EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
Optii Solutions | October 27, 2022
Optii Solutions, the leading cloud-based hotel operations software, announced today that it has launched a learning center with enhanced usability, improved search, and content designed for on-the-job learning. Almost every department and member of the operations team comes in contact with some aspect of Optii’s hotel operations platform. It was therefore important to ensure that educational content and accessibility works for a range of roles, cultures, and working environments. Optii’s Learning Center puts search at the forefront to allow users to access information quickly and on any device. Browsable content is organized to be user-centric and mirror common tasks and functions of any given role within a hotel operations team. Optii prioritizes recruitment from hospitality, and specifically housekeeping and operations. This ensures that the company maintains a close connection and understanding of all levels of hotel operations. While this knowledge is critical to creating a user-centric technology experience, it also serves to ensure that educational information is developed and presented in a quick and effective manner. Shelley Snyman, Director of Operations, Optii Solutions,“In developing learning content for our customers, I always start from a point of putting myself in their shoes. Many of the questions or challenges that operations and housekeeping professionals have, I have experienced at some point during my time in housekeeping. This knowledge helps me develop and structure training material in a way that will help team members get their answers, get back to their task, and be successful.”
“Customer success has always been a top priority for Optii. While critical, the impact of our solution goes beyond productivity gains, guest experience, and cost savings. Optii has become an indispensable tool for housekeeping and maintenance staff in their daily operation, and we are focused on ensuring their success. A lot of the value of Optii is downstream to that.”
Katherine Grass, CEO, Optii Solutions
About Optii Solutions
Optii Solutions is a hotel operations solution that leverages smarter technologies such as artificial intelligence, analytics, messaging and mobility to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of housekeeping and service delivery departments.
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TALENT DEVELOPMENT
Think Together | September 13, 2022
Think Together, one of California's largest nonprofits serving K-12 schools today announced it has completed the merger with Orenda Education, a top school improvement and professional development consultancy. Upon the close, the combined organization will serve more than 200,000 students across the state with more than $150 million in annual revenue. Moreover, the organization will be better positioned to rapidly scale their impact.
"We're thrilled to bring our two organizations together in our combined efforts to improve student success and close the achievement gap,This merger is the natural evolution of Orenda's existing relationship with Think Together and solidifies our joint commitment to ensuring that the more than 2 million California students that are performing far below grade level have the support they need during the school day and beyond to succeed academically."
Think Together Founder and CEO Randy Barth
Over the past seven years, Think Together and Orenda have had an affiliate agreement in place while the full acquisition builds the long-term financial and operational capacities for Orenda to continue to scale. Orenda's work focuses on transformingeducation systems, either across a school district or by cohorts of schools, providing professional development to all levels of district staff, around a specific data-driven but people-centric school improvement model. Think Together partners with over 60 school districts and charter management organizations to provide more than 900 direct-to-student academic and enrichment programs at more than 450 school sites across California, serving more than 100,000 youth. Orenda Education works behind-the-scenes with school district leaders and educators to identify inequities in schools and then transform their systems to ensure all students have access to a premium education. "Think Together has always been an incredible partner, infusing the infrastructure needed to provide an efficient model for changing the odds for kids," said Orenda Education Founder and CEO Dr. Robin Avelar La Salle. "Our two models have always complemented each other but now, we can efficiently scale our vision for all students to receive the premium education they deserve." The acquisition comes as both organizations experience tremendous growth due in large part to new and renewed state investments in education to accelerate learning recovery efforts and provide educators with needed support amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. "Now more than ever, teachers, school leaders and administrators need to think outside the box to address the issues impacting students including socio-economic biases, social emotional learning, and more," added Barth. "Providing these much-needed supports to educators means districts and schools can provide the skills they need to teach, lead and counsel during and following a period of great disruption during the pandemic. Recently the U.S. Department of Education reported a dramatic decline in scores from the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) known as the nation's scorecard. Two decades of growth for American students in reading and math were wiped away by just two years of pandemic-disrupted learning, according to national test scores released last week. And, the declines were much larger for students at lower performance levels, widening already-huge learning disparities between the country's high- and low-achievers. Orenda's approach to school improvement has proven to accelerate student outcomes, such as mastery of grade-level standards (measured by math and English language SBAC scores), improved A-G class completion rates, and improved graduation rates. They also provide administrative coaching, teaching strategies, and leadership clinics. To expand these services, Orenda was recently awarded a $4 million Education Innovation and Research grant by the U.S. Department of Education to digitize and distribute their school improvement approach through an online platform that is effective and highly scalable to schools and districts in any geography, and to those who require less in-person support. Think Together adds Orenda to their growing list of services that support student education in and around the school day. Think Together's flagship afterschool programs support students in underserved communities with homework help, enrichment, social-emotional learning and physical well-being, all to enable students to strive for college or a fulfilling career. To provide high-quality programs, Think Together partners with philanthropic organizations like the Joseph Drown Foundation. "Breaking down the barriers to opportunity, equity and access in education by keeping students and their success as the centered focus is one of the most meaningful investments for our future generations" said Alyssa Santino, Program Director of the Joseph Drown Foundation. "Ensuring the educators, leaders and structures around students are supported and inspired and effectively trained with research-based, proven and engaging strategies is imperative for thriving students and communities. We are pleased to partner with Think Together and Orenda Education as they excel in this space and continue to transform the trajectory of students and the schools they attend." Barth sees the combination of direct services to students through expanded and early learning, coupled with equity-based professional development, as an effective combination to supporting student achievement alongside their school district and charter partners. Dr. Paul Gothold, Superintendent of County Office of Education in San Diego agrees. His former district, Lynwood Unified School District, realized astonishing improvements when partnering with both Think Together and Orenda, including increasing graduation rates from 56% to 90.8%, and A-G college eligible rates from 18% to 53%. Orenda provides the technical expertise for true district turn-around. The systems approach and professional development modules to build staff capacity ensures all leaders have the tools and resources to provide a premium education for all students, said Gothold. "With Think Together's financial and operational support, Orenda is well positioned to continue providing much-needed education innovation to schools throughout the state and beyond.
About Think Together
For over 25 years Think Together has partnered with schools and communities to pursue educational equity and excellence for all kids. As a nonprofit organization, Think Together innovates, implements, and scales academic solutions that change the odds for hundreds of thousands of California students. Think Together's program areas include early learning, afterschool, school support services and leadership development for teachers and school administrators.
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EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
DetectedX | November 29, 2022
Building on the successful U.S. launch at the SBI/ACR Breast Imaging Symposium, DetectedX, the leaders in intelligent interactive educational technology, will showcase updates to its Radiology Online Learning Platform at the 108th Annual Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) meeting, November 27-December 1, 2022 . At RSNA, DetectedX will launch ImageDx, a fully customizable, interactive learning platform providing users the ability to design and deliver image-based education using DetectedX's award-winning templates and approaches. Educators can leverage existing DetectedX content or load their own images, quizzes and other learning content for easily accessible and secure online learning. The next generation technology transforms the teaching and learning experience for clinicians, teachers and students alike. For more information or to schedule an appointment, visit DetectedX RSNA 2022. DetectedX announced recently that Professor László Tabár, a Nobel Prize Nominee and visionary physician, academic and educator, has joined the company as Medical Director of Breast Imaging. DetectedX will showcase the new breast imaging educational content from Professor Tabár at RSNA. To view the new education content, visit https://detectedx.com/laszlo-tabar/ With momentum building in the marketplace, DetectedX is adding a number of new users from large radiology groups, national screening centres, academic centers to individual radiologists, across the US, Europe, Middle East and Asia. In addition, the company is developing new partnerships to foster the development and delivery of the highest quality education. For example, Professors Wendie Berg and Margarita Zuley are looking forward to working with DetectedX in a new collaboration with UPMC. This exciting new collaboration will ensure that first class education is delivered to all those with an interest in breast cancer imaging. Innovative interactive technologies will blend with the world's best clinical educators to ensure that on demand education is available to anyone, anywhere 24/7. The company will also showcase new subscriber options for users across a broad range of breast imaging organizations, including Screening environments, Clinics/Radiology Providers, Universities, Private Practice Radiologist Groups and Individual Radiologists. Users can customize access to the intelligent interactive educational platform, which features micro-learning tools, including quizzes and expanded educational content and videos, as well as CME and accreditation dashboards. New learning tools will feature new breast and lung educational content, as well as Medical Physics, Radiation and Artificial Intelligence topics. Designed to improve radiologists' ability to correctly detect breast lesions in 2D and 3D Mammography, the Radiology Online Learning Platform has been proven to help clinicians improve the ability to detect and diagnose breast cancer cases, showing a 34% improvement in the accuracy of diagnosing difficult cases. DetectedX's Radiology Online Learning Platform is currently used in more than 150 countries, including national screening services, clinics and professional societies in North America, UK, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Slovenia, Italy and Vietnam. In addition, DetectedX has marketing and distribution partnerships with Volpara Health, Fujifilm and GE Healthcare.
"Since launching into the U.S. at SBI, we have experienced tremendous momentum with new customers, new subscriber options, and exciting new educational content. We are excited to return to the U.S. and showcase the expanded DetectedX team focused on enhance our breast imaging educational content and help us improve radiology education around the world,"
Professor Patrick Brennan, CEO DetectedX and Chair, Diagnostic Imaging, the University of Sydney.
ABOUT DETECTEDX
DetectedX's Radiology Online Learning Centre, focusing on diagnostic accuracy and driven by artificial intelligence, is revolutionizing disease detection in 150 countries. The on-demand, web-based training platform has been proven to improve the accuracy of diagnosing difficult cases by 34%.
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