GAMCO Educational Software

American software developer

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GAMCO Educational Software was an American educational computer game developer located in Texas.[1][2] From 1995 it a wholly owned subsidiary of Siboney Learning Group, a division of Siboney Corporation.[3]

## History

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Siboney was founded as Siboney-Caribbean Petroleum in 1955 by Jerry Tegeler.[4] After the 1960s, the company evolved into the industries of coal properties, plastics production and domestic oil exploration.[5] In 1968, Siboney purchased Gamco Inc., a company that manufactured and sold educational products.[5] In 1992, Siboney granted options to purchase 175,000 shares to employees of Gamco Industries.[4] In 1995, Jerry's son Tim took control of the company and sold off all the operating divisions except Gamco, a small educational systems company in west Texas.[4] Bodie Marx, then working for a French trade publisher, was brought in to take over software operations via Siboney Learning division.[4] By this point, Gamco had released 17 titles, the most popular one being Touchdown Maths.[4]

Touchdown Maths had been developed after "tests revealed that both girls and boys enjoy learning math in connection with the game of football."[6] The series sees pairs of students compete in maths problems, the winner gaining yardage on the field.[4] The series was released on Mac Color Classic, LC Series, Roman Numeral II series and Proforma 400 and 600 series.[6] Touchdown Maths had recently been accused of being societally and technologically outdated; "too boy-oriented", and only running on Apple II / DOS systems.[4] Marx paid a Ukrainian software developer $350,000 update the games to run on Windows and Macintosh computers; meanwhile he tasked Siboney software staff of 8 programmers to create more titles.[4] They debuted in October 1997.[7]

Of Gamco's total sales for the quarter ended March 31, 1997, approximately 94% was generated by proprietary software.[8] In 1997, Siboney Learning Group launched Orchard: Teacher's Choice Software, which offered schools a curriculum-based solution with universal management by tracks student scores on all Siboney programs; this included Gamco products.[3][4] Gamco dealers' sales grew 14.4% in 1998.[3] Gamco had ann "on approval" policy where products shipped subject to customer approval were not billed for and could. be returned within 45 days.[3] Gamco's R&D budget was $403,000, $440,000 and $412,000 in 1998, 1997 and 1996.[3]

As of 2001, Siboney employed around 60 people at its Kirkwood headquarters, Hanley Industrial Court fulfillment center and other offices throughout the United States.[5] In 2005, sales of GAMCO and Teacher Support Software decreased 33% compared to 2004.[9] In 2009, Siboney signed a latter of intent to sell Siboney Learning Group to an affiliate of educational software company EdOptions.[10]

## Series

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### Maths

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* Math Concepts One... Two... Three!
* Math Concepts in Motion
* Math Concepts Step-by-Step
* Skillbuilders
* Paws and Pyramids
* Word Problem Square Off Series
* Touchdown Math Series
* Number Facts Series
* Money Challenge/Discover Time

### Reading

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* Phonics
* Reading Concepts
* Reading for Critical Thinking
* Captain Zog's Main Idea
* Undersea Reading for Meaning

### Language Arts

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* Renegades
* Essential Language Series

### Writing

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* Paragraph Power & Responsive Writing
* Precision Writing
* Writing Renegades

## References

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1. ^ MacUser December 1994
2. ^ Gamco Education Materials: Educational Software for K-12Archived 1 June 2002 at the Wayback Machine
3. ^ a b c d e "SIBONEY CORP - 10-K Annual Report - 12/31/1998". getfilings.com. Retrieved 2020-10-27.
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Siboney recasts itself, fills educational software niche". www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved 2020-10-27.
5. ^ a b c "Fast 50 winners 31-40 - 2001-09-24 - St. Louis Business Journal". www.bizjournals.com. Archived from the original on 22 November 2003. Retrieved 15 January 2022.
6. ^ a b "FOOTBALL PROGRAMS TEACH MATHEMATICS". The Buffalo News. 26 September 1993. Retrieved 2020-10-27.
7. ^ "More on New Math Courseware: Other titles, new companies & extra tools for math instruction -". THE Journal. 1997-08-01. Retrieved 2020-10-27.
8. ^ "Siboney Corp 1997 Quarterly Report 10-Q". SEC.report. Retrieved 2020-10-27.
9. ^ "Siboney Corporation Form 10-K". www.sec.gov.
10. ^ "Siboney Corporation Announces Proposed Sale of Siboney Learning Group Business". www.businesswire.com. 2009-02-03. Retrieved 2020-10-27.

## External links

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* Home page