Buyers Beware

Post By Gregory A. Firn, Ed.D
Deputy Superintendent of Academics
Grand Prairie Independent School District
Grand Prairie, TX

I have yet to experience a day that I don’t receive an email, text, Linkedin, Facebook, or other social media “hit” with answers, solutions, resources, or others related to Common Core.

Enough already!

Akin to the advent of No Child Left Behind, the K12 space is inundated with marketing to lure those who believe that finally there is an “answer” to failed learning as well as the failure to learn. As was the case then as is the case now, there simply is not a quick or easy answer to the difficult and challenging work of educating each student to high standards.

So what’s the deal?

Having recently left North Carolina, where I served as Superintendent for over five years, and a state that moved “all in” with respect to implementation of Core, to Texas that has its own version of new, more demanding, challenging, and yes, “rigorous” standards, the challenges are similar.

My experience in North Carolina in preparation of the Core was steeped in preparing staff for instructional transformation, not so much learning about new standards. Herein lies a fundamental understanding about the new standards. That is, from my perspective, the essence or new standards is all about instruction.

What the Core is not, and can not be about, is rushing out to make purchases on additional curriculum that are advertised to achieve the Core or any subsets of the new standards. Schools and school systems are actually positioned to use, or in this case, reuse or repurpose existing resources (instructional materials including textbooks) with Core.

Huh?

The charge, our charge, first and foremost is about mastery of essential skills. No longer is proficiency the standard. Our students, yours and mine, will never achieve the “best hopes” of Core if proficiency is allowed to continue as the goal. Therefore, the greatest challenge is, as stated before, mastery of the essential skills. The Core expects and requires students to apply skills, knowledge, and experiences to explore, enhance, create, and produce at a higher, more robust level. To do so necessitates a transformation of instruction. It also requires rethinking and therefore utilizing technology-based supplemental instructional programming.

One of the tools we implemented to assist with instructional capacity and transformation was Kurzweil 3000-firefly .  If you are unfamiliar with Kurzweil 3000-firefly – take a look. It is one of the most powerful tools available to achieve mastery of essential skills and beyond. The product’s unique technology allows teachers to use existing text to drive enduring skill development in literacy across content and subject areas. The writing and note taking capabilities are equally impressive and with great import and utility. Lastly, from my perspective, Kurzweil 3000-firefly is not only affordable but is without competition in all manner of functionality and performance – you just have to experience it.

So, buyers beware of companies, products, and services promising to align with “Core” or will provide solutions for Core alignment, etc. Kurzweil 3000-firefly will not make that claim – they don’t have to. Rather, Kurzweil has been and will continue to be a tool to assist with mastery. Isn’t that what we want for each learner?

Join our free webinar  on May 22 at 1:00 PM ET to talk with Dr. Greg Firn, former superintendent of Anson County Schools in North Carolina about implementing the CCSS.

Data, Schmata – Why do we need reporting in Kurzweil 3000-firefly?

Over the course of the past two months, reporting features to measure student logins and files opened have been added to Kurzweil 3000-firefly. These are very important additions to a product suite that already does so much to help students succeed academically. You may find yourself asking, “More data? Don’t we have enough already?” Allow me to provide three reasons why combining the information contained in this new feature with what you have already been collecting will be integral to your students’ success. Are they using the tools? First, and arguably most important, you will have first-hand knowledge that the tools you’ve provided to support your students are being accessed and used. This is a critical indicator to determining the effect that use of Kurzweil 3000-firefly is having on your students’ performance. This applies equally to K-12 and institutions of higher education. It will now become immediately and clearly evident when a student for whom you have identified Kurzweil 3000-firefly as a necessary component to educational success is not using the program. Early identification equals early intervention, which ultimately means the most precious resource available to each of us is not lost – time. If we can intercept the non-user and coach them almost instantly, there is a much greater chance we can avoid failure and retain students to increase graduation rates.

firefly usage dashboard

Informed decision-making process The second reason reporting is so important is likely one you already know. Data is an integral, objective part of any decision-making process. From understanding that a student has not used Kurzweil 3000-firefly to read a required text to comparing the product’s usage with other academic performance indicators as part of an ongoing improvement process – data is vital to addressing immediate educational needs, determining next steps, and measuring success. Consider the “School Improvement Cycle”: Without data, how can we effectively plan what to do or know how to act from what we have studied? Simply put, data is fundamental to everything we do to educate students at every level. Kurzweil 3000-firefly now delivers on this fundamental need we all share.

 

Accountability  Finally, there is accountability. Very few of us are lucky enough to hold a position where we don’t have to answer for our actions or decisions. With Kurzweil 3000-firefly reporting you now have a valuable tool to ensure that:

• Students are making use of the supports you’ve provided them
• Informed decisions are made relative to instruction or program delivery
• Your investment is yielding the positive results that are not only desired, but required

If you haven’t already done so, you are encouraged to login to Kurzweil 3000-firefly to explore the new reporting features, attend a free webinar on May 29 at 12:00 PM ET,  contact your local representative to learn more, or share your feedback on how we can continue to develop the reporting functionality to meet your needs. Roger Steinberg Director – Product Development & Implementation

Accessing Digital Content is Easier than You Thought!

Accessing Digital Text on Bookshare with Kurzweil 3000

“Where do I get content for my students?” This is a question we get asked a lot when we’re speaking with customers who use Kurzweil 3000-firefly.

While you can scan in any document of your choice, there are also many resources for educators and students to download digital content directly into Kurzweil 3000-firefly. We want to make sure that you are aware of these resources. Two well-known sources for digital books are Bookshare and AccessText.

Bookshare is a vast resource containing over 190,000 titles. Their collection includes K-12 textbooks, college and university textbooks, classroom reading books, and special collections such as Newberry and Caldecott winners. Bookshare is underwritten by a grant from the Office of Special Education Programs to allow free access to the Bookshare library for qualified students and schools.

AccessText is a service that connects college and university disability service offices with textbook publishers to help the schools obtain the textbooks in digital format. These electronic textbooks are made available to higher education students who have print disabilities.

We recently held webinars with both organizations and demonstrated how Kurzweil 3000-firefly seamlessly works with each service. Kurzweil Educational Systems and Bookshare have worked together to integrate Bookshare functionality into Kurzweil 3000 using Bookshare’s application program interface. Files supplied by AccessText can be easily opened, either as PDF or Word documents, within Kurzweil 3000. Once in Kurzweil 3000, students can use the full suite of Kurzweil 3000’s reading, writing, studying,  and test-taking tools with these digital files.

We hope you take advantage of these easily accessible resources to make digital content  available to your students. You can learn more by listening to each webinar:

Kurzweil 3000 & Bookshare: The Dynamic Duo!

Get Your Students Connected with AccessText and Kurzweil 3000-firefly

Straight from the Students’ Mouths

Rarely do we get the chance to give students the opportunity to directly tell our customers how they use Kurzweil 3000-firefly.  But we recently hosted a webinar with two college students, Mario Ball and Brian Leslie, who explained to our audience what it was like to struggle with reading before they began using Kurzweil 3000-firefly.

Mario relied on tutors and books on tape to read books. Brian also used books on tape or CD to keep up with his studies. During the webinar, they both explained that while tutors and books on tape got the job done, there were many limitations. For instance, Mario had to work around his tutors’ schedule and he wasn’t able to highlight or extract text from his books on tape. Brian didn’t like to read because it took a lot of time to find the location of where to begin reading on the tapes and CDs, making reading frustrating.

When Brian and Mario talked about their lives after Kurzweil 3000, they became very enthusiastic. Suddenly, everything changed! Mario found independence and didn’t have to rely on tutors. Not only was he able to read his textbooks on his own terms, but Kurzweil 3000 gave him the opportunity to read whatever he was interested in, not just school work, opening up a whole new world for him. Brian found that Kurzweil 3000 allowed him to finish his assignments faster, saving him precious time while in college.

The proof that Kurzweil 3000-firefly helped Brian and Mario? Brian’s GPA is 3.8, putting him well on his way to graduating from Worcester Polytechnic Institute with a degree in electrical and computer engineering with a minor in computer science. Mario, whose grades were Cs and Ds when he relied on tutors, got A’s and Bs, graduating from Landmark College with an Associate’s in general studies. Mario continues to use Kurzweil 3000-firefly in the workplace.

It is always gratifying for us to hear how much our products help students overcome their learning disabilities and reach their full potential. Has Kurzweil 3000-firefly impacted your life? Share your story with us in the comments!

If you missed Brian and Mario’s webinar, you can listen here.

Don’t miss out… Here’s the deal. Buy Classroom Suite. Receive Primary Skills Builders.

You showed great interest in using Classroom Suite and Primary Skills Builders to prepare your students for the alternate assessment. Thank you for responding to our emails and joining our webinars . We thought we would sweeten this opportunity and offer you Primary Skills Builder free of charge when you purchase Classroom Suite !

We know it’s a challenge to differentiate instruction and provide access to curriculum for your students with low and high incidence disabilities. Templates in Classroom Suite allow you to easily create activities that are aligned with curriculum and with individual students’ unique learning needs.

Classroom Suite’s add-on product, Primary Skills Builders includes 12 customizable templates to create even more curriculum-aligned learning and accessible activities. With Classroom Suite and Primary Skills Builders you can:

• Design practice activities to prepare your students for the alternate assessment
• Create engaging and instructionally sound materials for your students, especially those with moderate to severe disabilities
• Use thousands of pre-made activities on Classroom Suite Activity Exchange
• Access to Unique activities that have been created in Primary Skills Builders for Unique Learning Systems subscribers

Take advantage of this offer – for every copy of Classroom Suite you buy, get Primary Skills Builders free – a $75 savings! Contact Sales  before June 30, 2013, when this special offer expires.

Did you know that Reading A-Z delivers 1,100+ leveled readers as Kurzweil 3000®–firefly files?

If your students use Kurzweil 3000-firefly AND you are currently a subscriber to Reading A-Z, we want to make sure you know that over 1,100+ titles are available for free download from Reading A-Z. Simply go here to download the .kes files at no additional cost!

Learning A-Z, which provides educational resources that specialize in online delivery of leveled readers and supplementary curriculum, is a sister company of Kurzweil Educational Systems^®. Learning A-Z’s flagship website, Reading A-Z, is used in half of the districts in the US/Canada and 155+ countries worldwide. In an independent report published January 2012, Reading A-Z was ranked #1 teacher resource website by 18,000 teachers!

Kurzweil Educational Systems and Learning A-Z have collaborated to provide you with easy access to Reading A-Z leveled books.  Students can use Kurzweil 3000-firefly, to read hundreds of books spanning 27 levels of reading difficulty. Students have the option of listening to or reading the books. With adjustable reading speed and voices as well as writing and study skills supports, Kurzweil 3000-firefly can accommodate the learner’s needs.

If you are not a Reading A-Z customer, you can sign up here for a free Reading A-Z 7-day trial.

Smartxt Helps Students with a Learning Disability Succeed in College

Attending college can be a challenge for most students. But for students with a learning disability, that challenge becomes magnified. We recently talked with Stacey Kayden from Laney College in Oakland, California who recognized a need to assist their struggling students and turn them into graduates who are prepared to enter the workforce.

According to Stacey, who was hired by Laney College to develop programs for disabled students, “Seventy percent of first-year community college students are in need of remedial education in English . . . in order to be prepared for college-level courses.” Stacey told us that to prepare students for their future, she believes educational institutions must use technology. She focused on finding the right technology to engage students and help them with their learning issues, mainly with their inability to comprehend printed text. She chose Kurzweil 3000-firefly as the key technology tool for what was to become the Smartxt Program.

The Smartxt Program is based on three components:

• Technology (Kurzweil 3000-firefly)
• The integration of multi-sensory input from instructors
• Student mentors

First, textbooks are digitized and uploaded into the Kurzweil 3000-firefly online Universal Library. Then, using the multi-sensory tools in Kurzweil 3000, instructors annotate the textbooks with reading and study strategies for their students. Student mentors help the new students with everything from study strategies to how to use the tools in Kurzweil 3000-firefly for reading, writing, and study skills. For students with learning disabilities, this three-pronged approach has been highly effective, so effective, in fact, that the Smartxt Program has spread to 23 schools! Smartxt reports that students supported by Disability Support Programs at colleges using this program have been more successful.

Kurzweil 3000-firefly provided Stacey’s group with the best tool to provide the reading, writing and study skills supports necessary to help their students with learning disabilities succeed in higher education.

To learn more about the Smartxt Program,  listen to Renita Pitts  as she explains what Kurzweil 3000-firefly and the Smartxt Program have done for her.

Or sign up for one (or all) of our free webinars to hear how Kurzweil 3000-firefly is used in higher education. We look forward to your participation!

• Hear it From the Students: How We Use Kurzweil 3000-firefly to Succeed in College Tuesday, April 9, 2013 2:00 PM ET
• Using Kurzweil 3000-firefly in Higher Education Thursday, April 11, 2013 2:00 PM ET
• Get Your Students Connected with AccessText and Kurzweil 3000-firefly  Wednesday, April 17, 2013 3:00 PM ET
• Kurzweil 3000-firefly & Bookshare: The Dynamic Duo!
  Tuesday, April 30, 2013 3:00 PM ET