children throughout the day repeating the sounds they learned.”

Audubon Park is the first school in the nation to test the preschool and kindergarten program developed by Logical Choice Technologies, an educational firm based in Georgia.

The program costs $995 and contains the software, a document camera, 26 alphabet cards illustrated with animals and a set of 94 flash cards with common pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and verbs necessary for developing reading skills before a child enters the second grade.

When the animal and word cards are joined in a sentence under the camera, the animals perform the actions, but only if that particular creature is capable of such movement. For example, in the sentence, “The giraffe can fly,” the 3-D giraffe will shake its head from left to right to show it cannot do it.

“Students learn what these actions mean, how they are performed, and how they are spelled based on real animals in their natural habitat,” said Audra Cervi, the school’s reading resource teacher.

The user can also flip the animal card to show all sides of the creature. If the teacher presses a colored tab on the card, a 3-D letter replaces the animal. Teachers can show students all sides of the letter. These features appeal especially to autistic students who focus more on visuals as they learn language.

Teachers at Audubon Park, which acquired the program in October, said so far there has been no measurable improvement in their students’ skills. But Langston said students are more socially engaged since they launched the technology.

“We’re starting to see the difference in how they form sounds and words,” she said. “I’ve noticed more eye contact with others, and there’s a willingness to learn that we had not seen before.”…

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The next 12 days hold one of my favorite annual traditions. Each year we look around in the less-obvious places for ideas, organizations and people we believe in. Then, during the 12 days following Christmas and into the New Year, we donate a piece of our profits each day on behalf of each of our clients. Using social media, we’ll share our giving choices each day. This isn’t to show off how generous we are, although we are proud of our giving culture. The purpose is to inspire others to do the same, or to discover new ways of supporting positive change in the world.

Tonight is our kickoff, with contributions on behalf of our client Excent, via our microfinance partner Kiva, to support a small, woman-owned business in Iraq. The proprietor’s name is Jwan:

Jwan is 35 years old and a proud mother of four children. She is also a proud and successful Iraqi working woman. For the past three years, she has been working hard in her beauty salon. Her clients are very pleased with the service they receive.

Jwan is requesting a loan of $2,400 from Relief International-Iraq to make some changes to her salon and improve the working area, which will allow her to hire an employee to work with her in the salon.

To learn more about Kiva and/or micro-finance, click here.

We’ll update this post in a few weeks with a complete roundup. In the mean time, if you are inspired, send us a comment or email and let us know!

Thanks for reading. May your 2012 bring abundance, liberation and joy…

Respectfully,

Ian Bryan

President & Founder

Here is a shout to Ology Media from our multimedia crew, and a quick explanation of how Ology Social works. Sign up, or just poke around at http://my.ology.com/

A couple of years ago, I inherited a Channel that was doing about $4M in annual sales.  Not bad for a first year start up, except for the fact that more that half of that revenue was coming from only two Resellers.

In looking at this company’s Channel there was no real Program.  There were different margins, different contracts, no accountability; you know the drill.  So I knew I had to scrap the current model and rebuild it if this company was going to survive with a Reseller model.

The deeper I got into the model, the more I knew, that I needed to start from scratch.  I needed a different type of Partner with a different skill set.   I needed to construct a totally new Channel Program.

I cancelled all of the existing contracts, and extended the new contract to only two of the current Partners.   Keep the two that are doing the sales, and cancel everybody else, right?    No, that would have been too easy.

The two Partners that were collectively doing  $2.5 M in revenue didn’t fit the new model that I was introducing. At the heart of my new program was exclusivity, and neither of my big players was willing to give up their competitive lines.   In addition, it didn’t help that one of the Partners I was about to cancel was a high visibility national company that any start-up would have given their right arm to have in their Channel.   Career defining move?  You bet it was.

Management and the Board backed my decision, but I knew that if this didn’t work it would cost me my job, and the company more than heart burn, if not their future.   Within three months, I rolled out an entirely new Channel Program.   We now had one contract, one margin structure, new reporting requirements, and a sales certification program. The company is no longer a start-up and has grown from that little $4M firm to over $200M in Channel sales. They have made modifications over the last few years to this model, but the structure is basically the same.

So, the moral to my story is, don’t be afraid to take risks.  Sure you’ll have lots of sleepless nights, and sure everyone around you will question your sanity, but if you’ve done your homework, and you believe in your heart of hearts that this is the right thing to do, then go for it.  There is no greater satisfaction than to look back and say, “ I did good”.

Debbie Yasenka

is a veteran K12 advisor with Engaged Learning Solutions,
actively working with several of Sensible City’s top clients.

She can be reached at: dyasenka -(at)- gmail.com

KUSA – You may have heard the fairy tale of the woman turning straw into gold. It may not be gold, but a Boulder company claims to be doing something quite similar.

9NEWS has been following the Clean Tech Open since March of this year. The competition takes the best ideas from hundreds of contestants and helps them develop the ideas into products people can use by offering business training and finding funding for the projects.

“It really drives innovativeness. It helps commercialize and accelerate these phenomenal ideas in green technology and clean technology,” Co-Chairman of the Rocky Mountain Competition Dick Franklin said.

[Read entire article here]

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The GreenFestival/ Celebration of all things earth-friendly paid its annual visit to Seattle this past weekend. From bikes to yoga to organic foods, fabrics and even some ‘naked’ PETA gals…everyone had a good time getting their green on.

[Click here to read up and view the SW slideshow at seattleweekly.com]

Glen McCandless of Selling to Schools invited Sensible City Founder Ian Bryan onto his program to discuss PR in education: blind spots, opportunities and sales integration. Episode Overview:

Public relations has taken the back seat to other types of lead generation education marketing for most companies in the K-12 market, especially with tight economic conditions.

Many companies focus their PR efforts on occasional features in education trade publications, while relying on press releases and web communications to reach the rest of their audience.

Most education marketing and sales executives struggle with PR measurement and ROI, relegating the lion’s share of their budgets to sales infrastructure, advertisements, tradeshows, webinars and other products believed to be “measurable”.

But recent market trends are causing some savvy executives to change their minds and reconsider PR — but framed quite differently.

In this episode, we’ll take about 15 minutes to explore the topic with our guest, PR expert Ian Bryan. Ian has a unique perspective on PR as a way to drive sales of educational technology. He and his organization, Sensible City, have been delivering sales-integrated PR in K12 education since 2005,and they have thousands of news stories and millions of dollars in sales to show for their efforts.

Visit www.sellingtoschools.com for more topics covered by Glen McCandless.

The competition deserves kudos for seeking out the two companies, but both Micromidas and Ecofactor have compelling stories that propelled them to success. Micromidas converts carbon from organic wastewater into biodegradable and recyclable bioplastics. The advantages are twofold: Micromidas eliminates the need for petrochemical-based plastic and cuts down on the amount of solid waste for disposal by wastewater treatment facilities. The company’s innovative approach to bioplastics scored a $3.6 million series A round.

EcoFactor offers a straightforward solution to high residential energy costs: a broadband gateway-connected wireless thermostat system that combines information from set parameters, past thermostat usage, and local weather patterns to adjust the temperature to comfortable–and energy-efficient–levels. “A big part of what’s resonating with people is the realization that a huge percentage of energy consumption in the U.S. is home energy use,” explained Ecofactor CEO John Steinberg in an interview with Fastcompany.com. “Half of all energy use in the country is in buildings, half of that is residential, and half of that is controlled by thermostat.” That huge potential market is why investors ponied up $3.6 million for a series A round of funding.

Other Cleantech Open alumni who have received funding in 2010 are listed below.

• Adura Technologies received a $12 million funding round from NGEN Partners, VantagePoint Venture Partners, and Claremont Creek Ventures

• Alphabet Energy received $320,000 in grants from the U.S. Department of Energy, the Army, and the Air Force

• Cascade Clean Energy received a $400,000 PIER Grant from the California Energy Commission

• EnerVault received $3.5 million in funding from U.S. Invest and Oceanshore Ventures

• FloDesign Wind Turbine closed a $34.5 million Series B funding round, with Series A venture investor Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers adding a syndicate of three major new investors: a Goldman Sachs managed investment fund, Technology Partners and VantagePoint Venture Partners

• Lucid Design Group received a $1.5 million Series A funding from Dry Creek Investments

• New Sky Energy received $750,000 in upfront R&D funding from the Westlands Water District (Fresno, Calif.), with a total of $3.2 million set aside for a carbon capture and desalinization project in California’s Central Valley

• Nila received $100,000 from an individual investor

• Power Assure received a $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy

• SolarNexus received a $312,000 California Solar Initiative grant

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