SmartTech Roundup: 1:1 Reading/Writing, Hardware & Schools

Better Reading & Writing

StudySync hooked up with MetaMetrics to provide Lexile measures for its entire curriculum of 350 classic and modern texts.
Florida adopted Pearson’s social studies eTexts. When a state adopts the program, it gets its own website.
Ginger Software, a contextual grammar and spell-check tool particularly useful for ELL kids, raised $6.3M in series D financing, led by Vaizra Ventures. Ginger also appointed Net Jacobsson, a former Facebook and AOL executive as its new CEO and board member.

1:1 Schools

McAllen Independent School District in Texas is going all iPad and iPod touch for 25,000 students in grade three through 12.
 
Chicago partnered with five companies to create STEM early college high schools.  Partners include Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, Verizon, and Motorola.
The Westlake Initiative for Innovation (WIFI) project released survey data this week on its 1:1 iPad program, which launched in August 2011. The survey found that students most often used their iPads to take notes, email, collaborate, read textbooks, and create presentations, etc.

1:1 Hardware

We like the benefits of laptops but inexpensive desktop thin client workstations—like the $100 Userful MultiSeat linux—can be a useful part of a three-screen day.
We still want secondary students to have keyboards. They can have the benefits of a tab with a full keyboard with the Asus Transformer Pad—looks cool, stay tuned for reviews.

Cool, Free, & Open

IT Open Course Ware and Flat World Knowledge have teamed up to provide free, high-quality textbooks.
 
The Saylor Foundation received a boost of support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to launch its open textbook challenge to make education more freely available to all.
TheBlu, an interactive, underwater experience online, plans to launch its public beta this week.
Check out 15 Things Teachers & Students Can Do With Edmodo.
 
See 11 Most Useful Augmented Reality Apps for iPhone and Android
 
Disclosures: Edmodo is a Learn Capital Portfolio Company.