Stone Tablet Education News

July, 2006 - “Tell your prospective customers to call me right away!!”, says Andrea Confalone, Culminating Project Design Committee Chairperson for Mercer Island High School.  “If we had talked to Stone Tablet before we had designed our program, we could have shortened our learning curve and avoided the pitfalls along the way.” She continues.

Mercer Island High School is part of the Mercer Island School District (4100 Students).  Located in the center of Lake Washington, the unique Mercer Ilsland community enjoys the benefits of island living while being only 5 miles from downtown Seattle.

After four years of hard work, the Mercer Island Culminating Project program design was complete.  They immediately recognized that they would need some help managing the implementation and providing the tools to help teachers, parents, and community advisors keep on top of the process and paperwork.They contacted Stone Tablet and determined that EdProps was exactly what they needed.  Stone Tablet worked with Andrea and her team to customize the assignments to match the program they designed. 

“Stone Tablet not only provided the EdProps tool, they made recommendations and steered us around potential problems we didn’t foresee”.

Easlake High School Presents EdProps at NCCE

March, 2005 - Managing Chaos: Controlling Culminating Projects and Beyond was the title of the well-attended presentation made by Eastlake High School Principal, Roni Hardie and Senior Project Coordinator, Stephanie Monaghan, at this year’s Northwest Council for Computer Education (NCCE) Conference held at the Seattle Convention Center in March.

Eastlake High School instituted Senior Projects as a graduation requirement 12 years ago.  The presentation focused on the lessons learned after reviewing over 5,000 Senior Culminating Projects. “A lot more people get involved with your instructional program when you introduce Senior Projects into the curriculum”, said Ms. Monaghan.  “And, the role of teachers changes from content provider to project advisor”, she continued, “One of our major challenges was keeping students, parents, teachers, administrators, and community experts informed and up-to-date on project progress.”

Three years ago, Eastlake became the pilot site for what was to become a district-wide implementation of Stone Tablet’s web-based project management program, EdProps.As an illustration of one of the major benefits of EdProps, Eastlake Principal, Roni Hardie, related a story of a distraught parent who was very concerned that he knew nothing about the Senior Project graduation requirement, and needed to know how his student was doing.

“I referred him to the notice we had sent to all parents, and, then, gave him instructions to get to his personal EdProps Homepage where up-to-the-minute information as well as all Senior Project program materials were available”, said, Mrs. Hardie, “Before EdProps, this would never have been possible.

For additional information on Eastlake High School’s  presentation, please contact Stone Tablet at (425) 739-7338 for a copy.

Stone Tablet Education introduces EdProps™ Plan Central for school administrators

10/15/04 - Because planning is a way of life for school administrators these days, Stone Tablet Education has created EdProps Plan Central, an online collaborative tool that facilitates the definition and tracking of the numerous required state and local plans, initiatives, and grants for schools. The Federal No Child Left Behind Act has led to even more requirements to the point that most states now require the preparation and submittal of more than twenty different plans such as the School Improvement Plan, the Risk of Students Dropping Out Plan, the Facilities Maintenance Plan, and the English as a Second Language Instruction Plan, to name just a few. "Our customers have been very excited about this expansion of our EdProps tool" says Ilene Ruvinsky, Stone Tablet's CEO and founder, "it is a natural extension of our project management functionality and has the potential to make administrators' lives much easier."

Stone Tablet Education releases EdProps™ 3.0

8/22/04 - Stone Tablet Education is pleased to announce the release of EdProps 3.0 for the 2004-05 school year. EdProps 3.0 introduces the ability for students to work on multiple projects concurrently and has also added other improvements based on feedback from EdProps 2.0 customers. "We focused this version on adding flexibility to EdProps along with continuing our improvements in ease of use" says John Dietz, Stone Tablet's Vice President, Technology.

The new features of EdProps 3.0 build upon the success of EdProps 2.0 in providing an easy-to-use tool that facilitates the processes and interactions necessary to successfully complete any school-based project.

Manitoba Provincial Government using EdProps™ to manage
International SARS project

9/01/04 - An international team of schools, led by the Miles Macdonell Collegiate of Winnipeg, Manitoba is using EdProps to manage a SARS research project. "The process of collecting, sharing, reviewing and editing information with a number of schools in a variety of locations is problematic" says Janette Andrejowich, SARS Project Coordinator at Miles Macdonell. "We were able to solve this problem by using EdProps...[to] plan our project, set timelines, and manage our resources. This solution is user friendly and highly effective for project management. We plan to incorporate this software in other projects."

Stone Tablet Education and The Learning Space team up for
Project Management courses for Educators

4/13/04 - Stone Tablet Education is pleased to announce that our training partner, The Learning Space, will conduct a Project Management for Educators Workshop on May 15th, 2004 in Seattle and Wenatchee.

This 1 credit class, created by Stone Tablet Education, teaches educators the fundamentals of standard project management techniques, including how to balance time, quality, and cost while keeping a project within scope. The interactive course is ideal for those who have project-based learning programs in their schools, but is also important for anyone interested in learning the principles that apply to any project (home, hobby, or business.) Students will have "hands-on" use of an education-specific project management software tool to manage a sample project throughout the course, and are encouraged to discuss their own project experiences. There are no prerequisites.

For more information about The Learning Space, or to register for the Project Management for Educators Workshop, go to www.learningspace.org.

EdProps 2.0 all new for fall 2003.

9/22/03 - Stone Tablet Education is pleased to announce the release of EdProps 2.0 in time for the 2003-04 school year. EdProps 2.0 is a major redesign with many improvements and added features based on feedback from EdProps 1.0 customers. "We worked closely with several school districts on this version, and we are extremely happy with the results," says John Dietz, Stone Tablet's Vice President, Technology, "I am particularly happy with improvements in the areas of usability and customizability that allow schools to closely model their own programs in the system."

With the new additions to the tool, EdProps 2.0 strengthens its position as the premier tool for managing senior projects and project-based learning. New features include:

• Fully customizable school programs
• Customizable approval workflows
• Graphical project timelines
• Gradebook view of student progress
• and more...

With these and more new features EdProps 2.0 builds on the success of EdProps 1.0 in providing an easy to use tool that facilitates the process and interactions necessary for the completion of any school-based project. For more information on EdProps 2.0, see Stone Tablet Education's Products & Services.

Lake Washington School District expands High School implementations.

10/01/03 - Dr. Chip Kimball, assistant superintendent, Information Services for Lake Washington School District announced today that he is making Stone Tablet Education's Education Planning and Support (EdProps) system available to all district high schools.

"After our pilot of the first EdProps release last year at Eastlake High School, we worked with the folks at Stone Tablet to suggest enhancements to their program. Version 2.0 of EdProps shows that they listened. We feel confident in providing the opportunity to use this valuable tool to our schools," said Dr. Kimball.

The Senior Project is a graduation requirement for Lake Washington students. Schools choosing to use EdProps will have students submit their Senior Project assignments via this web-based tool. The system will provide immediate visibility to student work and activity for staff, parents, and community advisors who will have the ability to review, comment, approve, and/or return for re-work as appropriate. In addition to facilitating communication among all stakeholders, EdProps teaches project management skills as approved by the Project Management Institute of America.

Currently, Eastlake, Juanita, and BEST have begun implementing EdProps.

"We are very pleased that a district with the reputation for excellence like Lake Washington has selected EdProps" says Ilene Ruvinsky, founder and CEO of Stone Tablet Education. "This is a classic example of how the partnership between education and business experts can create a better educational environment for our teachers and students."