Press Release - August 9, 2004
Vantage Learning Launches MY Access!™ 5.0 With Significant New Enhancements to Help Students Improve Writing Skills
Most powerful writing tool ever offers more than one third more writing prompts, feedback in Chinese, additional instructional support, more targeted feedback for struggling students, expert human scoring services and more
Newtown, PA, August 9, 2004 - Continuing its tradition of developing breakthrough technologies, Vantage Learning (www.vantagelearning.com) today launched the latest version of MY Access!™, the award-winning online writing instructional program. Availability for use by educators has already begun this summer.MY Access! is a web-based writing environment that rapidly scores essays with accuracy greater than expert human scorers, and provides immediate diagnostic feedback to engage students and motivate them to write more and improve their composition skills.
The latest version incorporates significant enhancements, including:
- A 36% increase in operational prompts;
- Model essays so students readily see what a sample essay looks like at various score points;
- Multilingual thesaurus/dictionary/word finder that allows students to receive word definitions and synonyms in English, Spanish, Chinese, and other languages;
- Word count feature;
- Improved prescriptive and targeted feedback in multiple languages; multi-lingual parent letter for better home connection;
- Five new reporting features;
- Developmentally appropriate MY Tutor!™ based upon student writing proficiency level and a writing dashboard to visually illustrate weekly progress.
"This is the most exciting MY Access! version yet," said Harry Barfoot, VP of Sales of Marketing of Vantage Learning. "We've already announced the underlying IntelliMetric® enhancements for scoring accuracy. Now, we've taken further steps to improve the available prompts, bridge automated-scoring with expert humans, offer powerful new developmentally appropriate feedback in multiple languages, and a host of other new capabilities. The feedback we're receiving from educators on the impact MY Access! is having is tremendous."
Educators attest to how MY Access! helps student achievement and improves their writing. "MY Access! was instrumental in helping raise the 7th grade Writing TAKS scores of the struggling student populations at my school by 16 points in only one year," said Kasey Frederick, a teacher at Forest Meadow Junior High School in Richardson, TX. "Our economically disadvantaged students as a group went from 54% passing to 70%. This past school year, all economically disadvantaged groups met the Texas state standard. We're excited about the new capabilities to further help our kids."
Similar gains were seen in a recent Pennsylvania research study conducted by the Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit #21 with member school districts. "Of the 9th graders who were not proficient on the pre-test, 40% improved to proficiency by the end of the short study," according to Scott Kinney, director of Educational Technologies at IU #21.
About the Vantage Learning Platform
The Vantage Learning Platform™ (VLP) is the most widely used online assessment platform in the world. VLP provides test registration, delivery, and reporting services as well as item banking and test creation services. VLP includes the award-winning IntelliMetric open-ended assessment delivery and scoring engine. Vantage's IntelliMetric uses a rich blend of artificial intelligence and the digitization of human expertise to accurately score and assess a student's competency in a range of subjects. Its inherent flexibilities allow schools to consistently evaluate a student's progress and provide immediate feedback on how students can improve their skills.
About Vantage Learning
Vantage Learning (www.vantagelearning.com), an affiliate of Vantage Laboratories and the leading provider of online assessment and automated essay scoring, developed IntelliMetric® 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 (AI) 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.