Lake County Schools Chooses SAFARI Montage to Deliver District’s Digital Curriculum

Wynnewood, PA (March 20, 2013) - Lake County Schools (LCS), Florida has chosen SAFARI Montage’s Digital Learning Platform – Digital Curriculum Presenter™ – and integrated Learning Object Repository to manage all of the district’s digital learning resources and deliver a digital curriculum to all 40,000 LCS students. Dr. Creed Wheeler, Executive Director of Information and Instructional Technology Services at LCS, explains, “Lake County Schools looked for the tools to provide the same rigorous learning environment to all students on any device at any time and chose the SAFARI Montage platform to accomplish this.” After piloting SAFARI Montage at several schools, including the district’s 1-to-1 iPad high school, Dr. Wheeler and LCS administrators saw the many benefits and decided to take the system’s multi-faceted instructional tools to a different level and provide access for all of the district’s students.

“Lake County School’s vision is to provide 21st Century student engaged learning resources to all the students of Lake County anytime and anywhere,” said Dr. Susan Moxley, Superintendent of Lake County Schools. “By providing engaged learning, we believe it will motivate students to be more successful in their achievement goals.”

As part of the district’s long-term technology plan, SAFARI Montage will work with technology integrator United Data Technologies (UDT) to provide LCS with a full suite of standards-based tools, including Digital Curriculum Presenter™ (DCP) from which teachers can create and present a complete digital curriculum designed to support standards. SAFARI Montage and UDT will also be working with Modern Teacher to provide the district’s educators with quality professional development to ensure successful implementation during the 3 year transitional period to a full digital curriculum. “We are excited for this opportunity and look forward to continuing to work with the district and contributing to its success and growth in the technology space,” says Tony Cossio, Vice President of Public Sector Sales at UDT. “SAFARI Montage offers the tools to provide high impact learning that is linked to Common Core Standards to ensure our students will be college- and career-ready,” adds Hugh Hattabaugh, Chief Academic Officer at Lake County Schools. “We are excited to be working with SAFARI Montage and Modern Teacher to provide enriched curriculum for our students in Lake County.”

Tim Beekman, President of SAFARI Montage, notes, “Lake County Schools’ vision of student engagement in learning makes it clear that they understand what they need to do to be successful in classrooms today.”

DCP offers a virtual student response system that can convert mobile devices into virtual clickers that will support the district’s upcoming Bring Your Own Technology program. Students and teachers will also be able to access the Learning Object Repository’s digital resources from any mobile device, including iPad®, iPhone®, Android™-based devices and netbooks. “SAFARI Montage provides innovative tools to allow students to learn differently through models such as blended learning or flipped classrooms…and help us reach our ‘Bring Your Own Technology’ goal for the 2013-14 school year,” said Kathleen Halbig, Manager of Innovative Learning at LCS.

About SAFARI Montage
SAFARI Montage provides school districts with an integrated Learning Object Repository, Video Streaming Library, Media Delivery System and Digital Learning Platform all wrapped into one. In addition, the solution is interoperable with virtually all classroom technology and most enterprise district systems, such as LMSs. The full suite of integrated modules provides a single interface for users to access and manage all digital video and other visual resources from within the school district network or from home. And now, with the introduction of the Digital Curriculum Presenter™ (DCP) module, curriculum departments can elegantly deliver a full digital curriculum. The award-winning SAFARI Montage solution is also designed to cut costs for school districts by utilizing bandwidth intelligently and thereby ensuring functionality. SAFARI Montage servers come preloaded with educational video titles tied to the curriculum from the industry’s leading video publishers, which include Schlessinger Media, PBS, The History Channel, National Geographic, Scholastic, Disney Education, BBC and more. SAFARI Montage is now the only commercial digital distributor of PBS’ library of full-length programs to schools nationwide. In addition, school districts can easily upload and manage their own digital content, and disseminate it to all users throughout the school or district.

About Lake County Schools
Located in Central Florida, Lake County Schools serves over 40,000 students in 43 public schools, including 23 Elementary, 10 Middle, 9 High Schools and 1 Technical School. The mission of Lake County Schools is to provide every student with individual opportunities to excel. The district’s vision is to provide a dynamic, progressive and collaborative learning community embracing change and diversity where every student will graduate with the skills needed to succeed in post-secondary education and the work place.

About United Data Technologies
United Data Technologies Inc. (UDT), named one of the 50 fastest growing IT firms in the U.S. by Everything Channel , is a leading provider of high-performance technology solutions in the Southeast, United States. UDT is dedicated to helping their customers maximize their investments in IT by reducing the risks, costs and complexity of deploying next generation technology (RC2). UDT partners with top tier leaders in the industry to provide the latest products, from personal computing, audiovisual infrastructure to customized solutions. At UDT, we believe that your IT experience should always help you “accomplish more.” Learn more by visiting www.udtonline.com.