Indianapolis, IN (PRWEB) February 26, 2013

KDP Connect™, the online educator professional development tools and resources of Kappa Delta Pi, International Honor Society in Education, has been selected to partner with BloomBoard®, an open marketplace of workshops and resources for professional development. For the past two years Kappa Delta Pi has offered KDP Connect to student teachers, new teachers, and new teacher induction programs across the nation. KDP Connect consists of online tools, tips, and training aimed at newer teachers, and is an ideal web-based supplement to student teaching seminars. In order to provide additional support to teachers across the country, KDP Connect has teamed up with BloomBoard (a teacher observation and support platform) to deliver KDP Connect professional development (PD) content through BloomBoard’s online marketplace.

KDP Connect offers a wide variety of content across three unique formats to support the varied needs of newer teachers. In “3 Things to Try,” KDP Connect provides quick tips that serve as emergency “band-aids” to solve behavior problems, find new teaching techniques, or learn to be better team members. In the “Just-in-Time Resources,” new teachers can read articles, listen to podcasts, or view webinars on a wide variety of topics. The “Grow As You Teach” section is comprised of four-topic courses to support teachers with various challenges: setting up a classroom, creating routines and procedures, learning various methods of assessment, teaching English learners, and differentiating instruction.

BloomBoard has become the observation and PD marketplace of choice across states such as Colorado and Indiana. BloomBoard also works with numerous large school districts including Oakland Unified, as well as several of the renowned charter school networks including Aspire and Green Dot. Additional states, districts, and schools continue to approach BloomBoard to utilize its free observation and evaluation tools that also allow teachers to create individualized learning plans and find personalized professional development recommendations for support.

“Both of our organizations strive to offer a variety of resources across different types of media and content areas, in order to give K−12 administrators and teachers choices that fit their needs and time constraints,” says Sally Rushmore, KDP Connect developer. “We are delighted to have signed a contract with BloomBoard this week.” Greg McBeth, VP of Business Development at BloomBoard adds: “It was the breadth and quality of content that attracted us to KDP Connect. We’re really excited to work with them to support the professional development needs of educators across the country.”

Within BloomBoard’s user-friendly interface, teachers and administrators can set personal learning goals and align those goals to indicators from a district or state’s effectiveness rubric. Educators can then plan their own paths for improvement and explore new opportunities for growth in areas like classroom management, differentiated instruction, and Common Core. KDP Connect’s content is already matched to various evaluation frameworks, and much of it contains interactive components and follow-up questions to check and develop understanding of the content. This additional functionality is natively supported within BloomBoard, and made the joint development process seamless. Within the next few months, more than 150 articles, podcasts, and webcasts, and 48 workshops from KDP Connect, will become available in BloomBoard.

For more information about Kappa Delta Pi, visit http://www.KDP.org or call KDP Headquarters at 800-284-3167.

Kappa Delta Pi, International Honor Society in Education, is a 501 (c) (3) organization established in 1911 to recognize and promote excellence in education, provide a reasoned voice for significant issues, and link learning communities of educators. Through its programs, services, and strategic partnerships, KDP supports the professional growth and teaching practices of educators throughout all phases and levels of their careers. The organization currently has more than 600 chapters and an active membership of 43,000 worldwide.

BloomBoard Partners With inBloom To Accelerate Interoperability And Improved Use Of Data

Palo Alto, CA (November 14, 2012) — BloomBoard is proud to announce a partnership with inBloom to accelerate the standardization of data across our nations’ schools. Stephen Coller, Director of Developer Engagement for inBloom, praised the partnership stating “inBloom and BloomBoard share a passionate belief in the power of interoperability and data standardization to reduce the burden on teachers and spark innovation on a massive scale.”

Through this partnership, BloomBoard will be able to leverage a common data architecture for inBloom states and districts, resulting in automated account creation and maintenance, single sign-on, near-immediate implementation, and improved recommendation engine algorithms in the BloomBoard professional development marketplace.

BloomBoard provides school districts and states with user-friendly tools to collect educator effectiveness data — and then recommends personalized training for each teacher based on his or her particular professional development needs. In addition, BloomBoard customizes its tools so that schools can use processes and instructional frameworks that are already in place. And in an industry where comparable tools may cost thousands of dollars per school, BloomBoard offers its platform and desired customization to schools, districts and states at no charge.

inBloom is an alliance of states, foundations, educators, content providers, developers and vendors who are passionate about using technology to improve education.  For a complete list of inBloom partners please see https://www.inbloom.org/providers.

BloomBoard Works with Colorado to Make Teacher Evaluations a Supportive Process

In Partnership with the Colorado Legacy Foundation, the Colorado Department of Education Uses Free Software Platform for its Educator Evaluation Pilot

Palo Alto, CA (July 18, 2012) — BloomBoard is proud to announce that the Colorado Legacy Foundation, working with the Colorado Department of Education (DoE), will be using the Palo Alto-based company’s software platform for its upcoming teacher and principal evaluation pilot.

BloomBoard provides school districts and states with user-friendly tools to collect educator effectiveness data — and then recommends personalized training for each teacher based on his or her particular professional development needs. In addition, BloomBoard customizes its tools so that schools can use processes and instructional frameworks that are already in place. And in an industry where comparable tools may cost thousands of dollars per school, BloomBoard offers its platform and desired customization to schools, districts and states at no charge.

The Colorado pilot is a product of a recent legislative mandate to implement a new educator evaluation system statewide by the 2014-2015 school year. The pilot will cover 27 districts across approximately 300 schools and 6,000 educators during the 2012-2013 school year.

Katy Anthes, Executive Director of Educator Effectiveness with the Colorado Department of Education, praised the decision to use BloomBoard stating “BloomBoard offers a free, simple, scalable way for Colorado districts to manage our educator evaluation pilot. BloomBoard also provides options for individualized teacher support based on the observation data collected. Our districts have been asking for technology such as this and we are excited to provide the BloomBoard platform for our pilot districts.”

The Colorado Legacy Foundation, a local nonprofit partner, works closely with the Colorado Department of Education and was involved in choosing BloomBoard to assist in the educator evaluation pilot.

In addition to its educator evaluation tools, BloomBoard offers premium features for purchase, including third-party professional development content, software that gives districts the ability to host and manage their own professional development content and workshops, and visualization tools to track all of the gathered data in real time. These features combine to create a personalized feedback and support system that teachers and administrators can use in collaborative and empowering ways. This approach is a welcome change from traditional methods that are often viewed as ineffective, unsupportive of teachers, and have received opposition from various teachers’ unions. BloomBoard CEO and Co-Founder Jason Lange echoes those sentiments “Our goal is to transform teacher evaluations from a process that is viewed as punitive, to one that is supportive and can give teachers control of their own personal and professional development.”

The Colorado DoE is only the latest organization to work with BloomBoard for the upcoming school year. Oakland Unified School District, Aspire Public Schools, Green Dot Public Schools, and the Urban Teacher Center are four of the marquee organizations that have been working with BloomBoard since its inception. Gaining such widespread adoption so quickly is an impressive feat and a true testament to the product, given that education decisions are typically made very deliberately and often over an entire year. Lange sums up BloomBoard’s situation nicely: “We have amazing customers and it’s an exciting time.”