PLANNING A STAYCATION THIS YEAR? LOOK IT UP NOW IN
MERRIAM-WEBSTER’S COLLEGIATE ® DICTIONARY, ELEVENTH EDITION

SPRINGFIELD, MA, July 2009—Hardworking word-lovers everywhere can now learn the meaning of the word staycation (“a vacation spent at home or nearby”) along with nearly 100 other new words and senses added to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition. America’s best-selling dictionary offers its new 2009 entries in its updated print edition and online at Merriam-Webster.com.

“Our language evolves in many ways,” said John Morse, president and publisher of Merriam-Webster Inc. “As we’ve seen from our Open Dictionary feature on Merriam-Webster.com, people enjoy blending existing words, like combining ‘stay’ and ‘vacation’ to make staycation.  Staycation is a good example of a word meeting a need and establishing itself in the language very quickly.  Our earliest record of use is from 2005, but it seems to have exploded into popular use in 2007.”

“Another example of this kind of creative wordplay from this year’s list,” said Morse, “is frenemy: one who pretends to be a friend but is actually an enemy. But, in addition to these ‘portmanteau words,’ we have added new words from more predictable categories, like science, health, technology, and popular culture, which have also seen widespread use across a variety of publications.”

Many of the new words reflect the importance of the environment (carbon footprint, green- collar), government activities (earmark, waterboarding), health and medicine (cardioprotective, locavore, naproxen, neuroprotective), pop culture (docusoap, fan fiction, flash mob, reggaeton), and online activities (sock puppet, vlog, webisode).  Other words added include haram, memory foam, missalette, and zip line.

For a sample blend of the latest Collegiate Dictionary entries—and their definitions—please visit www.Merriam-Webster.com. For additional information on how words are selected for a Merriam-Webster dictionary, or to arrange an interview on this topic with Merriam-Webster’s Editor at Large Peter Sokolowski, please contact Arthur J. Bicknell, Senior Publicist, at the above address.

Merriam-Webster, Incorporated
Merriam-Webster Inc. acquired the rights to revise and publish Noah Webster’s dictionaries in 1843. Since then, Merriam-Webster has maintained an ongoing commitment to innovation, scholarship, and love of language. Today, the company continues as the leader in both print and electronic language reference publishing with reference products, learning tools, and word games. For more information about the company, visit www.Merriam-Webster.com.

Luckily, Academic Fitness is a great way for parents to be able to help their children and provide them with great quality educational software at a $39.99 price point. This means that the kids don’t have to miss out on opportunities to improve their achievement in school.

Academic Fitness addresses the key issues associated with scholastic struggle:

Reading. If your child is struggling with reading or reading comprehension, the software ensures success by reading aloud as well as having the text show up on the screen.   A graphic or video is also displayed for additional reinforcement.

Math. The software contains a very extensive math selection that teaches both simple and complex concepts effectively. Parents are then are able to work with their children to solidify understanding. Academic Fitness covers everything from basic addition and subtraction to Trigonometry.

Additionally, Academic Fitness covers all core curriculum including Science, History, Literature and Geography. Academic Fitness is a great learning tool geared to help students move past the road blocks that are getting in the way of their education and onto success.

It is important to remember that even though our software will be a great help alone, with parental involvement, the student has all the tools they will need to be academically fit!

This is what happens when you drop your iPhone on the floor wihhout a case!

I don’t recommend it to anyone!!  This devastating event occurred on Thursday and we are getting ready to go to the “National Charter School Show” in Washington DC this weekend. I needed to have my iPhone in order to demo our iPhone/iPod Touch software; the cracked screen of my iPhone would not have made for a good demo.

This morning I got up at 4:45am on a mission, and went down to the mall near my house, and I was number 1 in line to get the brand new iPhone 3Gs. It just so happened it was released today.

First in line for the iPhone 3Gs

There were two lines that were forming. One line if you pre-ordered your iPhone online and the second line for those who did not have a pre-order.  When they finally opened the door to the mall, there were two guys already in line, imagine that, they snuck in a locked entrance.   That was ok, since I was still number 3 in line it did not bother me much.   There were 5 of us in the “didn’t have a pre-order” line at 7:00am (when they opened the doors) and about 100+ people waiting in line for the pre-order phones.  I was in and out of the Apple Store in 15 minutes while those poor people that already purchased the phone had to wait for up to 2 hours to get theirs.   Apple did better on this release than when the iPhone 3G was released but obviously their system is still flawed!

When I got back to my office at 7:30 this morning, I opened the box, synced the phone and immediately started playing with it. The new  iPhone 3Gs is VERY fast. Our new App Store title, Academic Fitness Daily Trainer, is going to run very well on this new device.

Have you dropped or broken your iPhone? Did you pre-order one and have to wait in a longer line than those who didn’t? Did you luck out like me? Share your thoughts!

Apple today, released version 3.0 of their iPhone and iPod touch Operating System. This highly anticipated release includes many updates and upgrades that make these devices even better.

The new features include:

- Cut, Copy and Paste

- Landscape View for Mail, Notes and Messages

- Landscape Keyboard for Mail, Notes, and Messages

- Support for Multimedia Messages (MMS) which will be available to  ATT customers later this summer. The date is still TBD.

- Find My Phone feature which locates a missing or stolen iPhone. This feature is integrated in MobileMe.

- Remote Wipe is now an option in MobileMe to protect your data in case the phone winds up lost or stolen.

- Turn by Turn GPS-based directions

- A new Voice Memo app has been added

- Spotlight search for contacts, emails, and media content stored on the iPhone

What does this mean for education?

As we all have either seen or heard about, the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch are phenomenal devices to extend learning on-the-go. In this age of technology, we need to embrace and utilize the tools which make teaching engaging and effective. With the latest tools available to developers, applications that run on these devices do more and make more things possible than ever conceived before. Innovative Knowledge is hard at work developing and testing the next-generation of it’s mobile learning suite and should be on the App Store by the start of the new school year.

Academic Fitness Daily Trainer is an application, set to be released on the new iPhone/iPod Touch 3.0 platform, that will provide students with review questions that tests their knowledge and ensures they are ready for tests, quizzes, and overall school success. The material is presented in an interesting and engaging way and has pictures that accompany each question in order to assist students.

Here is a sneak peek of the application: