School Furniture Blog

Let Worthington Direct be your direct source for all of the great products made by Virco.  Visit www.WorthingtonDirect.com today for wholesale prices on Virco products such as the Classic 9000 Series stack chair, the 4000 Series classroom activity tables and their other product lines like I.Q. and Zuma.

TORRANCE, Calif., Oct. 25, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) — A quick overview of the new Metaphor(tm) Series by Virco (Nasdaq:VIRC) tells you a lot about this great new product line for K-12 schools.

With a strong full-perimeter tubular steel frame and specially formulated polypropylene shell, Metaphor has the strength to deliver years of reliable service in high-traffic classrooms. The shell’s deeply sculpted contours provide the intuitive support to give students the long-lasting comfort they deserve. Thanks to a 12-high truly vertical stack for easier movement and storage, and the ability to nest individual chairs upside-down on desktops, Metaphor chairs enable quicker, easier classroom cleaning. All Metaphor(tm) models are certified according to the stringent GREENGUARD(r) for Children and Schools Program for indoor air quality.

Three distinctive backrest vents give Metaphor products an unmistakable resemblance to Virco’s best-selling Classic Series(tm) models. The resemblance, not surprisingly, is intentional, since Metaphor was conceived by award-winning designers Peter Glass and Bob Mills as an updated sequel to the Classic Series, which debuted in 1965 and has registered more than 47,500,000 units sold through 2006.

Given the long-standing and ongoing success of the Classic Series, Metaphor underwent an extensive research and development process to insure that it would bring important ergonomic benefits to Virco customers.

The Metaphor collection includes: 4-leg chairs with four seat heights; a selection of 4-leg combo units with two work surface sizes, an optional bookrack and an optional backpack hanger; two adjustable task chairs, one of which has a reduced shell size and a shorter adjustment range for smaller users; and an adjustable lab stool. Continue Reading

Information is just at the tip of your fingers. In this digital age, storage of this new media is more space efficient, but more complex.  Worthington Direct has sturdy storage furniture that while designed for bulky paper files, are just as useful for external hardrives and computer software.  Visit www.Worthingtondirect.com today to find shelves and locking cabinets that will ensure all media is safe for the future.

As a growing number of schools and libraries worldwide search for answers on how to store, preserve, and maintain digital materials, computing technology developer Sun Microsystems announces the formation of a global special interest working group to share best practices for digital archiving.

Schools and libraries have a growing number of digital materials to archive, but how can they get started on such a project? How will they store and preserve materials in digital format, and how will they grant the appropriate levels of access to their stakeholders? These are just some of the questions that pose significant challenges for schools–and now a new effort from Sun Microsystems might be able to help.

Sun has announced the formation of the Sun Preservation and Archiving Special Interest Group (PASIG) to share best practices for digital archiving. The Sun PASIG will bring together global leaders in government, broadcasting, education, and library services, with the goal of supporting organizations challenged with preserving and archiving important research and cultural heritage materials in electronic format. "There is a large and growing need to preserve scientific, historic, and cultural heritage materials for sharing, and also just to keep for future generations," said Art Pasquinelli, education market strategist for Sun’s Global Education and Research division.

Schools and libraries not only must consider how they will digitize materials in their print collections, but they also must consider how they will maintain items in digital format. "Much ‘born digital’ information is at risk of just being lost or going through ‘bit rot’ if it isn’t maintained regularly," Pasquinelli explained.

Schools and libraries have much to learn and gain from the new interest group, he said. Some challenges that organizations face as they approach digital archiving include clearly defining their goals, determining their technical capabilities, and figuring out how to get started. "Figuring out who is actually doing what in this field is also key," Pasquinelli said. Many companies and open-development communities are just now creating solutions to meet the needs of organizations, he added.

Schools and libraries should ask several key questions as they approach digital storage and preservation, Pasquinelli said. These include: What are your goals, and how do you intend to use the content you’re looking to archive? Who will be using this content? And, are there any areas where you can apply the experiences of other organizations, companies, and the open-source development community? Continue reading

Computers are a great basis to promote a more "green" environment.  Worthington Direct has a great selection of Greenguard certified furniture which would be the perfect base for technology of all kinds.  Visit www.worthingtondirect.com today and browse through the product catagory called Greenguard Certified Furniture.  Products include; classroom tables, classroom desks, classroom chairs, computer tables and booktrucks.

Global Competition to Focus on Environmentally-Responsible Technology

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 18, 2007 – Dell issued a global challenge to members of the “ReGeneration” – people of all ages who share a goal of protecting the Earth – to help its engineers design the world’s most environmentally responsible computing technology.

Dell’s call for ideas was issued here during the CONNECTING’07 World Design Congress. The challenge is called the ReGeneration: International Green Computing Technology Design Competition; Dell is looking for ideas that demonstrate fresh approaches and responsible solutions for green computing technology. "Dell is committed to partnering with the ReGeneration," said Ken Musgrave, director of Dell’s Experience Design Group. “We want the best ideas from design students, computer enthusiasts and others to help technology protect our environment.”

The competition, which is endorsed by the Industrial Designers Society of America, is designed to invigorate the academic and industry dialogue regarding designs for environmentally responsible computing. The professionally juried competition is open to all, with a focus on students of universities and colleges that offer design programs.

Competition details are now available and the submission period spans January through April 2008. Jury-selected finalists will be announced in May 2008, and honored with a prize of $10,000 each. A popular vote will be held online to find the finalist submission that most resonates with the public. That winner will receive an additional $15,000 prize. If the popular vote winner is a student, his or her university is eligible for a matching $15,000 prize.

Entry details are available at www.dell.com/designregeneration. Entries from finalists will appear on this site in April where the public vote will also be recorded. Continue reading

The fall brings the opportunity to collect ripe acorns, the fruit of the oak tree, for science classroom activities or home-based science projects. Botanically, the acorn is a nut containing a single seed encased in a tough leathery shell. Acorns of the northern red oak, Quercus rubra, the most common oak species in central Maine, provide fodder for studies of seed dormancy and germination.

Worthington Direct can supply schools with all the furniture needed to study our growing world all year long.  Visit www.worthingtondirect.com today and browse through science tables suitable for all classes, from earth science to advanced chemistry.  Expand your classroom lab and add mobile science units with running water, and adjustable science tables, perfect for physics! 

Students can collect acorns, test them for viability by flotation, and study stratification and germination. Many excellent science fair projects have sprouted from classroom activities involving acorns. Collecting acorns Acorns of northern red oak take two years to mature. They are best collected as soon as they fall from the tree (early September in central Maine), since acorns left on the ground for any length of time will be eaten by animals or infested with disease.

In fact, only one in 500 acorns survives to become an oak seedling. No wonder oak trees produce so many acorns! Second-year acorns are brown and often detached from their cap; first-year acorns that have dropped prematurely are green and typically remain capped. Although the first-year nuts will not germinate, you may want to let the students collect them and discover this for themselves. Also, acorns with small holes drilled by weevils or other insects are not likely to grow.

The proportion of viable seed can be increased by removing defective, hollow or partially consumed acorns. This is done by simple flotation. Place the collected acorns in a bucket of water and discard the ones that float. continue reading