-Mini Swamy, TMCnet 

A government grant assigned for the purpose of Enhancing Education through Technology, commonly referred to as EETT, is to be implemented shortly into Stanislaus Union’s elementary schools, giving them the opportunity to learn from an online learning program. This is intended to benefit an entire school district.

Initially, Stanislaus Union School District had used school funding to fund Vantage Learning’s MY Access. However, following extensive budget cuts, the district was no longer able to sustain its finances.

District administrators, on seeing the academic improvements the students made with the Vantage program, understood that it had become crucial to the district’s curriculum. For the third year in a row, Stanislaus Union School District received the EETT grant to sustain technology in their classrooms.

Tom Freeman, Principal of Prescott Senior Elementary School, had first come across MY Access when he attended a Middle School Partnership meeting in which one school was already using the program, and was immensely impressed by what it could do.

MY Access, a powerful tool that instantly analyzed and scored students in areas such as focus, meaning, organization, content, development, language use and style, mechanics, conventions, and overall writing proficiency, seemed the answer to the problems that teachers faced.

For Tom Freeman, it seemed like the perfect tool to help students spend more time practicing their writing and in return increase their scores on state writing exams, thus building academic confidence.

Teachers in all five of Stanislaus Union elementary schools who had used MY Access knew that the program helped pinpoint problem areas, giving students the inspiration and motivation needed to develop their writing, from simple sentences to full essays. It also helped to build the critical thinking and communication skills, crucial for success in higher education.

Principal Freeman said that each teacher had to assess, monitor, and score around 180 students a day. The enormity of the task and the amount of grading involved deterred teachers from assigning formal writing projects. With the advent of MY Access, everything changed and the number of submissions increased dramatically.

MY Access has become a sought-after instructional tool that students enjoy using. Given its success, teachers in Stanislaus Union School District are contemplating expanding MY Access! licenses to 5th and 6th graders in the district’s five elementary schools.

Through the EETT grant, Stanislaus has been able to obtain many more licenses for the program. Gaining measurable results of academic achievement through an online program is one step Stanislaus has taken towards further integrating 21st century learning technology.

Vantage Learning is a pioneer in providing Software as a Service model to deliver solutions to educators. It provides cost-effective, high volume, secure, scalable online assessment and instructional programs for K-12 school districts. Vantage provides educators with high-quality tools and resources that motivate students to learn and that create meaningful interaction between students, parents and teachers.

In a related news release, Vantage Learning, the world’s leading provider of online writing assessment tools and instructional writing solutions, has announced that MY Access, used by more than 1.5 million students worldwide, is now available to students via their wireless NEO 2 Laptops, provided by Renaissance Learning.

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