WebED Contracts to Provide Online Staff Development for K-12 Educators in North Carolina
HAMPTON, N.H., Jan 29, 2001 — WebED, Inc. ( www.WebED.com), one of the nation’s leading providers of Internet-based professional development training for educators, today announced the recent signing of a contract to sell its courses for K-12 educators to the Southeast Education Alliance, an educational service alliance in North Carolina. The Alliance has purchased the WebED courses for the local school districts it serves.
According to Linda Lowe, Southeast Education Alliance Director, “The WebED / Southeast Education Alliance partnership supports our commitment for planning, developing, implementing and measuring a meaningful professional development program. Our members can access an online alternative to professional development courses, and we’re confident that this option will provide the opportunity to increase knowledge and skills of our educators and education personnel.”
In a recent announcement from the North Carolina State Board of Education, this state received the highest score of any state for Improving Teacher Quality, according to Education Week’s fifth annual 50-state report card on public education. A letter grade of B+ was the highest grade given to any state in this category.
“We are pleased to welcome the Southeast Education Alliance as a partner who supports an initiative to enhance accessibility and improve professional development throughout the state,” said WebED Chairman and CEO, William O’Connell. “We commend educators and education personnel in North Carolina for working on a common objective to improve teacher quality.”
WebED serves a marketplace of more than five million K-12 educators and educational staff in school districts across the country with online courses in over 20 subject areas, including Administration, Special Education, English as a Second Language, Science, and Social Studies.
These self-guided, self-paced courses are delivered on demand via the Internet, enabling educators to complete compulsory training 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. WebED’s real-time, asynchronous distance learning model benefits educators through increased personal convenience, access to a broader range of professional development choices, current teaching resources, and opportunities to integrate Internet learning into the classroom. Reducing the need for substitute teachers and travel budgets, WebED programs provide schools with cost-effective alternatives to traditional seminars and workshops.
WebED has engineered a proprietary web-based system for tracking and administering its courses. It acquires and re-designs its academic content in cooperation with qualified authors, workshop providers, select institutions, and professional practitioners. WebED works in close cooperation with the national Association of Educational Service Agencies (AESA), whose 535 local ESA affiliates and over 100,000 nationwide employees are leading providers of educational services to US school districts. Through an affiliation with Endicott College, WebED also offers courses that qualify for graduate credit.
WebED is based in Hampton, New Hampshire, where it operates with a staff of experts in education, engineering, publishing, marketing, administration, and finance. The Company has established formal affiliations with a number of leading academic, philanthropic, and media organizations, including Educators Publishing Service, The Neag Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development, National Education Institute, U.S. Learning Systems, The Doug Flutie, Jr. Foundation for Autism, and New Hampshire Public Television.
Contact Information
William O’Connell,
(603) 929-8600 x248
boconnell@WebED.com
Kathleen Batcheller,
(603) 929-8600 x249
kbatcheller@WebED.com
Sales
(941) 922-1144
sales@WebED.com
Southeast Education Alliance
Linda Lowe, (910) 296-0228
llowe@jscc.cc.nc.us
