The GeeGuides Web-based art curriculum makes a grand entrance at NECC
geeART16 released in time for “back to school”

DURANGO, Colo., July 5, 2006 – The successful launch of the company’s first educational series, geeART, to the consumer and homeschool market paves the path for a seamless integration into the public and private school sector. The first curriculum of the series, geeART16, utilizes cutting-edge features and content to help reinforce concepts, engage students, assist teachers and bring art and technology to our schools.

The GeeGuides geeART16 curriculum is an animated, interactive, web-based art education system, which is more thoughtful, innovative and in-depth than conventional CD-ROM-based programs. This comprehensive curriculum helps students learn the language of art, how it applies to their lives, and how to use it as a form of self-expression.

GeeGuides brings art and 21st-century technology together to help tap into student cognitive and creative development. Many studies show that art is an essential part of a student’s education and that it must not be “left behind.” In fact, did you know that students who have an arts education excel in other subjects, as well as in standardized tests, nearly 30 percent more than those students who do not have an arts education background? *

“A structured and well-rounded art curriculum, such as the GeeGuides programs, is key to facilitating a constructive learning environment that truly educates students to make and understand meaning in art,” says Eric Guaglione, president and CEO for GeeGuides. “Art is such a valuable gateway to the development of higher-order, critical thinking skills, as well as to a better understanding of other subjects, and for these reasons should not be excluded from our school’s core curricula.”

geeART16 features 16 lesson modules that include cross-curricular connections, online interactivities, student rewards, self-assessing challenges, teacher lesson plans, hours of doART activities and much more.

In addition, GeeGuides comes bundled with Corel® Painter™ Essentials 3.This award-winning, digital-painting application faithfully replicates the real-world experience of working with a variety of art media including chalks, watercolor, oils, markers, and pencils. Students loveits creative options and parents and teachers love the no-mess aspect of painting digitally.

The geeART16 curriculum also allows teachers to easily coordinate art activities with other subject’s lesson plans, such as math and science, historical context and influences, and writing and vocabulary. Additionally, the web-based nature of the program brings the greatest in modern technologies together, offering such tools as online challenges with automatic assessments of each student’s progress, which are accessible by teachers with just a click of the mouse.

geeART16 is a standards-based art curriculum that presents artistic concepts with humor and in a context to which students can relate, keeping them emotionally engaged in the content. It accomplishes this through high-quality animated lessons and the highly affable Art Guides. The lessons are followed by interactive exercises to help strengthen retention and understanding of the concepts presented. Students remain engaged in the program and motivated through informative and entertaining animation, hands-on interactivities, incentives and rewards, and hours of traditional art and digital painting activities designed for creative exploration.

GeeGuides geeART16 starts as low as $25/student. To learn more about GeeGuides and check out the free, no-strings-attached Lesson Demo, visit www.geeguides.com/NECC.

About GeeGuides, LLC
GeeGuides, based in Durango, Colo., is a leading innovator in art education. Established in 2003, the company offers an animated, web-based, interactive art education system, providing students with the tools they need to understand, interpret and create art. The GeeGuides curriculum, which meets national and state curriculum standards, introduces art principles and techniques, explores meaning and encourages self-expression through art. GeeGuides integrates the concepts of sayART™, seeART™ and doART™, through animated lessons and tutorials. For more information, visit the company’s website at www.geeguides.com.

Corel and Painter are trademarks or registered trademarks of Corel Corporation and/or its subsidiaries.

*Champions of Change—Arts Education Partnership and the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities.

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