YOUNGSTOWN Software maker lands major deal

Its product allows students to communicate instantaneously with professors.
By DON SHILLING
VINDICATOR BUSINESS EDITOR
YOUNGSTOWN -- A major textbook publisher has selected a downtown software developer to help it bring new technology to classrooms nationwide.
Thomson Higher Education will use software created by Turning Technologies to allow college students to communicate immediately with professors during lessons.
The alliance, which was announced by Thomson today, easily is the biggest deal for Turning Technologies, which is just 2 years old but already has classroom-response systems at Ohio State and Notre Dame universities.
Thomson Higher Education, based in California, is one of the nation's leading providers of college textbooks and is a division of Thomson Corp., which has annual revenues of $7.5 billion from selling books, software and Internet-based materials in a variety of industries.
"Our product is in 40 universities," said Mike Broderick, Turning Technologies president. "But by fall, we will have our product in virtually every major university across the country." Turning Technologies began as start-up company at the Youngstown Business Incubator in the downtown and remains there as a paying tenant.
Hiring
The company has hired four people to its technical and office staff in the past two weeks, giving it 12 employees. At least 10 or 20 other hires are expected by year's end.
Broderick said predicting the number of hires is tough because large deals are pending in the company's two other markets -- corporate training and elementary and secondary education.
The company's TurningPoint system is similar to other products that allow TV game show audiences to respond to questions by punching a button on a hand-held device.
TurningPoint allows a professor to add questions into a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation. Students respond with wireless keypads or an electronic keypad on a laptop computer. The professor instantaneously has the responses and can use them for grades or to gauge the understanding of the group.
Susan Badger, Thomson chief executive, said combining the classroom response with the textbooks will make learning more interactive and effective. Thomson's goal is to use technology to help professors customize lessons.
Keeps students involved
Hazel Pierson, an instructor of mechanical and industrial engineering at Youngstown State University, has been using TurningPoint and likes its integration with PowerPoint.
"Using the TurningPoint software keeps all the students involved in the lecture and creates an entertaining and informative visual aid," she said.
By fall, nearly all of Thomson's 500 textbooks will come with the interactive software, Broderick said. Thomson will include the system in the PowerPoint packages that come with the books, so there will be no additional cost besides the keypads, he said.
Broderick said Turning Technologies officials will begin talking soon with Thomson about bringing the software to universities in other countries.
The key to TurningPoint's success has been its integration with PowerPoint and its affordability, Broderick said. When running PowerPoint, a TurningPoint toolbar appears on the computer screen, allowing a user to run both at the same time.
Cost
The cost to bring the system to a 20-seat high school classroom is just under $2,000, although it can be rotated among rooms. Equipping a large lecture hall at a medical school runs into the six figures.
Broderick and two others started Turning Technologies after working together at the Boardman office of a national software company. Don Arthurs had been laid off from the company, while Broderick and Mike Crosby were worried about the future of their jobs.
They saw an opportunity to improve on audience-response systems and created Turning Technologies in late 2001.
shilling@vindy.com