Issue link: http://osercommunicationsgroup.uberflip.com/i/455140
E d Te c h S h o w D a i l y 3 3 F r i d a y, F e b r u a r y 6 , 2 0 1 5 its students, parents and – especially – teachers. Browser plug-ins required by the county's previous system restricted teachers to using the system only in cer- tain places on certain devices on certain platforms. Sixty-Day Rollout Edsby was installed and adopted surpris- ingly quickly at Hillsborough, given that the platform connects hundreds of thou- sands of students and parents and man- ages more than 50,000 classes in the dis- trict every academic quarter. The county had the system set up and ready to go in 60 days. The secret: Edsby's two-way integration with the district's custom student information sys- tem (SIS), the key legacy application used to manage student and class data in the district. Even though Hillsborough's SIS was custom-built, a flexible Edsby structure for integrating with customer systems allowed Edsby to be ready quickly. And that integration is how, a year later, Edsby is able to serve as one of the district's most critical systems, yet without a single full time administrator. "We had Edsby connected to the SIS and up and in use across the whole board in under two months," said Steven Asbury, Chief Technical Officer at Edsby. "We didn't open up to parent registrations until halfway through the first quarter of Edsby (Cont'd. from p. 1) school, but soon afterwards, Hillsborough had about 60,000 parents accounts." Wide Use by Students, Teachers and Parents Every week, some 70,000 to 80,000 stu- dents, teachers and parents log into Hillsborough's Edsby system. About half of them use a web browser. The other half use an Edsby mobile app for iOS or Android. The district has seen an incredible increase in online student participation. Usage statistics show students constantly on Edsby from their phones, iPods and tablets through the day. Edsby manages a massive amount of academic results data entered by teachers at Hillsborough. "We have 25 million Hillsborough student assessments in the system," said Asbury. "We process something like a half-million changes per day for Hillsborough in just the Edsby grade- book alone. That's not including student or parent account information changes, classes being added, comments in classes or anything else." In its first year of use, more than 800,000 student report cards were gener- ated using Edsby, with about half printed right from Edsby on the district's tem- plate, and the other half transmitted to the district IT department for centralized printing. For more information, visit edsby.com. optimize the flow of students throughout the building, reduce tardiness and improve efficiencies with bus schedules. Our system can even control other areas of a facility, such as lighting, HVAC/cooling and door locks. This removes the need for manual activation of systems at exact times, which saves a huge amount of time, personnel and ener- gy costs. ESD: What is your role? AP: I am the sales director for the south central region. I live and work in beauti- ful Austin, Texas and oversee all of the sales within my multi-state region. ESD: What are some of your biggest markets? AP: We have been serving the K-12 industry for more than 30 years, and they continue to be a strong part of our busi- ness. We are also growing quickly in the higher education market, healthcare and manufacturing. ESD: What was the most significant trend or event to affect American Time in the last year? AP: This year, we launched our newest offering that has proven to be extremely popular: Wi-Fi clocks. These clocks don't require a system controller or any extra infrastructure that a wired or wire- less timekeeping system needs. Instead, the clocks arrive preconfigured to a school's Wi-Fi network. They are literal- American Time (Cont'd. from p. 1) ly plug-and-play. They have a five-year battery life, update automatically for day- light saving time, and have staggered wake times so the impact on the network is unnoticeable. We are really excited about the Wi- Fi clocks because they open up the bene- fits of synchronized time to schools that require clocks to show the same, precise time but may not have the budget for investing in the infrastructure needed for a more comprehensive system. We've seen huge demand and lots of excitement around this technology! ESD: Discuss the position of your prod- ucts and technology compared to the cur- rent market. AP: American Time's SiteSync IQ offers a timekeeping solution that can run both a pre-existing wired system and a new wireless clock system. It can also inte- grate with other areas of a facility and control when they turn on and off, such as security, lighting and door locks. We are extremely proud that our innovative products are American-made, and that we provide quality jobs here in the U.S. ESD: Anything else you want readers to know? AP: I would love to meet them in person! Anyone can stop by booth #306 and receive a gift card for coffee when they mention this article! For more information, visit www.atsclock.com, call 800.328.8996, email theclockexperts@atsclock.com or stop by booth #306. dashboards present information in a sin- gle place. Dynamic visualizations enable you to explore your students, turning individual "pixels" of data into a holistic image of student performance. Scantron Analytics can even travel in time. Because you can bring in all the years of accumulated test scores and other data that you have, Scantron Analytics supplies a longitudinal view you can use to move back and forth in time to track student improvement. Scantron Analytics does all the work for you. Click to drill into deeper detail, see additional relationships or discover entirely new connections you've never Scantron (Cont'd. from p. 4) seen before. All you have to do is ask the question, and Scantron Analytics pro- vides the answer, right at your fingertips, using graphs, charts and other visual tools you can share with teachers, parents and students. Good decisions depend on good data, gathered into a compelling story that makes it easy to determine your next steps. Scantron Analytics helps you tell that powerful story and make the best instructional decisions that help students succeed. For more information, visit www.scan tron.com, call 858.349.9488, email bonni.graham@scantron.com or stop by booth #1739. Pay program to non-profit clients to help them raise money without having to sell products. Organizations that choose to partici- pate in the Booster Pay marketing pro- gram receive donations to their school, club, district or organization equal to a percentage of the profits on the business they refer to ACCPC via the Booster Pay program. The businesses they refer save money on their payment processing. It doesn't cost them anything to switch, and the referring organization receives dona- ACCPC (Cont'd. from p. 4) tions ongoing throughout the year for their efforts. It is truly a win/win for all parties involved and there is no product to sell (no candy to sell, no wrapping paper to sell, no cookie dough to sell, no discount cards to sell). Ready to start accepting cashless payments? Ready to increase your dona- tions? For more information, visit www.sports pay.net or www.ACCPC.com, call 817 .798.1425 or email TonyD@sportspay.net or tony.debruno.accpc@hotmail.com. Learn more at booth #2026. Successful 1:1 technology implementa- tions need a practical understanding of the local learning environment in order to avoid technology being a distraction and delivering on real instructional priorities in the classroom. ESD: Does the choice of hardware matter? KL: My first reaction to this question is to say "no." A tablet is a tablet regardless of manufacturer or brand name. Of course, schools must consider both the cost of ownership and the "return" on their investment. I would never recom- mend "cheap" but I would encourage schools to consider price and value in a broader mix of values they seek while designing their approaches to 1:1. ESD: What are the main considerations for a smooth and successful 1:1 imple- mentation? KL: Without consideration of these four considerations, schools are likely to experience difficulties with the roll out of the technology. 1. Ensure the technology provides classroom control. Introducing tablets into any classroom results in a dramatic change for a classroom teacher's way of interacting with students. I can't stress enough the importance of an inclusive classroom management system to sup- port this powerful teaching dynamic. The inability to monitor activity or check for understanding in real-time is a challenge for most device arrangements, and can leave teachers feeling at a loss for con- trol. Ensuring that any 1:1 includes effec- LearnPad (Cont'd. from p. 1) tive management by incorporating a classroom management tool from the onset is imperative for a successful roll out of tablets. 2. Will this technology help differen- tiate instruction? Managing content on multiple devices to achieve personalized instruction is a complex task, especially in large classes. Schools using tablet technology should consider a system such as LearnPad Connect, which comes with our tablets. The ability to individu- ally target materials and pace of instruc- tion becomes possible with this tool. We strive to create utilities that support instruction rather than offering technolo- gy for technology's sake. 3. Curriculum-aligned learning con- tent. The content offered on some devices can often be described as "edutainment" rather than curriculum-aligned resources. The supplier of your chosen device should be working with familiar educa- tional publishers to provide high-quality content. A proper 1:1 offers well thought out tools for device, instruction and con- tent management. 4. Available training, support and professional services. The final consider- ation for a successful tablet implementa- tion in schools, and ultimately the most important, is the quality of training and support. Our measure of success is how positively we impact learning outcomes. Students come and go each year, as do teachers. The ability to remain dedicated to ongoing services is essential in some- thing as complex as 1:1. For more information, visit www.learn pad.com, call 800.624.2926 or email sales@learnpad.com.