Press Room

Sprint Expands Empowered Education Desktop to Include Curriculum-Rich Packages from Leading K-12 Publishers and Software Developers

Sprint (NYSE: FON, PCS) today announced that it has reached agreements with numerous leading K-12 educational software developers and publishers to create three new curriculum packages for its Empowered EducationSM Desktop

Sprint has signed contracts with Inspiration Software, Riverdeep, netTrekker, Florida Virtual School, Softease, ePALs Classroom Exchange, and Designing Thriving Schools by Burrus Research to incorporate their solutions into new curriculum packages - the Elementary Pack, Middle School Pack, and High School Pack - on the Empowered Education Desktop.

“By adding services to the Empowered Education Desktop from these leading educational software developers and publishers, Sprint continues to demonstrate its commitment to creating solutions that improve student achievement, increase family involvement and help schools maximize their technology investments,” said Mike Werth, director of marketing for Sprint.

The Empowered Education Desktop, powered by LearningStation, combines Sprint’s world-class communications network with the delivery of a comprehensive listing of high-quality educational curriculum and learning tools from a wide range of leading K-12 content providers. Sprint and LearningStation signed a three-year contract in 2002 to develop and implement the Empowered Education Desktop to K-12 schools across the U.S.

Adding software developers and publishers will allow Sprint to offer more K-12 instructional curriculum resources, productivity tools and collaboration utilities on the Empowered Education Desktop:

Inspiration Software provides the award-winning Kidspiration® and Inspiration® software programs that help students develop comprehension, thinking and writing skills across the curriculum. Based on the proven techniques of visual learning, students build dynamic graphic organizers to develop ideas and analyze concepts.

Riverdeep offerings include parts of Destination Math®, a comprehensive curriculum that demonstrates how Mathematical issues arise out of real-life situations, and Destination Reading® which teaches phonics, decoding, and comprehension. Additional offerings include the Language Arts Tool Kit, which gives hours of instruction and practice in reading comprehension, punctuation, and capitalization, sentence structure, grammar, and composition. Riverdeep’s Teacher Universe Professional Development courses will also be available through the Empowered Education Desktop.

netTrekker is an award-winning academic search engine specifically designed for school use.  netTrekker increases teacher productivity and students’ time on task by providing fast and easy access to over 180,000 high-quality, prescreened, and educationally relevant K-12 online resources.  These standards-based online resources, including more than 18,000 lesson plans and learning exercises, can be used in the classroom and curricula to stimulate instruction and learning.

Florida Virtual School, a leader in virtual education options, provides access to a variety of online high school curriculum applications.

Softease’s Textease Studio Plus offers schools a complete suite of core productivity tools that are fully integrated, have a simple and configurable user interface and can be used across the curriculum. The tools include Textease (a word processing, desktop publishing and multimedia program), Database, Spreadsheet, Turtle, Branch, Paint and Presenter.

Each new curriculum package also features ePALS Classroom Exchange, which offers an instant language translation tool. The ePALS SchoolMail provides a filtered and monitored e-mail solution that enhances communication between students and educators.

As an enhancement to the curriculum and productivity tools offered through the Empowered Education Desktop, Burrus Research will offer Designing Thriving SchoolsTM workshops. During these professional development workshops for school district leadership teams, Burrus Research identifies technologies and strategies that schools can implement to accelerate learning and increase staff performance.
 

Editor’s Note:
For more information, please visit Sprint at booth #343 at the National School Boards Association (NSBA) T+L2 Conference.

About Sprint

Sprint is a global integrated communications provider serving more than 26 million customers in over 100 countries. With approximately 70,000 employees worldwide and nearly $27 billion in annual revenues, Sprint is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying state-of-the-art network technologies, including the United States’ first nationwide all-digital, fiber-optic network and an award-winning Tier 1 Internet backbone.  Sprint provides local communications services in 39 states and the District of Columbia and operates the largest 100-percent digital, nationwide PCS wireless network in the United States. For more information, visit www.sprint.com.