Intand was recently mentioned by Ednetnews.com for our work with Microsoft to integrate Tandem for Schools with Microsoft’s Geneva Single Sign-On, which makes it easy for students and parents to be authenticated with the user data stored on the school’s servers.

Geneva Single Sign-On is especially useful for schools that use multiple cloud-based third party applications because it provides an easy way to manage user log in permissions across multiple applications while maintaining a high level of security of personal information.

The first implementation of this in a school setting was with the Lake Washington School District who uses Tandem for Schools to manage their calendars at all of their 48 schools.

In the future Geneva Single Sign-On will allow schools to grant full access to students, staff, and parents who have been authenticated by the school. In the past this was possible but would require a school administrator to painstakingly add data manually on each individual or import data into the application. If a school uses multiple third-party applications this may require administrators to manage a separate database on each application which can be very time consuming. Geneva single sign-on will make it much easier to manage user permissions by “talking” with applications and telling them if an individual should be granted access based on student and parent data that is centrally located on the school’s server (Active Directory). This will reduce redundancies and lessen the work load of busy school administrators.

Tandem school administration software helps schools simplify school event management by allowing central control of the school’s events calendar and transportation through an easy to use browser based user interface. This has many benefits for school administrators in charge of coordinating school events.

Communicate Event Scheduling More Effectively
The school administrator in charge of planning school events can enter all the events going on at a school from Drama Club meetings to friday night football games into the online school calendar. Any student, parent, teacher, or coach can easily access information through any web browser to learn about a specific event, or filter the calendar to their specific needs. When an event time is changed by an administrator, the change will be immediately updated to the online calender.

Avoid Schedule Conflicts
It is quick and easy for administrators to add events to the school calendar through a user friendly online interface. Multiple administrators can have access to add events to the calendar and Tandem will automatically alert you if there is a scheduling conflict. No more time wasted on back and fourth paper trails to get a schedule conflict resolved. Coaches can also request facilities and the administrator can easily grant them access with a click of the mouse.

Easy to Implement
Our school administration software is hosted externally on Intand’s secure servers. That means there is no complicated software to install. Our support team can get your calendar up and running in minutes and Tandem allows you to quickly import Excel data like school groups, staff members, and competing schools. If you ever have any questions, our friendly support team will always be happy to help you help you through them.

Manage Transportation
The transportation management functionality is available with the Plus version of Tandem for Schools. It helps administrators easily request and allocate transportation for school events. Tandem’s transportation module will prevent driver conflicts and manage fuel costs.

There are many more helpful benefits of Tandem for Schools. Schedule a free 1 on 1 demo on your own computer to learn more.

Photo by Gil Searcy

Hear what several school administrators have said about our online school calendar:

The Tandem calendar not only gave parents the ability to check on upcoming events, but also gave them driving direction to out of town games. It also allowed us to schedule both our events and make reservations to our high school facility on one one calendar, which streamlined the work done by my office.

-Jeff Lunt, Assistant Principal/Athletic Director, Port Angeles High School

We’ve been using the Tandem calendar since the beginning of the 2008-09 school year and it has been a great addition to our district’s online presence. We have been able to use the RSS feeds to automatically update our main webpage with district events and will soon be extending this to the individual school web pages. I would recommend Tandem to anyone looking for a school events calendar solution.

-Brad King, Manor ISD

We have been struggling for years in keeping our schools’ calendars current. As soon as it is printed it is out of date. I have looked at several on-line calendar solutions and this is the best I have found. We have been using Tandem for about 6 months now and it has been a great hit with both parents and employees. The support staff at Tandem has been extremely helpful in assisting me with some unique issues that some companies might consider out of the scope of their product.

-Kelly Murphy, Merrilville Schools

To find out for yourself, sign up for a free 30 day demo of Tandem for Schools.

Quibblo is a user-driven survey, poll and quiz site where any registered user can participate in, create or modify quizzes, polls and surveys. After a user has created a quiz, poll or survey, they submit it to the world where other users can participate, rate, and comment. All of the quizzes and surveys on Quibblo are user-generated and can be embedded into any other site for external use. Quibblo’s format presents useful applications for students, teachers and administrators.

Students can also use a Quibblo poll limited to their class population to vote on senior class gifts. Student council representatives can use a Quibblo poll to uncover the most pressing issues for their constituents. Teachers can create quizzes for students to take in wired classrooms or at home; for credit, or to collect information about present levels of knowledge before beginning a class unit. Teachers can also use a Quibblo poll or survey to receive feedback on classes or teaching techniques from students, to hold a vote on an upcoming class trip or theater production. A survey or poll conducted at home or in a wired library encourages students’ sense of having a stake in their own education while improving the chances of candid responses by offering more anonymity than a “show of hands” approach.

School administrators may find Quibblo to be useful beyond teachers and students. A Quibble can be embedded in any website, so a survey or poll could be set up on the school site to receive feedback from parents and guardians on school activities, extracurricular functions, school lunches, graduation ceremony dates, or any other school program. A survey or poll not only allows administrators to quickly get access to the opinions of parents and guardians, it also helps to foster parental participation and an open discussion. As it is, a large number of the quizzes, polls and surveys on Quibble are posted by students and revolve around non-germane issues like celebrity and music, but this does not undercut the opportunities that Quibblo provides to democratize decision-making and bring new technology into the classroom.

Note: It can be difficult to copy the embed code for a poll or quiz. I had to click several times before the site finally copied the code.

Tandem for Schools is much more than an online school calendar, it can also be used to manage school transportation and share photos and news. With the photos and news function of the calendar, anyone registered with the calendar can submit photos or news at the individual events page.

To share a photo you can upload an image by clicking on the upload photos icon on the right side of an event page. This can be a great way to share photos from events throughout the school, without having to leave the calendar website. Before a photo is published to the calendar it must first be reviewed and approved a calendar administrator. Then the photo thumbnail will appear on the event page.

You can click on the thumbnail to see a larger version of the photo or you can click on the photo icon on the top of the calendar to see all the photos that have been uploaded from the school and even view school photos in a slide show format. This can be fun for students and parents, who can see school photos online and don’t have to wait until the end of the year when the school yearbook is finally published.

Additionally students, parents, and staff can upload text updates for each event. For example a parent can upload the result of a match or student achievements at a particular event. This can be helpful in communicating the outcome of an event to the school community or spreading important information that specific groups should know. To do this, you would click on the news icon on the right side of an event page and insert the text in the appropriate field. Once the calendar administrator reviews and approves it, the content will be published on that event’s specific page.

REDMOND, WA, July 28, 2009 — Single sign-on became a reality when Lake Washington School District (LWSD) announced the first implementation of Microsoft code name “Geneva” technology in a K-12 environment. LWSD is located between Lake Washington and the Cascade Mountains, to the east of Seattle, and serves over 23,700 students. The goal of the project is to simplify student, teacher and parent access to school district applications by enabling single sign-on and role based authorization.

Using Tandem for Schools, the popular online events management and calendaring solution
from Intand Corporation as the pilot application, LWSD took the first step in realizing the dream of
school districts everywhere; to ensure the security and privacy of vital information needed by district
students and families with simplified, user-friendly access.

“Tandem for Schools has solved a problem for our district. Before we discovered Tandem for
Schools the only way to know what events were planned at our 48 campuses was to call or be on their
mailing lists. As of December 2008, all of our 48 schools use Tandem for Schools to calendar events and
to display them on school websites. Parents often have children who attend different schools and now
with Tandem for Schools, LWSD parents can subscribe to each school’s calendar and can keep up to date
on school events without having to visit each school website. We are convinced that Tandem for Schools
has resulted in increased parent participation in school events,” says Dr. John Vaille, LWSD Chief
Technology Officer.

Microsoft code name “Geneva” is an open platform that provides simplified access and single
sign-on for on-premises and cloud-based applications in the enterprise, across organizations, and on the
Web – hosted by Microsoft or others. With “Geneva,” organizations gain flexibility and cost savings
while avoiding the access management challenges of managing extra user accounts and passwords.
“Microsoft is pleased to work with Intand to help LWSD provide its students, teachers and
families with simple, secure access to educational resources and tools,” said John Chirapurath, Director
in the Identity and Security Business Group at Microsoft. “’Geneva’ is part of Microsoft’s Business Ready
Security strategy. It supports the strategy’s tenets of ‘integrating and extending security across the
enterprise’ and helping to ‘protect everywhere, access anywhere’ through interoperability with third
party solutions.”

Tandem for Schools is an online event and facility management and calendaring solution hosted
by Intand Corporation, built by a school for schools. Tandem for Schools eliminates multiple calendars
and scheduling conflicts at schools and district offices, delivers real-time event updates to personal
calendars for staff, parents and students, and enhances school and district web sites.
“It is rewarding to see the Lake Washington School District use Tandem for Schools to manage all
of the events in their facilities, while connecting with their parents, students and teachers over the web,
in an extremely safe and secure way. Partnering with Microsoft on the ‘Geneva’ server program
demonstrates our dedication to both cutting edge technology as well as best practices in internet
identity safety. Tandem for Schools can help school districts keep their schedules conflict-free and help
families connect to more school events. Intand’s implementation of this new single sign-on ‘Geneva’
Server technology will ultimately result in lowering the administration costs associated with managing
multiple types of web applications in a large school district setting. In challenging times like these, more
and more school districts are searching for innovative ways to reduce costs, maximize productivity and
streamline internal operations. Implementing applications that leverage this new state of the art
technology would be a very good place to start,” said Bryan Otis, President and Co-Founder of Intand
Corporation.

Education.com has the message, “Bringing learning to life,” and their site does just that. The main tabs on Education.com are the “homepage,” just ASK, activities, worksheets, school-finder, e-learning, and, currently, back to school. Each tab has unique content.

Just ASK is a question and answer page that allows members to submit questions about a variety of topics. The questions can be answered by anyone and occasionally inspire a great deal of community input and discussion.

The Activities tab contains a selection of craft and project suggestions. Each craft contains a recommendation for the grade level it is tailored for and, when applicable, a subject heading to assist in fitting the project into a lesson plan. Clicking on any project brings up a handy supply list, a photograph of the project, and clearly explained instructions for the craft from beginning to end.

The Worksheets and Printables section of Education.com is a great resource for teachers. Much like the crafts, the worksheets feature grade level and subject recommendations for utilizing the pages. The worksheets can also be searched for keywords or separated into various grade levels for even more direct access.

The School-finder is a handy feature that allows any parent to search out education options in their district, city, or state. The site evaluates elementary, middle, and high schools and searches out both public and private offerings. This section offers tips and links to articles on topics such as getting involved at schools, standardized tests, and No Child Left Behind.

The E-Learning tab contains information on educational software, children’s books and audio books, games, and homework. Some of these services require a charge to access the material but many do not, such as the audio book suggestions for children. A great seasonal section is available underneath the Back-to-School section. This tab contains a variety of articles on pertinent topics including separation anxiety, school lunches, and getting organized.

Education.com contains a broad mixture of content that will prove handy to teachers as they seek to expand their children’s educational horizons.

Note: This site does contain banner advertising, which can be easily ignored during the quest for content.

President Obama recently announced a different approach to encouraging progress in education. A nationwide competition will pit states against each other for a chance to win a share of the $5 billion prize.

A US News article “Will Stimulus Money Lead to Actual Education Reform“, describes the areas that will be scored in the competition created by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

He has created a $5 billion “Race to the Top” fund for states that have made progress on the following fronts: 1) improving teacher effectiveness, 2) creating better assessments aligned to rigorous standards, 3) fixing failing schools, and 4) using data systems to track student achievement. The details of how states can qualify for this money will be released later this year.

A little healthy competition may be just what the school system needs to achieve more. It is human nature to become more motivated when you are involved in a competition. We also tend to have pride in our state – just take a look at intense college sports rivalries. Could a similar sense of purpose be created in our schools? If so, it might just encourage school leadership, teachers, and the community to step up their efforts. It could also bring more public attention on public schools. Who is the smartest state? Who will win bragging rights for the best education between your state and your neighbors. Which state has the best education? We may soon find out.

Photo by Obama-Biden Transition Project

FunBrain.com is a fun and splashy educational web-site that is kid-friendly from the homepage and on throughout the site. It is a online destination full of primary colors and clearly labeled links which help to keep the focus on the activities provided and the educational benefits therein.

The main core of FunBrain.com is its vast collection of free, educational online games. These games are not typical learning games that contain highly basic problems while having overly animated game play. The games on FunBrain.com are structured to let a child choose the intensity level they want to play at to best develop their mind while having fun. For example, the game Math Baseball contains four level options and the ability to choose addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, or all four, as well as the ability to toggle on and off “Algebra Style.” With all of the settings at the most advanced, even most adults would be hard pressed not to break out a pencil or a piece of paper to “do the math.” A child can stay educationally engaged with such a game off and on for years!

FunBrain.com not only contains a wide variety of math games, but also learning games focusing on other subjects as well. Their English selections focus on labeling parts of speech, identifying the correct plural form of various words, and “rooting out” root words.

When a child gets tired of playing games, they can peruse some of the literature provided on the site, including copies of Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Amelia Writes Again. Both books can be read entirely for free on FunBrain.com.

Parents can access an area that allows them to download some of the games to their PC which allows children to play even when internet time is over!

Teachers can access curriculum guides, game finders, and flash cards to incorporate into their lessons on the teacher’s home page at FunBrain.com. FunBrain.com can be used as both a fun recreational web-site and as an engaging learning tool for children. The activities provided on the site will challenge kids at several different grade levels and provide entertainment while doing so.

Warning: this site does contain some commercial messages, especially for cereals.

The Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California boasts a rich variety of educational materials on their website at getty.edu/education. While the resources are mostly targeted towards students and teachers, many of them could also be utilized by parents hoping to broaden their child’s knowledge base.

The Getty’s education page features a few different subheadings of particular interest. One subheading contains information on planning a school visit. Teachers of primary grade and high school classes can opt for either a guided or self-guided tour. The School Trips section explains the day that each type of tour is available and offers educational information on the art on display, as well as information on The Getty museum itself. An additional section of the site offers information for college professors planning a class outing. Professors can choose either a facilitated visit or to tour the museum in conjunction with a class lecture. The site thoroughly explains the processes needed to organize either trip.

Educators will find two sections of getty.edu/education particularly useful. One section offers teachers programs and resources. The website provides insight into professional development opportunities sponsored by the museum, including Saturday classes that help teachers learn how to incorporate more art into their classroom. Even instructors who do not live in the Los Angeles area can find material in this web-site section useful, as past workshops have a lesson page containing links to lessons plans and image banks to utilize in the classroom. The other section teachers will find helpful is devoted entirely to lesson plans. Teachers can either search by subject and grade level or use the museum’s master list of all Getty provided curriculum. The Getty also has a completely kid-friendly site section. Getty.edu/education/for_kids/ contains a game portal as well as a link to the museum’s Whyville page. The Getty games include classic favorites like jigsaw puzzles and match games mixed in with more advanced outings such as “Detail Detective.” The Getty’s Whyville location allows older children the opportunity to interact with other kids and play games to enhance their virtual museum experience. The Getty Museum’s educational website at getty.edu/education contains a variety of activities and materials for students and teachers alike to access. All of the lessons plans and games are extremely useful and informative whether or not a trip to the Getty Museum is in the future.