WebED Contracts to Provide Online Staff Development for K-12 Educators in Southern Massachusetts

HAMPTON, N.H. — 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 South Shore Educational Collaborative, an educational service agency in Southern Massachusetts. The SSEC will re-sell the WebED courses into the school districts it serves.

SSEC recently piloted WebED’s online professional development courses in area high schools. Educators participating in the pilot program responded with overwhelmingly positive feedback. Of those responding to the survey, 97% agreed that online education courses should continue to be offered, and stated that they would take online courses in the future. Furthermore, results from the pilot program indicated that 98% of respondents agree that WebED’s online course format is an acceptable form of professional development.

Comments from respondents included, “It was a great course,” “You could do the course at your leisure, moving at your own pace,” “The course included lots of useful information,” “The material was related to my own class needs,” “It was highly interactive,” “The course made it easy to plan other interdisciplinary lessons,” and “There were great references and links to other sites.” The convenience of self-paced, self-guided learning with anytime access to the courseware was cited by respondents as a primary benefit of the WebED online professional development courses.

“We are very pleased with the response of area educators to WebED’s online professional development programs,” commented Michael Savage, South Shore Educational Collaborative Executive Director. “There is no doubt in my mind that WebED’s programs will play a defining role in the future of education. The convenient, easy access to high quality professional development experiences will both enhance the quality of life for teachers and lead to improved student outcomes. This is a breakthrough for a profession that is beleaguered by incessant demands on time and performance.”

“This was an excellent opportunity to get feedback from educators taking WebED’s online courses. The results from the survey confirm the need and demand for an online alternative to traditional professional development programs,” said WebEDChairman and CEO, William O’Connell. “We are proud to partner with South Shore Educational Collaborative and be on the vanguard of providing online professional development programs for teachers in Massachusetts.”

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, Staff Development for Educators, U.S. Learning Systems, The Doug Flutie, Jr. Foundation for Autism, and New Hampshire Public Television.

Contact Information:

WebED

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

South Shore Educational Collaborative

Michael Savage

781-740-0784

msavage@ssec.org