Ignite! Learning Launches YouTube Education Channel with Science, Social Studies and Current Events

AUSTIN, Texas, Dec. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Ignite! Learning, an educational curriculum and new media publishing company, today announced that it has created a free learning channel on YouTube for middle school and upper elementary school teachers and students. Ignite! has formatted 40 segments of its popular science and social studies curricula for the Internet, providing content teachers can use to focus students' attention on subjects like "Federal Powers vs. State Powers," "The Mystery of Earth's Tides" and "The Civil War (1861 - 1865)."

Ignite! has uploaded reformatted samples from its comprehensive, standards-aligned Curriculum on Wheels (COW), a new-media, interactive learning system developed for middle school and upper elementary instruction. Teachers use the COW to prepare and deliver core science, history and social studies lessons that enhance students' learning and retention. Each portable unit includes a computer, projector and speakers and is preloaded with courses that cover multiple years of material, using songs, animation, maps, timelines and interactive games.

Said Ignite! President Ken Leonard: "In many cases where technology has been advanced in classrooms, its implementation has ignored the way teachers like to teach and the way kids learn. The Ignite! Curriculum on Wheels overcomes the technology-for-technology's-sake pitfalls, and we've proved that new media and teacher-friendly tools help inspire students -- and, as one school has reported, increase passing rates by up to 39 percent on standardized tests."

In addition to making some existing content available in this new way, Ignite! is also providing teachers with new animations that connect core curriculum subjects to current events. This project helps teachers overcome the problem of textbooks that quickly become outdated as science and current events advance. For example, most science textbooks will be slow to explain the new definition of "planet" that recently removed Pluto as the ninth planet. However, Ignite! was able to leverage YouTube as a mass-market delivery system and offer teachers a tool to address such cosmic change with a curriculum update entitled "Change Some Definitions."

Ignite!'s ability to rapidly respond to current events also gives teachers the means to provide added depth to lesson topics that are thrust to the forefront of the news. For example, this month, Ignite! released its video on Habeas Corpus, explaining the term's history and meaning, and competing perspectives on its occasional suspension. This kind of content, which helps connect what kids are learning in school with what's happening in the news, is made available for free at http://www.ignitelearning.com/ and on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=ignitelearning), and will be added to a current events section on COW updates.

With the explosive gain in popularity of YouTube.com, Ignite! has found an easy way for teachers to find and sample the instructional videos. And, although not displayed at the same high-quality of the purchased COW curriculum, the videos can be used today as complementary lesson material in world history, world cultures, early American history and science with titles such as "Napoleon, : The Musical," "Mr. Bighead - Tensions Between the Colonists and the British" and "How Light Enters the Eye."

"Internet gurus will tell you that YouTube is still in its infancy. It is, and it has been great for entertainment," said Leonard. "But we believe it can be just as powerful and popular in educating our children as well as providing a new way to develop and market innovative learning materials."

About Ignite! Learning

Ignite! is committed to helping teachers by creating reliable, effective, and fun educational media. The company's curriculum is rooted in current research on best practices for middle and upper elementary schools. School districts and public and private schools in Texas, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, Louisiana, Nevada and California have adopted the Ignite! Curriculum on Wheels to help improve student performance in science, social studies and history. Ignite! plans to release comprehensive mathematics curriculum in 2007. For more information on Ignite! Learning, visit http://www.ignitelearning.com/.

Ignite! (TM), Curriculum on Wheels(TM), COW(TM) and the Ignite! Learning logo are trademarks of Ignite! Inc. All other trademarks herein are properties of their respective owners.