Press Release - May 16, 2005
Florida High School Turns to Writing Technology to Help Students Meet Higher State Standards
Robinson High School students pass Florida Writes! test with the help of Vantage Learning's MY Access!™ writing assessment tool
Newtown, PA, May 16, 2005 - Academic success is the order of the day for students at Robinson High School in Hillsborough County, Fla. After using Vantage Learning's MY Access!™ for a mere four weeks, a group of seniors overcame two failures on the statewide Florida Writes! exam and posted passing scores on the high-stakes test.MY Access! is Vantage Learning's award-winning, web-based writing assessment and instructional tool that improves students' writing proficiency. It builds better writers by instantly scoring student essays, and providing immediate remedial instruction that engages and motivates students. To use MY Access!, students simply write an essay based on a teacher's assignment, then submit the essay to the MY Access! system. MY Access! instantly analyzes over 300 semantic, syntactic, and discourse characteristics, and scores students on focus and meaning, organization, content and development, language use and style, mechanics and conventions, and on their overall writing proficiency.
Don Pippin, Reading Lab Manager at Robinson High, selected MY Access! as a state-of-the-art tool that could help the school's 1,200-plus students pass the mandatory Florida Writes! exam. The state-wide test was implemented in 1990 to assess students' writing abilities through an annual timed exam. The test was stiffened last September when the state raised the passing grade from 3 to 3.5 on a 6-point scale. Students must pass the test in their sophomore, junior, or senior year in order to graduate.
Vantage Learning's MY Access! helped a group of Robinson High School seniors quickly overcome their previous failures as sophomores and juniors, and pass the test-clearing the way for their 2005 graduation. Pippin created a MY Access! pilot program comprised of approximately a half-dozen seniors and 80 at-risk sophomores. After just four weeks of using MY Access!, nearly all of the seniors in the pilot program passed the test. The sophomores also had success: the at-risk sophomore's average score was only one-tenth of a point below the school average, which included honors students.
"MY Access! is like having a teacher sitting beside every student," Pippin says. "It watches students work, and instantly gives them educationally accurate, friendly feedback. When they're writing well, the program encourages them with positive reinforcement. When they make a mistake, it catches and corrects the error, and explains why. It's uncanny. MY Access! is simply the most effective online assessment tool I've used in all my years of teaching."
Thanks to its initial success with MY Access!, Robinson High School plans to expand the use of the tool to the rest of the school's sophomores, and is considering providing the software to its freshmen class as well. Indeed, the head of the school district's English department expressed her enthusiasm on seeing the program in action, and gauging its impressive results.
"Don Pippin's goal was to make certain these seniors passed Florida Writes!, despite the state raising the bar," says Harry Barfoot, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Vantage Learning. "We're continually thrilled to see how educators use MY Access! to help students achieve their full potential. Again and again, MY Access! proves its mettle as the most effective tool for improving writing skills across the board."
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.
Most recently, Vantage Learning's MY Access!™ won the 2004 Award of Excellence from Technology and Learning Magazine, and Eduventures selected Vantage Learning as one of the eight most innovative educational technology companies. In addition, MY Access! was included in Technology and Learning Magazine's Top 10 Smart Technologies for Schools in 2002, and is a Codie Awards finalist three years in a row. Vantage Learning provides services in all 50 states including Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Virginia, Oregon, and Texas and provides services to educational leaders such as The College Board, ACT, Harcourt Assessment, Inc., CTB/McGraw Hill and Thomson Learning.