On-Line Tool for Educators Relaunched as "MassONE"

MALDEN - The state has relaunched its on-line network for educators in an effort to provide teachers with more useful tools, including a searchable database of the curriculum frameworks, an online lesson planner and a searchable database of thousands of educational resources.

The Massachusetts Online Network for Education (MassONE) replaces the state's Virtual Education Space (VES), and represents Education Commissioner David Driscoll's complete vision of an on-line system that enables communication, collaboration and information sharing among educators, students and the Department of Education.

"Technology is an invaluable resource to educators today," he said. "Using this site will give our teachers an opportunity to form an online community, allowing them to support each other, share ideas and curricula, and work together to make all of our schools better places for our children to learn. I encourage all of our teachers to take advantage of this important new tool."

At the official launch of the new site last week, Driscoll announced that the site's new logo had been designed by 16-year-old Mallory Stockwell of Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School. The logo will be used on the site and on all MassONE publications.

The new site is aimed at providing powerful new resources to educators to help enhance student learning. These tools include online discussion forums, a statewide "virtual hard drive" to allow students and teachers to share resources, a survey creation tool, an online calendar, and a technology literacy self- assessment tool for teachers. Teachers will even be able to create their own classroom "lockers" to allow students who are out sick for a day to access assignments from home.

MassONE will also provide tools that school districts, educational organizations, and institutions of higher education can use to provide online courses for teachers and students. Approximately two-thirds of Massachusetts' school districts have reported some use of online courses for teacher training, and the Department of Education expects the use of online courses to grow.

All of the tools available on the site will be operated by the Department of Education, and are available to all Massachusetts schools at no charge.

To coincide with the launch of MassONE, the Department of Education has published a new report, E-Learning in Massachusetts, which describes some of the online learning activities currently underway in the state's public schools.

MassONE can be viewed online at http://massone.mass.edu. To view the full report E-Learning in Massachusetts, look online at www.doe.mass.edu/edtech.