Innovative Network Allows New Teachers to Connect with Experienced Educators Nationwide to Share Best Practices, Enrich Curriculum Development and Improve the Quality of Instruction and Student Learning; Also Supports Race to the Top Grant Program in Maryland
San Francisco, CA, January 17, 2012 - GoingOn Networks and New Teacher Center (NTC) announced today that NTC has implemented GoingOn’s Academic Engagement Network in support of its e-Mentoring for Student Success (eMSS) program. The GoingOn platform provides a more effective, modern environment where new teachers can foster connections and better communicate with others in the program, share resources and participate in online workshops, as a way of advancing high quality math, science and special education instruction. New Teacher Center is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving student learning by accelerating the effectiveness of new teachers and school leaders. eMSS is an innovative nationwide content-specific online mentoring program that increases the retention of new math, science and special education teachers by supporting their professional growth and development. 
“For more than 20 years NTC has offered new teachers comprehensive mentoring and professional development programs to help them succeed in the classroom,” said Ellen Moir, New Teacher Center Founder and CEO. “Our e-Mentoring program is an important part of our efforts, making it possible for new teachers to connect with mentors and a network of other experienced educators from across the nation, including teacher leaders and established mathematicians, scientists and special education university professors.”
In addition to serving as the platform for eMSS, NTC is making GoingOn available to members of its National Teacher Induction Network and California Leadership Network to provide communities where teacher leaders can discuss resources and tools, as well as share best practices. National Teacher Center is also using the GoingOn platform in support of an NTC online professional development program in Maryland that is funded by a Race to the Top Grant. This program helps teachers across the state connect, communicate and collaborate with one another.
“The GoingOn platform provides us with a fast and cost effective way to gain the benefits of today’s social web technologies to engage our teachers and allow them to more effectively leverage all the resources we have to offer,” said Alyson Mike, Director of Online Professional Development at the New Teacher Center. “We looked at more traditional portals, but they simply could not provide the combination of both facilitated learning and unstructured collaboration that we need to best engage our teachers and ensure lasting success.”
Currently nearly 1,300 educators – including new teachers, mentors, teacher leaders and university professors – are utilizing the GoingOn platform as part of NTC’s programs. NTC plans to expand its use of GoingOn in 2012.
“The quality of our children’s education is only as good as the quality of our teachers,” said Jon Corshen, CEO of GoingOn Networks. “We have all seen the impact of the social web on how we connect, share knowledge and even how we shape our world. We want to bring that power to improving the quality of education in schools and colleges as well as the ecosystem of organizations advancing the way we teach. We appreciate the opportunity to contribute to the mission of National Teacher Center.”
The GoingOn solution being used by New Teacher Center is an integrated platform for streamlining communications, fostering meaningful connections and facilitating collaboration across a highly distributed community of users. The platform combines rich content management capabilities with integrated social networking tools and intelligent Facebook-like activity streams to create a holistic and highly engaging collaboration environment. Delivered as an on-demand solution, GoingOn is easy to configure and deploy without requiring large upfront investments and development.
More information about New Teacher Center and its eMentoring for Student Success program is available at www.newteachercenter.org, or to learn more about GoingOn or its Academic Engagement Network, visit www.GoingOn.com.
Contact: GoingOn Networks
Lindsey Mikal
303-433-7020
Contact: National Teacher Center
Jane Baker
831-600-2234
About New Teacher Center (NTC)
New Teacher Center seeks to reduce the achievement gap in our nation’s schools by accelerating the effectiveness of new teachers through comprehensive mentoring and professional development programs. NTC partners with school districts, policymakers and leaders in education to implement programs that build leadership capacity, enhance working conditions, improve teacher retention and transform schools into vibrant learning communities. Founded in 1998, NTC headquarters are in Santa Cruz, California. To learn more about New Teacher Center visit www.newteachercenter.org.
About GoingOn Networks, Inc.
GoingOn is an innovative academic social networking platform that enables students, faculty and administrators to more effectively connect, collaborate and learn. GoingOn offers the first fully integrated platform for higher education that enables institutions to build an internal academic network where students and faculty can more easily share resources, create online communities and curate their academic connections, while keeping them separate from their personal social networks. The GoingOn platform combines a powerful community-building environment with integrated academic networking features and a modern stream-based architecture that allows any type of information, activity or event to be easily published to communities, user groups or to a user’s personalized Virtual Commons. Delivered as an on-demand solution leveraging open source foundations and incorporating leading-edge social web technologies, the GoingOn platform can easily be integrated into existing LMS and SISs and deployed as a single community or an institution-wide network. For more information, please visit www.GoingOn.com.
Contact:
Lindsey Mikal
CSG PR
3225 East 2nd Avenue
Denver, CO 80206
303-433-7020
