2012 Year in Review

One might say 2012 was a year when plans came together for the Center for Educational Technologies. Projects that had been developed in previous years reached milestones. And even more gratifying, many of them earned important awards and recognition, validating the work put into them by our talented team of writers, researchers, designers, and other supporting professionals.

Among the highlights was the Selene videogame, which already has earned a number of awards over the years, having its newest version acknowledged as one of the top 10 educational games in the world in a distinguished international competition sponsored by Science magazine and the National Science Foundation.

The work that the center's burgeoning Emergency Preparedness and Worker Safety Training Program invested over the last two years in creating mine safety training materials paid off as two training packages were completed and then earned honors from the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration for their effectiveness and presentation. The program also introduced the Active Training Portal for Mine Safety website.

And the NASA-sponsored Classroom of the Future added to its 20-plus years of creating significant educational curriculum supplements used worldwide by releasing its first app for the iPad, the BLiSS Sim, which is available for free from the iTunes Store. Our Classroom of the Future work also includes managing millions of web visitors through NASA's DLiNfo Channel and NASA TV.

It's been another Classroom of the Future product that over the years has consistently brought the most attention to the work done at the Center for Educational Technologies. Exploring the Environment® brings millions of hits each year to its website, a testament to the quality of Earth science information and problem-based learning scenarios it presents and validation of the many awards it has won. In 2012 we took Exploring the Environment to the next generation, creating six modules around the very topical issue of global climate change. These new modules are already being used by teachers in 42 states and nine countries, from places as far flung as Australia to a Peace Corps outpost in Namibia.

Plenty of other highlights marked our various projects in 2012. To check out what we've been up to, follow the links at left. And it's also a good time to thank our funders—NASA, National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Mine Safety Health Administration, Benedum Foundation, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, West Virginia Department of Education, and the MacArthur Foundation. Without them, there would be no highlights to crow about!

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