Minnesota-based SOPHIA learning is sponsoring a contest for students and teachers – prizes include one iPad, 30 iPads and a visit from Bill Nye, the Science Guy!

SOPHIA provides online learing modules that compliment traditional learning – in other words, they aim to facilitate flipped teaching for teachers, students and/or parents. Here’s a brief excerpt from their website that I think gives a good glimpse at what they do…

We have pre-structured Pathways in Math and Sciences. Start with one concept, taught in many ways by many teachers, then quiz yourself to see if you’ve mastered the concept. Once you have, you are automatically taken to the next concept to learn. And don’t forget to share your opinion with the SOPHIA community by rating the tutorials along the way.

They are also finalists for the Tekne awards – in the startup category.

To introduce people to their tools, they are inviting teachers, students and schools to register for the site, check out the tutorials and invite others to join to earn chances to win iPads between now and December 2, 2012.

Their offer comes on the heels of a recent report by Leading Education by Advancing Digital (LEAD) Commission that found that the majority of parents and teachers of K-12 students support greater use of technology in education. Here are some more findings from the report…

• 96 percent of teachers and 92 percent of parents believe that schools’ integration of technology in teaching and learning is important to the education of American students today
• 54 percent of teachers and 64 percent of parents believe that the role of technology in educating students will become much more important during the next 10 years
• 61 percent of teachers and 63 percent of parents responded that the country is somewhat or far behind the curve when it comes to American public schools’ use of technology in education
• 82 percent of teachers and 71 percent of parents believe a greater use of technology would be helpful in connecting learning inside and outside of the classroom
• 89 percent of teachers and 76 percent of parents would choose to spend $200 per student for an Internet-connected device over $200 per student for new science textbooks
• 82 percent of teachers believe that they are not receiving the necessary training to use technology to its fullest potential in the classroom
• 95 percent of teachers and 90 percent of parents believe that home access to high-speed Internet gives students a big or moderate advantage when it comes to classroom performance

It sounds like parents and teacher map be ripe to give programs like SOPHIA a chance.