Atlanta – January 9, 2011–Women In Technology (WIT) is announcing the publication of its first book, CLIMB: Leading Women In Technology Share Their Journeys To Success. CLIMB features more than 60 profiles of leaders influencing Atlanta’s business, academic and technology landscapes, including Women of the Year in Technology Award recipients, WIT presidents, and key WIT supporters and volunteers. The book also features Ginger Ackerman wh0 is the Vice President of Marketing for Jigsaw Meeting.

“These powerful and poignant contributions illustrate challenging and often humorous leadership lessons that can impact readers of all ages and gender,” said Sandy Hofmann, president of WIT, Inc. and co-editor of CLIMB. “These extraordinary women have generously shared their invaluable experience, advice, and journeys that will inspire leaders in this generation and the next.”

Ginger Ackerman, originally from Commiskey, IN has been profiled as a leader in our technology community. Ginger is currently the Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Jigsaw Meeting. Her contribution is titled Hold True to Your Values. Jigsaw Meeting is a lead online meeting software and web video conferencing service provider. Jigsaw Meeting also opened up a new company to service the online needs of educators and other business training needs. Follow the link to learn more about this service: Virtual Classroom Software

CLIMB also describes efforts by WIT and The WIT Foundation to support the next generation of women through pre-career programs encouraging girls to study and work in STEM-related careers (science, technology, engineering and math.) Net proceeds from book sales will provide additional funding for the WIT Foundation.

CLIMB will first be available in limited quantity at the upcoming WIT Women of the Year in Technology Awards gala November 10, 2010, then sold online through WIT’s website (www. mywit.org), as well as at WIT signature events and forums. The book will be available on www.amazon.com in 2011.

Printed locally by Graphic Solutions Group, CLIMB was produced through support from Executive Alliance, Grant Thornton and WestReed.

About Women in Technology (WIT)

WIT’s mission is to serve as passionate advocates for advancing women in Georgia’s technology community. Each year, more than 1,000 thought leaders and professionals attend WIT Forums, WIT’s leadership and networking series. WIT delivers professional development programs, such as WIT Executive Coaching and WIT Careers in Action, to enable members to hone their leadership skills and achieve visibility within the business community. WIT’s philanthropic and educational programs, such as Girls Get IT, provide outreach to educate and encourage girls and young women to pursue careers in science and technology. WIT has two annual premier events, WIT Connect, WIT’s annual fundraiser event, and WIT’s Women of the Year in Technology Awards honoring the women who lead Georgia’s technology community. WIT is a founding society of the Technology Association of Georgia, an umbrella membership organization that serves the Georgia technology community. For more information on WIT and the WIT Foundation, WIT’s philanthropic arm, visit www.mywit.org.

Women In Technology (WIT) is proud to announce the publication of their first book, CLIMB: Leading Women In Technology Share Their Journeys To Success. CLIMB  which features more than 60 profiles of leaders influencing Atlanta’s business. This publication offer deep insights into the business climate and technical innovations and the role of  Atlanta’s women business leaders play.

“These powerful and poignant contributions illustrate challenging and often humorous leadership lessons that can impact readers of all ages and gender,” said Sandy Hofmann, president of WIT, Inc. and co-editor of CLIMB. “These extraordinary women have generously shared their invaluable experience, advice, and journeys that will inspire leaders in this generation and the next.”

Josette Fleszar, originally from Ft. Lauderdale, FL has been profiled as a leader in our technology community. Josette is currently the President & CEO of Jigsaw Meeting.  Her contribution is titled Blessed Time and Time Again. Jigsaw Meeting operate an online meeting software company that allows for web video conferencing. Jigsaw Meeting also own and operate a virtual classroom software company that allow educators and company with training needs the platform to conduct online classes that are interactive.

CLIMB also describes efforts by WIT and The WIT Foundation to support the next generation of women through pre-career programs encouraging girls to study and work in STEM-related careers (science, technology, engineering and math.)  Net proceeds from book sales will provide additional funding for the WIT Foundation.

CLIMB will first be available in limited quantity at the upcoming WIT Women of the Year in Technology Awards gala November 10, 2010, then sold online through WIT’s website (www. mywit.org), as well as at WIT signature events and forums. The book will be available on Amazon in 2011.

Printed locally by Graphic Solutions Group, CLIMB was produced through support from Executive Alliance, Grant Thornton and WestReed.

About Women in Technology (WIT)

WIT’s mission is to serve as passionate advocates for advancing women in Georgia’s technology community. Each year, more than 1,000 thought leaders and professionals attend WIT Forums, WIT’s leadership and networking series.  WIT delivers professional development programs, such as WIT Executive Coaching and WIT Careers in Action, to enable members to hone their leadership skills and achieve visibility within the business community. WIT’s philanthropic and educational programs, such as Girls Get IT, provide outreach to educate and encourage girls and young women to pursue careers in science and technology. WIT has two annual premier events, WIT Connect, WIT’s annual fundraiser event, and WIT’s Women of the Year in Technology Awards honoring the women who lead Georgia’s technology community. WIT is a founding society of the Technology Association of Georgia, an umbrella membership organization that serves the Georgia technology community. For more information on WIT and the WIT Foundation, WIT’s philanthropic arm, visit www.mywit.org.

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Atlanta, Georgia (Vocus/PRWEB) December 16, 2010

Jigsaw Meeting of Atlanta, Georgia announces receiving three award nominations in TechAmerica’s Spirit of Endeavors Awards. These awards were in Technology Innovation, Technology Entrepreneur and Cool Technology categories. Jigsaw Meeting has gained much public interest due to their online web video-meeting application and desktop sharing features. Their technology has deep appeal from everyday consumers who may use their software for video dating or for families and loved ones to be able to see each other, if not in person, at least online. Their products also garners interest from business professionals that are savvy enough to know the power of online desktop presentations combined with the impact of video conferencing. Thus their new age services gained a lot of attention at the Spirit of Endeavors awards.

The Spirit of Endeavor celebrates the creation and execution of ideas that the technology industry thrives upon. The awards spotlight companies that help build Georgia into a place that is internationally recognized as a haven for the advancement of technology. Josette Fleszar (President of Jigsaw Meeting) says, “it is quite an honor being nominated for such awards in the technology categories.” Their online meeting software has advanced features that increases the users experience and productivity.

This innovative company is no stranger to awards. In fact, “the best awards are from their current customer’s positive feedback”;says Ginger Ackerman, Vice President of Marketing with Jigsaw Meeting. The company strives to surpass its client’s expectations in its offerings. Their goal is to simple make people’s life better and more productive through web conferencing technology.

Jigsaw Meeting has also just unleashed its latest online offering. Virtual Classroom Software is designed to aid institution, colleges, and other training programs the ability to conduct online training sessions and meetings to increase the reach and scalability of their courses. This will allow a setting that will allow a student or employee from home to get the training they may need from a comfortable chair in their own room. Plus this will allow the colleges or employers a low cost methodology to expand beyond the confines of brick and mortar. This is sure to be a 360 degree solution that makes everyone involved happy. Or as one of the awards name may say its best; Jigsaw offers one “Cool Technology”. Visit their online classroom site at  http://www.virtualclassroomssoftware.com
. This site is ideal for educators or corporate trainers to consider its offerings.

Jigsaw Meeting indeed has award winning business applications. To learn more about their products and services just follow the link: Web Video Conferencing

The benefits of Virtual Classrooms to the students include:

· Having all of the reference material at the tips of their fingers. If the student does not understand a word or subject then they are able to quickly get up to speed and back into the discussion.

· Note taking and exam preparation that has never been easier. All of the email, chats, discussion groups and other means of communication are logged along with the student’s notes so that they can look back and review the information at any time.

· A richer learning experience. In the past having a movie or visual aid was something of a treat for students because the normal form of teaching was by lecture. Now the teacher can easily combine their lecture with audio and video clips to fully immerse the students in the subject matter at hand.

Online Classroom Systems offer just as many benefits to the parents:

· It offers them a flexible schedule. Since a lot of Online Educational Software will allow the courses to be taken on variable schedules, the parents have more options for their work or family plans.

· Virtual Classrooms are real time and money savers because there is no travel time involved. A typical commute to school and back is around thirty minutes to an hour which equals out to around 5 hours per week that you could be doing other things and quite a bit of money saved on gasoline.

· Virtual Schools also allow the parents an unparalleled level of involvement in their children’s education. They can get feedback from the teachers, look over their children’s class work and be a part of the process.

· Traditionally a schools growth has been limited by its geographic area. There are a finite number of children within an easy commute to the school so once you have enrolled them all then your school will stop growing. Online Classroom Systems do not have that limitation and Virtual Schools can expand as far as they feel comfortable with going. Many schools of this type have students enrolled from countries around the world.

· Using Online Educational Software allows the students to be more productive with their time. In a typical day a student has to drive or be driven to and from school and find something to do with the time between classes which can be substantial. With Online Classroom Systems there is not any wasted time so the student can finish their school work and use the extra time to have fun and follow other interests.

· Virtual Schools do not have to worry about the overhead that a standard school would. They do not need the safety officers, janitors, lunch room attendants and other personnel that a brick and mortar school would. They do not even need to have a campus which is where most of the money for a school is invested.

· The administrators of Virtual Classrooms have a greater ability to monitor and interact with the students. It is easy to track the students and see who has been attending the classes and who has not. They can tell which students are struggling and need a little extra help. Online classroom Systems prevent children from falling through the cracks and when you need to alert the parents to a child’s behavior, you have the data logs as proof and a much needed backup.

· One of the biggest benefits of Virtual Classrooms is how easy it makes the process of learning. All of your notes, research material, study groups and lectures are accessible within the Online Educational Software so when it comes time to study for a test, the students are fully prepared.

Over crowding has always been a problem for traditional schools because they only had a limited amount of space at their location. If the school needed to grow then the actual building had to be expanded in order to give more space for classrooms. Since that took time and a lot of added expense, many schools would put it off until a teacher was overloaded with students and could no longer teach them effectively. The schools that have implemented an Online Classroom System do not have to worry about there being too many students and not enough teachers. The use of cutting edge Online Educational Systems allows one teachers to easily give a multitude of students the one on one instruction they need, while still guiding the class through a group setting. If the class does become too much for one teacher to handle then it is a simple matter to split one group off into another Virtual Classroom. Many times it is done behind the scenes so that the students are not even aware of the change.

If you are worried that your child may miss out on the social component of school then you have not seen the new Online Classroom Systems in action. Virtual Schools have come a long way from just being simple online classes. They have mascots, team colors and a sense of school spirit that makes it unique and gives the students a real feeling of belonging. The students can interact with their classmates, chat and meet up online just like they would at a physical campus and if you have a camera connected to the computer it can feel like they are in the same room as their friends.

By far the biggest advantage of Virtual Classrooms is the flexibility that it gives the students when setting their schedule. You may remember the days of signing up for classes in college and trying to get all morning classes with as little time wasted between classes as possible. Inevitably one class would fall through and you would end up walking across the campus in the rain or having to waste two hours while waiting for your next class to start. Online Classroom Systems takes the guess work out of the process and allows the students to set up their schedule however they see fit. Since there is no wasted time before or after classes, they still have time to keep a job or just have fun with their friends in real life.

1. Flexible schedule – With money being tighter than ever, many students go to school while holding down a full or part time job. Virtual Classrooms can be scheduled more tightly together because there is no need to allow for travel time to the school or having to run all the way across a large campus. You can schedule all the classes that you need in the morning or night depending on your work schedule and still have time for a social life.

2. Notes and class work – Online Classroom Systems allow all of the class material to be uploaded to the server. Many will also allow the student to store their notes online. Granted, you will no longer be able to use the “dog ate my homework” excuse but you will have access to all of your course work, anytime that you need it.

3. Connecting with other students – Study groups and student discussion are a great way to prepare for upcoming tests and to help each other understand the information. Online Educational Software makes getting together easier than ever with virtual study groups. You can talk and trade ideas as easily as if you were sitting in the same room as your friends.

4. Comfort – Waking up and getting ready for an early morning class can be a pain. Most students do not even schedule morning classes because they will either sleep through them or not be able to pay attention. When you are attending Virtual Classrooms, the only hardship is rolling out of bed and booting up the computer. You do not even need to get dressed unless the Virtual Schools support video conferencing.

5. Backup and verification – Keeping track of your grades and class schedule can be stressful at times but Online Classroom Systems take care of that for you. Virtual Classrooms keep track of your past grades, upcoming lectures and tests for easy reference.

Virtual schools are bridging the gap between the experience of a public school and the safety of home school. Children in Virtual Classrooms can interact with the other kids during class discussion, study groups and group projects. If the Online Educational Software is good enough, they can even hold video conferencing to feel like they are in the same room as their friends and teachers. Virtual Classrooms have the added benefit of keeping all of the study materials online so that the child can access them whenever they need to study.

As I mentioned, one of the drawbacks of teaching your kids at home is that they do not feel like they belong to a school. They live in different houses, use different computers and the software that they use is drab and dull. Quality Online Classroom Systems will allow the look and feel of the software to reflect the schools unique teaching style. A Virtual School should be branded in the same way as a brick and mortar school to give the kids a sense of community and school spirit.

Virtual Classrooms solve another of the problems that people see with home school. If it is not done correctly, a child that has been home schooled can be sheltered and not get the benefits received from meeting children of different backgrounds. Online Educational Software allows students from all over the world to come together and share ideas while learning the fundamentals that they will need for later life. Virtual Classrooms add a level of variety that cannot be matched by brick and mortar schools because they are not restricted to only receiving students from a certain geographic area.

If you have been considering home schooling your child then there is no better time to start looking into Online Educational Software. Colleges and private schools have been using virtual classrooms for some time but public schools are slowly integrating Online Classroom Systems. Maybe in the future we will get a choice in our children’s education. Where some days we can send them to school but on other days we can let them log in from home. It would be the best of both worlds.