Press Release - May 3, 2004
Vantage Learning Partners with Southern California Schools To Help Improve Student Writing
Vantage Learning's MY Access! to be used to develop effective writing skills for 33,000 students
Reno, NV, May 3, 2004 - Vantage Learning (www.vantagelearning.com) today announced their participation in an $11 million Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) grant program awarded to the SouthEast Educational Technology Consortium (SEETC), representing 8 Los Angeles County school districts serving a combined population of about 135,000 students. The announcement was made from the floor of the International Reading Association conference being held here in Reno, NV.Part of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, SEETC's winning EETT grant proposal will focus on improving the writing skills of 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students. Using a combination of tools, including Vantage Learning's award-winning MY Access! writing program, 33,000 middle school students will have expanded use and access to powerful writing tools to improve student achievement.
"We're delighted to participate with the winning team of SEETC, Tech Ed Services, Inc., Apple Computer, Pepperdine University, and the Los Angeles County Office of Education California Technology Assistance Project (CTAP Region 11)," said Harry Barfoot, Vice President of Vantage Learning. "We are committed to working closely with the other partners to foster a 21st century learning environment for these students and teachers, help them increase the frequency of writing, and demonstrate growth in writing skills using 21st century tools and technologies."
As a core component to the overall grant solution, Vantage Learning's MY Access! is a web-based writing environment that rapidly scores essays with accuracy and consistency greater than human expert scorers and provides immediate diagnostic feedback to engage students and motivate them to write more and improve their composition skills. The latest version includes customization features that allow teachers to align assessment with their individual state rubrics, add their own writing prompts, and tailor the teaching and learning environments to the specific needs of their students. Administrators can view student writing in a new graphic reporting engine, identifying specific weak and strong skills, by domain. The highly prescriptive feedback and support used to develop student writing skills are cornerstones in achieving adequate yearly progress (AYP) in writing.
MY Access! is based on Vantage Learning's IntelliMetric® engine, which uses a rich blend of artificial intelligence (AI) and the digitization of human expertise to accurately assess a student's competency and progress in subjects ranging from reading and writing, to science and social studies. MY Tutor and MY Editor are powerful new components to the latest version of IntelliMetric, and both are incorporated into MY Access!.
In addition, IntelliMetric has been enhanced with adaptive response technology that differentiates the feedback provided to students based upon their writing and their native language. IntelliMetric is capable of scoring essays with feedback in over 20 languages, highly beneficial for English Language Learners (ELL) students. For example, those students whose native language is Spanish and learning to write in English, will be able to receive feedback in their native language to help them better understand their weaknesses and improve their English writing skills.
"Given the culturally and economically diverse communities that this grant will serve, MY Access! offers the promise to enhance the learning for all students," commented Harry Barfoot. "Cross-district best practices can be shared among teachers and administrators, and students will benefit from the cross-cultural and cross-community writing exchanges. We are excited about this opportunity. It is our fundamental belief that we can make a difference in the lives of these students and help them be productive citizens in the future."
About Vantage Learning
Vantage Learning, an affiliate of Vantage Laboratories and the leading provider of online assessment and automated essay scoring, developed IntelliMetric® (http://www.vantagelearning.com) to meet the needs of business, education, and government agencies needing a comprehensive Internet-based test authoring, delivery, scoring and reporting platform. IntelliMetric administers and scores responses to open-ended questions over the Internet using advanced artificial intelligence technology. An individual can enter a response to a question posed, submit the response, and receive an immediate score with feedback within seconds.
Eduventures recently selected Vantage Learning as one of the eight most innovative educational technology companies. MY Access! earned a 2003 District Administration Top 100 Award, was included in Technology and Learning Magazine's Top 10 Smart Technologies for Schools, and is a Codie Awards finalist 2 years in a row. Vantage Learning provides services in all 50 states including Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Virginia, Oregon, and Texas and provides services to educational leaders such as The College Board, ACT, Harcourt Educational Measurement, CTB/McGraw Hill and Thomson Learning, and industry giants such as Microsoft, Apple Computer, AOL, and Sun Microsystems.