HotChalk Named Codie Award Finalist

Annual Software & Information Industry Association awards honor exceptional contributions to education

April 8, 2008 - New York — HotChalk, the first collaborative online education resource to connect K-12 teachers, students and parents, has been named a finalist for the “Best Education Solution” Codie award. The award, presented by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), recognizes outstanding achievement and vision in the software, digital information and education technology industries.

HotChalk serves more than 378,000 registered teachers worldwide via a comprehensive library of teacher-contributed lesson plans and premium products such as professional development courses from McGraw-Hill and streaming digital video content from NBC News.

“We are honored that SIAA has recognized HotChalk’s contributions to viable educational solutions that benefit teachers, students and parents,” said CEO Edward Fields. “America’s teachers have suffered from a lack of funding, resources and support. HotChalk uses the latest technology to help teachers take their classroom online and provide the quality education that all children deserve.”

HotChalk, a valued and trusted resource for teachers, is an online destination where they can manage their classroom online, find teacher-approved resources and share ideas with educators in specialized forums. Students can use HotChalk to retrieve and submit assignments. Parents, meanwhile, are able to check a student’s progress online and receive e-mails from their child’s teacher through the site. 

The HotChalk Learning Environment is free, and premium services such as the NBC News Archive On Demand video content and McGraw-Hill professional development courses require a school subscription. Teachers, students and parents can use HotChalk curriculum development tools even if their school is not part of the network.

The 2008 Codie Awards will be presented on May 20th at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Finalists were selected from more than 1,000 nominations out of 600 nominated companies.

About HotChalk

Founded in 2004, HotChalk is the first free collaborative online education resource to connect K-12 teachers, students and parents, thereby giving teachers a voice and the support they need. The HotChalk mission is to improve the lives of teachers to drive measurable academic results for students while meeting mandated government and administration requirements. Recently, HotChalk partnered with NBC News to provide access to premium digital video content, and McGraw-Hill to provide professional development courses. For more see www.HotChalk.com.

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