|
DEVELOPER OF LEADING SAFE SEARCH ENGINE FOR STUDENTS
DONATES 1,000 SUBSCRIPTIONS TO UNDERSERVED NYC CHILDREN
Thinkronize Inc.'s Contribution of Award-Winning
netTrekker home Search Engine To Computers For Youth Furthers Company's
Mission to Help Every Child Learn
Cincinnati, OH, April 10 - Thinkronize Inc. today announced a
donation of 1,000 annual subscriptions to its award-winning netTrekker home
search engine to underserved New York City children.
The donation, valued at $120,000, is being made through Computers for Youth
(CFY), a national non-profit organization that helps low-income children
succeed in school by improving their learning environment at home. Since
1999, Computers for Youth has provided computers to more than 6,500 low-income
families and trained more than 13,000 individual children and parents. Now,
CFY's next 1,000 computers will include subscriptions to
netTrekker home.
netTrekker home is unlike broad search engines including Google and
Yahoo, which generate links to inappropriate websites for even innocent
search terms, and reams of results that have no relevance to schoolwork.
netTrekker home marries a hundreds-strong team of educators,
proprietary technology and some 180,000 websites to produce text and image
search results that are pornography-free, safe and relevant only for schoolwork.
There are no sponsored links or direct links to pages offering products for sale.
"What is unique about Computers for Youth is our focus on the computer as a tool
for family learning. All our computers come equipped with educational software,
tailored web content, and initial Internet access," said Elisabeth Stock,
President and Co-founder of Computers for Youth. "netTrekker home
is a very smart product - it encourages children to learn and enables
parents to become more effective learning partners. We are delighted to offer
such an excellent program to our students and their families."
"We are honored to partner with Computers for Youth, whose work we've long
admired, to make this contribution," said Randy Wilhelm, Thinkronize's
CEO. "Access to quality information over the Internet has gone from
luxury to necessity for schoolchildren, and the gulf between the
information 'haves' and 'have nots' must be bridged. Our mission is to
make netTrekker home even more widely available to those who can
benefit from it most."
The first 100 students received subscriptions of netTrekker
home at CFY's family computing workshop at the Leonardo da
Vinci Middle School (IS 61) in Corona, Queens on April 8th. CFY
requires participating students and their parents to attend
one of these interactive, half-day training workshops where families
learn not only the basics of computer use, but also how to use
the installed educational software to improve reading, writing
and mathematics. At the culmination of the workshop, families take
their computer home. The remaining 900 families will receive their
subscriptions of netTrekker home at similar workshops
in May and in the fall of 2006.
netTrekker home is based on the award-winning, industry-leading
netTrekker educational search products used in 11,000
schools by more than 7 million students and their teachers in grades
K through 12. It returns results for every major academic subject,
from science to social studies, from math to foreign language,
and many more.
Vital to New York's multicultural environment, netTrekker home is enriched
with features of special benefit to students for whom English is not the
primary language. A "hot key" feature translates any word in a netTrekker home
search result to numerous foreign languages. netTrekker home results
are coded by reading level, so students and parents can select resources most
appropriate to them. In these and other ways, netTrekker home levels
the playing field, making homework about real learning, not catch-up.
About Thinkronize
Thinkronize, an Internet developer of award-winning K-12 educational
products, was founded by Robert
Reinders in July, 1999 and grew out of a commitment to enhancing
teaching and learning with the Internet and standards-based online
resources. The company's flagship product, netTrekker classic,
the trusted search engine for schools, was launched in October
2000. Since the launch of netTrekker classic, Thinkronize
has enjoyed steady growth, industry recognition and awards. The
netTrekker in-school product suite includes netTrekker
d.i., which organizes online resources by readability level
to meet individual students' learning needs and also includes ELL
content. Thinkronize serves over 7 million students in more than
11,000 schools in 48 states; the netTrekker product suite
has been adopted by key districts nationwide. For more information
visit www.thinkronize.com
or phone 877-517-1125.
About Computers for Youth
Computers for Youth (CFY) is a 501(c)3 non-profit that helps underserved
children succeed in school by improving their learning environment at
home. CFY partners with public schools in low-income neighborhoods and
offers all sixth grade families a computer designed by CFY to be used as
a family learning center with educational software, tailored web
content, and initial Internet access. Every participating family attends
an interactive, half-day training, and then receives ongoing technical
support. CFY also works at the school level, coordinating parent
workshops and training teachers how to use home technology to improve
student performance. CFY is one of the largest non-profits of its kind,
serving thousands of families each year. Its comprehensive program
supports parents as learning partners, opens educational opportunities,
and reduces the learning gap between low-income children and their more
affluent peers.
New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein says: "Computers for
Youth has played an important role in increasing family involvement
in our children's education. We need to demand equity in computer
ownership. Computers for Youth is changing those statistics here in
New York ... and they're getting results."
For more information on Computers for Youth, visit http://www.cfy.org.
Note that Computers for Youth only accepts donations of computers
in lots of 50 units or greater. For more information on donating,
visit http://www.cfy.org/donate2.html.
# # # #
|
|
