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SuperTECH NEWS is the monthly newsletter of the BLE GROUP's CIO-Time Share service, which provides small- and medium-size school systems with supplementary technology management to produce high-quality educational results and efficient management. The purpose of SuperTECH NEWS is to provide education decision makers with concise information that allows them to make informed technology decisions to impact instruction, management and communication. This is information you can use on Monday Morning. Our
June issue theme is "Web-based Applications
for Early Reading" . SuperTECH NEWS is organized as follows: (Click on what you want to read)
We want to hear from you. Is SuperTECH NEWS helpful? What do you want us to feature and what topics do you think we should address? Please write us at eliot@blegroup.com.
THE BLE GROUP AND CIO TIME-SHARE SERVICE
WHO IS THE BLE GROUP? We're a group of 25 educational technology directors and school administrators who use technology to improve instruction and management. Over the last three years, we've developed technology plans and provided management services in over 40 school systems. Eliot Levinson is the CEO of the BLE GROUP. Levinson founded the BLE GROUP (www.blegroup.com) in 1998 and has worked in over 40 school districts. Levinson is known nationally for his work in technology planning and management for school districts. He co-authors "Tech from the Top," a monthly column in Converge Magazine. He has experience in education and technology as a teacher in California and Pennsylvania, a middle school principal in Massachusetts and an Assistant to the chancellor of schools in New York City. He has held research positions in educational change at the Rand corporation and MIT's Sloan School of Management. Levinson holds masters degrees in Education and Anthropology and a PhD in Organizational Studies from Stanford University. THE BLE Group's principals, our leadership team, consists of:
WHY WE DEVELOPED THE CIO TIME SHARE SERVICE? If you can't afford $105,000 and benefits for a CIO who will likely leave your organization after 13 months, can you afford $1,500 or $2,000 a month for someone who is knowledgeable about your district and available on a just-in-time, just-enough basis, and will save you enough money to pay for the service. That's what a CIO timeshare is. Technology is now central to everything that happens in a school system, from instruction and buses to parent communication and financial management. We're concerned that the 86 percent of American school systems with less than 5,000 students will become second class instructionally and administratively, because they won't be able to effectively manage technology. Good technology staff is hard to find and expensive. Most vendors pay attention to the top 1 percent of school systems that have 20 percent of the students, because it isn't worth their while to work with small school systems. Intermediate units have the same knowledge and staffing problems as the school systems. We developed the CIO-Time Share Service to provide a cost-effective way for intermediate units and small school systems to get the strategic technology support they need. WHAT IS THE CIO-TIME SHARE SERVICE? The service supplements the technology capability of smaller school systems so that they can remain high-quality instructional institutions. The CIO-Time Share Service is to technology what your outside lawyer and accountant are to contracts and finances: it supplements your internal capability with external expertise. Main service components include:
If there is anything more you wish to know about the CIO-Time Share Service or the BLE GROUP, please e-mail or call: Eliot
Levinson <eliot@blegroup.com>,
CEO,
TECHNOLOGY-BASED READING SOLUTIONS There is nothing like a multibillion-dollar federal money pie to give great momentum to an issue and the many products developing to advance it. The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 has targeted early literacy and reading and will significantly shape how reading is taught and learned by young children. The NCLB will impact the teaching processes used in the classroom and reading products through the following:
This is where technology comes in. Put simply, there is no way the requirements of the law can be addressed without the use of technology to improve instruction, sharpen the measurement of reading performance in the early grades, and address administrative demands on teachers. NCLB provides roughly $900 million in fiscal year 2002 for reading, a threefold increase over the level budgeted in fiscal year 2001. This is the first installment of the Bush administration's commitment for a six-year, $5 billion investment aiming to ensure that every child can read well by the end of the third grade. As this federal funding pie is made available, three important developments are converging that will change the face of using technology in reading for K-3 students. The money will give districts the resources to address and improve the teaching of reading. The law's requirements will compel districts to change the way they are teaching reading and to be held much more accountable. And thirdly, technology-based reading products are in the early stages, but they are already making significant improvements in how reading is taught and in how well K-3 students are learning to read. Following are the ways that technology will shape the teaching and learning of reading in the early grades for the near future:
Although
the new Web-based reading and instructional applications are new
and will improve greatly in the next few years, instructional leaders
should give serious consideration to purchasing them now, particularly
the newest diagnostic tools. They are a big leap forward from what
is currently available.
TECHNOLOGY-BASED PRODUCTS FOR EARLY READING Imagine talking about what cars could do by focusing on the 1920s. This is one way to understand where things stand with much of Web-based and electronic delivery of instruction for reading in the early grades. While dynamic, the reading products are primarily in the early stages, but the funding and mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001, coupled with technology development, assure that these products are going to change the face of reading teaching and learning in the next several years. School districts need to know about these products and about funding opportunities available through NCLB, which explicitly calls for scientifically based instruction and assessment tools. The products we consider can be placed in three categories:
Some of these new-generation products combine both assessment and instruction. In addition to the ones we're examining below, there are many others in all of the categories. We've selected these products to give you an idea of what is out there, current and new, and what is coming down the road. Note: The BLE Group does not endorse any of the products mentioned in this newsletter. These were selected to illustrate the types of products currently available. Assessment Products Mobility in the classroom is one of the prevalent waves that mark the new products, and Wireless Generation takes it to the ultimate level. The company, founded in the fall of 2000, has developed a reading assessment application that literally goes where a teacher goes: It's for the Palm handheld device. The mClass™ software application allows teachers and administrators to diagnose, track, synchronize, and report the reading progress of K-3 students individually by using personal digital assistants, or PDAs. Using the application, teachers can monitor a student's progress by performing a reading assessment and then use the results to customize instruction for each student's needs. Teachers using mClass get real-time feedback on the PDA, complemented by expert suggestions about how to address a student's needs. The device also permits teachers to have instant calculations of the math that must be performed in reading assessments, such as frequency of miscues, error rates, and other measures. In addition, the data can be synched up via a local server or the Web so that it can be accessed at a classroom, building, district level, etc. In its early research, the company, which has partnered with the Center for Technology in Education, conducted time-motion studies of teachers. Those conducting the research found that teachers in the K-5 arena are on their feet 97 percent of the day. "We found that the technology had to be wearable technology, not portable technology," says Marshall Eubanks, vice president of sales for Wireless Generation, discussing the company's development of the application on a handheld device. In simple terms, not even a laptop is conducive to a teacher's daily routine, in this view. The company has also done extensive research and fine-tuning of the product based on the types of assessments teachers and their districts use. During early product development, for example, those working on the project also observed the prevalence of teachers' use of standard "running records" in tracking students' reading progress and adapted this type of record to a Palm. They then took the devices back to teachers, received their input, and continued to revise the application, based on educators' experiences. mClass actually denotes the Mobile Classroom Assessment: Reading and is a package of assessments. A school district can customize the tools available so that they are tailored to the district's programs and needs. Because the assessments are on a Web-based application, after teachers perform the assessments, they can view them through any browser at home, at school, or anywhere. Also, since the assessments are real-time and are an ongoing instructional assessment, Eubanks says, they can inform instruction immediately. "There is no lag time, no testing and waiting six to ten weeks, or months," Eubanks notes. Superintendents and other school leaders can also have a more immediate picture of where students are with early reading. With the emphasis of the No Child Left Behind Act on classroom-based assessments in the early grades and the need to record and show evidence of reading proficiency, companies like Wireless Generation are seeking to create the tools geared to these demands. The application is sold on a subscription basis, and the basic subscription is $20 per student per year. For this amount, Wireless Generation provides assessment tools, installation, compiles the student roster, and houses the data. In March, LeapFrog SchoolHouse launched its LeapTrack Assessment and Instruction System this spring, another of the growing genre seeking to track student progress in standards-based skills and prescribe customized learning. The LeapTrack system collects data, assesses, and reports individual student performance and allows teachers to customize lessons based on those assessments. Test results are saved on personalized student cartridges. Able to be run on one computer, it includes 12 LeapPad platforms, 24 LeapPad cartridges for individual students, and an assessment and instruction library for grades K-5. Instructional materials range from full-color Skill Cards to interactive LeapPad books. Direct
Delivery of Reading Instruction Riverdeep Interactive Learning this spring unveiled Destination Reading, a comprehensive electronically based reading curriculum that is the language arts complement of its well-known Destination Math series. Destination Reading K-3, aligned with state and national curricula standards and benchmarks, takes students from key emergent literacy concepts through phonemic awareness, phonics, decoding, and comprehension skills. Intended as a full-courseware product, the reading program aims to teach language skills in the context of real language use. Very rich in multimedia and built to run on multi-platforms, it contains more than 500 activities, so that students can interact with a new activity each day throughout the school year. It can also integrate with a district's in-place curriculum. The reading and writing skill development is sequenced, so that each new skill builds on prior learning. Pierson notes that the K-3 program was developed not only on the latest content and methodology reading, but "truly in response to school districts" and in recognition that a lot of students do not come to school prepared to read. It contains an entire unit devoted to emergent literacy. "(Destination Reading) really introduces the concept of reading to students," says Gail Elizabeth Pierson, president of product development and operations at Riverdeep. "It introduces a large variety of texts and types of texts that enable students to understand that they are reading. Using everything from jump-rope rhymes to literally cereal box text, it introduces students to the fact that reading is everywhere." The program includes screening, diagnostics, classroom-based, real-time instructional assessments, and customized prescriptive assignments. Destination is available in a Web-based version, in CD, or on a LAN. Many districts are migrating to a hybrid, intranet version. "We are finding that many districts want to run it from their districts but have it available widely," Pierson says. Riverdeep's Destination Reading is an example of companies that were developing new Web-based and software products for early reading before the Bush administration took office, but now see an ever more fertile environment for their products with the No Child Left Behind Act enacted last year. The program meets provisions of the NCLB in several ways, the company says, including:
Destination Reading can be purchased on a subscription-per-student basis, or as some districts are choosing to do, though licenses to a site-based intranet. Purchase includes initial on-site technical support and professional development, ongoing telephone support, and comprehensive teacher's guides, including blackline masters for every print activity. Waterford Early Reading Program The
Waterford Early Reading Program is a comprehensive early reading
curriculum that combines computerized reading instruction with traditional
materials for children and teachers. The program uses the latest
multimedia technology, features animated characters, and contains
some 225 hours of individualized instruction. Developed by the Waterford
Institute, a Salt Lake City-based nonprofit organization that specializes
in the development of educational software, the system is organized
into three reading levels: emergent, beginning, and fluent readers.
Its computer-assisted instruction provides the ability to assess
students individually and to create individual lessons based on
those assessments. Electronic Education, a Pearson Education company,
distributes it nationally. WERP, as it is known, is used in more
than 4,200 schools nationwide, and the California Department of
Education has adopted the Waterford system as a language-arts program,
according to the company Web site. The Scientific Learning language and early reading systems are comprised of intensive 4-8 week programs in which students, wearing headphones, perform a series of game-like computer exercises that feature animated characters and sounds. Scientific Learning may offer a sense of where the technologies of language and early reading are increasingly headed. The firm has developed a family of products called Fast ForWord that are based on 25 years of neuroscience research about the ability of the brain to learn, change, and reprogram itself over a lifetime. The Scientific Learning modules for early reading and language include the following:
Frank Mattson, president and COO of Scientific Learning, explains that Scientific Learning aims to help students become more fully prepared to learn literacy and reading. The company's programs include the training systems, a program tracker that allows teachers and schools to track every individual child through every individual day, a professional development tutorial, and online courses that teach how the brain works. The company offers professional development in regional seminars or in schools. As Mattson notes, "we have a Chinese menu of products and services" from which schools and school districts can choose. More often than not, he says, school will purchase a large number of programs. For $30,000, a school can have access to all of Scientific Learning's programs and backup services. The company's core products "line up massively well" with what is coming out of the No Child Left Behind Act, Mattson says. Specifically, Scientific Learning positions itself as linked very strongly with the No Child Left Behind Act in several ways:
Eighty-seven percent of the company's sales come from districts that were already customers, e.g., expanding the company's programs from a couple of schools to a district-wide effort, according to Mattson. The Killeen, Texas, Independent School District announced in May that it is expanding the use of Fast ForWord learning and reading programs from two to all 26 of its elementary schools, based largely on students' improvement by nearly a grade level in schools where it had been used. Soliloquy Learning, a new Silicon Valley-based company K-12 company, this spring introduced its Soliloquy Reading Assistant, which uses speech-recognition software to give immediate feedback to students as they read. The firm's proprietary speech recognition technology analyzes spoken voices and provides responses that build comprehension and fluency. The product is geared to grades 2-5. It was being piloted this spring in some Florida schools.
PADDOCK
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Through a program initiated via the school's collaborative partner, the University of Michigan, Paddock Elementary is participating in a pilot project with Wireless Generation, a New York-based educational technology company, to use mobile reading assessment application. This pioneering application allows teachers to use Palm handheld devices in the classroom to diagnose, track, and report real-time reading performance for students in grades 1-4. "The biggest advantage is the immediate results. It's the access to scores and having them immediately," says Loyd, who has been principal of Paddock Elementary School since 1997. He was assistant principal and reading consultant from 1988-1996. Paddock Elementary is an 800-student elementary school in Milan, a town in southern Michigan. In 1998-99, the school undertook a five-year School Improvement Plan in which a key school-wide academic goal is to have students improve comprehension of informational text. Toward that end, the school has been conducting a Quality Reading Inventory to assess and monitor student progress, Loyd explains. Through the University of Michigan, the connection was made with Wireless Generation, and the possibility arose of developing a version of the QRI that could be run on the Palm. Earlier this year, the school agreed to participate in the pilot project with Wireless Generation, according to Loyd. Now, Paddock Elementary teachers are conducting the assessments using the QRI on the Palm devices - and the entire assessment has gone from paper to electronic form. The QRI's measurements include the following:
Paddock Elementary's and Loyd's experiences show some of the immediate impacts such leading-edge technology can have as well as lessons for schools embarking on projects to use technology in new ways for early reading. Whereas, his school would have at least a 2-3 week turnaround to get assessment results, teachers and administrators can see them instantly, Loyd says. In his view, the way that Wireless Generation has programmed and designed the QRI on the handheld devices is "phenomenal." The data is presented in a "user-friendly way," in which teachers can click and in an instant see the record of a child's miscues, self-corrections, and other reading-performance measures. For administrators and teachers, it also allows one to "get the big picture" of how students are performing over time, Loyd notes. The immediate results are being used to adapt and customize lessons for students in reading instruction, which, in Loyd's view, is providing a very powerful plus in the whole equation. How did teachers respond to the introduction of the new technology? Teachers' reactions have spanned the spectrum from "incredible excitement to really apprehensive," according to Loyd. Building in substantial training for teachers on both the use of the Palm and of the QRI was important. In all, the school and Wireless Generation had to train 33 teachers in using the computerized reading assessments on the Palm. The school structured the training so that two teachers at each grade level, from 1-4, were trained first and served as sort of technology mentors in showing the others. There has been 30 hours of staff development time in training teachers to use the QRI. Wireless Generation is paying one of Paddock Elementary teachers extra to serve as a technology liaison. The assessment program is part of a much larger campaign to improve reading and literacy at Paddock Elementary School. Loyd is overseeing an important collaborative partnership with the University of Michigan, in which a three-year evaluation project is being done to compare the QRI, Michigan Literacy Progress Profile (MLPP), and the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP). It will conclude in 2003. Perhaps one of the greatest benefits at Paddock Elementary of the Wireless Generation pilot project thus far, as Loyd sees it, is one that can't be shown in numbers, but is substantial nonetheless. "I have never seen teachers respond with such enthusiasm to an assessment," he says. Citing what he calls rampant "assessment abuse" that has developed in education, Loyd says that the response by teachers to this pilot project differs. "Here teachers are directly involved, and they are the ones doing it," he explains. "When they see growth, they get very excited." Measurement of the program's real long-term impact will have to await reports after more months of use and into the next school year. The school plans to use the Wireless Generation reading application this fall and next spring. Then, the district will decide whether to continue using the software. Loyd is convinced after seeing the initial impact firsthand of its promise. He would like to see more assessment types developed for the Palm. "I see this potential to capture from test data for the classroom," he says. "I think that this is a field that is vastly untapped." E-mail:
loyd@milan.k12.mi.us
ANN BOYLE As a top leader of the Scottsdale, Arizona school system, Ann Boyle devotes her considerable energy to the integration of curriculum and technology and the development of curriculum according to national and state standards. Boyle, the assistant superintendent for curriculum, instruction, assessment, and technology, has been in education for 32 years. Prior to coming to Scottsdale a year ago, she served in administrative positions for some 18 years. She has presented at the national conventions of the International Reading Association. SuperTECH NEWS asked Boyle for her insights on the new-generation, developing technology solutions for early reading education. STN:
What is the difference between current basal readers and the new
technology-based applications? With technology, we have the ability for a child to read and have a response. Through speech-recognition software, we will be able to analyze a child's ability to enunciate, to decode, and to perform other skills. The computer will be able to detect what (a child) is saying and correct his miscues. The next thing is by manipulating a keyboard, a child can drill down into a program that will be connected to skills and process, and so it can individualize a child's learning, by assessing, diagnosing, and prescribing that child's learning. That becomes a truly personal portfolio of performance, and this can be done by a machine.
I see (Web-based solutions) as the next textbook of the future. (The Web) is a teacher's resource package, though it isn't filled with blackline masters, lesson plans, and reproducibles….The key to it is for the vendor who can package it like that for teachers utilizing it on the Web. STN:
In what areas of reading do you see the technology-based solutions
having an impact? What are they going to do compared with what textbooks
can do? If you look at the Web as a road map, you can take any variety of routes to get to your destination. Some kids are whole-language learners. Whole language works for them, so you can send them off on that whole approach. But other kids have to be led through their learning of reading with a variety of approaches, like prompts and anticipatory word replacement, and the Web gives you the ability to have that done with different learners. Also, the ability to produce the visual connection between the letter and a picture is so easily accelerated on the computer, and so difficult and laborious using paper. The other thing is that any kind of instructional resource that a teacher has in a classroom, like flash cards, puzzles, and maps, all take up space. On a computer, it's all there. It's going to affect our ability to use space differently. STN:
What in the current teaching of reading is valuable and should be
maintained…in other words, what can't technology do? STN:
How do you see the technologies for early reading impacting the
work of teachers?
It's like, "Can I learn to drive by sitting at a simulator?" Well, yes, if you sit at the simulator and drive long enough, you can learn to drive. STN:
Are teachers going to welcome or resist such technologies? They will want technology to help them assess each child individually. They will want a way to help them organize their lessons, so they can personalize a child's progress. They will want less paperwork. So the repetitive acts of teaching, such as the constant reminders about time on task or similar constant limiting distractions, technology can take care of those for us, so long as every child has access to the technology. STN:
What do these new reading applications have to do with addressing
the No Child Left Behind Act? E-mail:
aboyle@susd.org
Below is an annotated list of technology-related education conferences (complete with links) that you may wish to attend in the next few months. NECC
2002 U.S.
Department of Education's Satellite Town Meeting 3rd
Annual Conference Teaching OntheNet 2002 ED-MEDIA
2002 Collaborate
Conference & Expo East: "Improving the Way the World Works" American
School Counselors Association's Annual Conference: "One Vision
- One Voice" Education
Technology 2002 4th Conference and Exposition
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in future newsletters. Let us know if there are good practices and
people we should write about... Call us if you want to know more
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eliot@blegroup.com BLE
GROUP
SUPERTECH
NEWS © 2003 BLE GROUP. All rights Reserved. Do not copy or
reproduce without written permission. |
This
is the third SuperTECH NEWS
newsletter and our focus is on Web-based applications for early
reading. In keeping with our aim of giving you interesting information
that is useful on Monday morning, I will try to heed my own advice
and provide a concise introduction: 
As
Milan, Michigan's Paddock Elementary School closes in on the last
two years of a five-year school improvement plan, Principal William
Loyd has found the newest technology tools are giving his school's
improvement efforts a major boost. Specifically, it has come this
spring from an ambitious new program to measure reading performance
in real time.
