For schools, being held strictly accountable for student achievement, the adoption of on-line learning is a way to extend learning into the home, effectively lengthening school day into the evenings and weekends. Research shows that a blended model (face-to-face and online) of instruction is proven to increase student achievement and better connect schools and homes. With AUSSIE Digital School Solutions, an Editure Company, and classroom teachers’ support parents can become more active learning partners their children.

The AUSSIE Digital School Solutions consultants serve as Instructional Technology Coaches (ITC). Providing on-site and online support the DSS consultants’ role will be to make sure teachers, administrators, and parent coordinators are comfortable with the technology and to ensure its effective use both in and out of the classroom. DSS will help school staff develop the appropriate skills for digital learning and make it an integral part of their practice by encouraging and supporting technology infused units of study in the classroom and extending instruction through activities that incorporate at-home learning, collaboration and online extensions.

So what might be an educational theme of interest this Fall? Unless you just arrived from Mars, or any country on Earth outside the United States, you know that this nation is now obsessed with the new Common Core State Standards and their elaborate appendices, including Appendix A of the ELA (and “Literacy in History/Social Studies. Science and Technical Subjects”), which begins with a heartfelt dissertation on “text complexity.”

For my part, I have marched head-on into text complexity in two ways. First, I’m on an AUSSIE team doing research on the issue for the NYC Department of Education. Second, I’m watching my 10th grade daughter grapple with it in the trenches of classroom reading.

The two ways actually converge. But first, let’s talk about my daughter’s reading. This summer she was assigned Michael Pollan’s delicious (to me) book The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Where I salivated at the idea of digging into it, she responded to the assignment as if it were a wedge of stinky cheese left out on the counter a few days too long. “Why should I want to read this book? It’s all about corn,” she said.

Beyond the book’s unappetizing topic, the (to her) aimless sentences and impossible vocabulary were formidable. It might as well have had the subtitle Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here. She was fully ready to skip the assignment and face the consequences back at school. Whatever they might be, they surely couldn’t be worse than burning in the fires of this literary inferno.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, she is the daughter of a literacy coach. Failure to read was unacceptable on my watch. She was not only going to comprehend the book. I intended to go for the gold and have her enjoy it.

It was going to be a journey. When you stop and think about it, every reading experience is a kind of journey. Some may be quick sallies to the local junk food restaurant, others are mountain climbing expeditions on Mount Everest, but each has a beginning, middle and end. For my child, I envisioned one beginning in dread, continuing in curiosity, and ending in joyous triumph with Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” for the final soundtrack.

Only fools go on expeditions ill equipped, however. For tools, I chose two variations on the strategy of “quote analysis” that I have found useful for handling difficult texts: the Tarzan Method and the Oyster Knife Method. Don’t bother to look them up (although when I googled them to be sure they weren’t already claimed, I did find the Tarzan Method listed as a strategy for bridge construction – not a bad association with reading, when you think of it). This is their debut in, and perhaps simultaneous exit from, the literature. They both rely on the principal of the “golden line” discussed in earlier posts.

The Tarzan Method was invented by my upstairs neighbor Jeff Schneider, who is a New York City Public High School history teacher. In it, you take a scary text, say the Treaty of Versailles, and you swing along through the incomprehensible foliage until you find a sentence you can understand, and you grab onto it for dear life. You underline it and maybe write a little something that you think about it. Then you swing along to another branch and do the same. You come back to class with your collection of branches, share them with others, and pretty soon, by discussing the various sentences, you build an understanding of the text. You exit courageous, as would anyone who’d just dared so many lions and tigers and bears.

The Oyster Knife Method is similar. Visualize a hard text – The Omnivore’s Dilemma being a perfect example – as an oyster in its crusty, impenetrable shell. Try to read it without a point of entry, and you break your teeth and get sand in your mouth. Not a pleasant way to develop either your reading skills or your content knowledge. You need a way in to get to the sweet stuff. So find the crack in the shell, anything you understand, insert the knife of comprehension and shuck it with your mind: record the sentence you understand, write about it, have a friend write about it, and another friend after that. Here is a graphic organizer I used in a school where a sociology teacher, whose students attended his class because he was entertaining, but failed it because they couldn’t read the texts, found a measure of success:

There are plenty of good reasons for students to comprehend and appreciate every subtle nuance of well-crafted texts. Accused of evading those reasons, I proudly say I’m guilty as charged when it comes to these methods. Before convicting me, though, consider that students are beginning to appreciate a few of the orchids in a lush forest they would otherwise avoid entirely (or, to keep my metaphors consistent, tasting delicacies they would never have savored before). See it as the first step of their life-long reading journey.
What about my safari with my daughter through the forbidding landscape of The Omnivore’s Dilemma? As with last year’s blog posts, I am hewing to Gina’s advice to stay under a thousand words. So please tune in in couple of weeks, and the story will be told. In the meantime, enjoy your literary – and culinary – travels.

Editure Professional Development, which is headquartered in New York, provides a full range of researched-based professional development for teachers and staff, including job-embedded consulting services, online content, professional learning communities (“PLCs”), technology in the classroom and university accredited advancement courses for teachers. Editure Professional Development has over 250 staff and contractors in the United States and has offices in New York, Seattle, Los Angeles and Austin. Editure Professional Development is the United States subsidiary of Editure Limited. Editure Limited is a leading Australian education company that provides professional development and learning management system software to approximately 8,000 schools in six countries around the world.

Alchemy’s Avatar® Professional Development Management System (“Avatar”) enables school districts and other organizations to deliver, manage and track professional learning content, events, resources and participants. School districts and educational service centers across the U.S. rely on Avatar’s unique technology to help automate the scheduling, evaluation and reporting of their staff development activities. Alchemy’s technology solutions are used in over 4,500 schools in the United States.

As partners, Alchemy will work with Editure to continue to deliver dynamic training management tools that embrace state-of-the-art learning management technologies, while complementing this with a broader range of professional development content and services which are available on-line and via personalized instruction either in a classroom or workshop setting.

Both companies have extensive educational technology knowledge and will combine this expertise to offer a comprehensive platform that will incorporate resources to facilitate the online management of all teacher professional development delivery and PLCs that cater to the needs of teachers, students, parents, and administrators.

The key point of contact for the new partnership will be Martin Mascarenas, who was one of the original founders of Avatar and has been actively involved in all aspects of the business for almost fifteen years. He will work closely with Jeff Vohden, the President of Editure Professional Development.

“Based on feedback from our customers, both Alchemy and Editure saw the benefits of coupling our Avatar platform with Editure’s professional development and technology offerings specifically focused on K-12 needs and challenges,” remarked Martin Mascarenas. “We are focused on using best practices from around the world to meet the increasingly rigorous educational standards expected in schools today.”

“This partnership is a key part of our mission to provide the highest level of service to K-12 customers in the United States” said Jeff Vohden. “The combined offering is truly unique. It provides an outstanding opportunity for us to work with students, teachers, staff, parents, and administrators to enhance educational outcomes.”

ABOUT EDITURE
Editure is a leading education and training company providing services and products aimed at improving school performance through professional development and educational technology. Editure provides services and products to approximately 8,000 schools around the world and has customers in the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, South Africa and Asia. Editure has approximately 400 employees and contractors around the world and has seven offices located in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom.

ABOUT ALCHEMY
Alchemy Systems, L.P., based in Austin, Texas, develops innovative technology and rich media to provide products for production and professional workers in the education, commercial, and social service industries. The Avatar PDMS is currently being utilized by almost 500,000 teachers in more than 4,500 schools throughout the United States. For more information on Alchemy, please go to www.alchemysystems.com.

Workshops offered by Editure follow a unique and powerful structure that is grounded by the work of Joyce and Showers who assert that in order for professional development to truly impact classroom practice, it must include the following four components: Research/Theory, Models/Demonstrations, Practice, and Coaching. According to Joyce & Showers, the first three components only result in 5-15% change in classroom practice, but the addition of the forth component- Coaching- results in an 80-90% impact on actual classroom implementation!

Recognizing the power of this framework, Editure workshop offerings are designed as a series of facilitated conversations around selected content that follow Joyce & Showers model. Currently there are about half a dozen “Core Concepts” such as: Formative Assessment, Collaborative Learning Groups, Essential Learning Strategies (Marzano), Beginning Readers and Writers, Comprehension Strategies (K-5, and 6-12). Each Core Concept is broken down into a number of “Topics” that relate to the Core Concept. For example, under the Core Concept of Formative Assessment, there are 4 Topics: Assessment for Learning, Checking For Understanding, Feedback, and Uncovering Misconceptions. Each Topic is then divided into 4 “Instructional Conversations” that match the Joyce and Showers model. Therefore, each Topic includes a facilitated Instructional Conversation on: Research, Models, Practice, and Assessing Impact.

During the VDOE training, Cathy, Eric and I facilitated Instructional Conversations around three of the Formative Assessment Topics- Assessment for Learning, Checking For Understanding, and Feedback. Since we didn’t have children and classrooms to “practice” in, we modified the work to prepare the Principals and Coaches who attended the sessions to return to their schools and facilitate the same conversations spread out over several months instead of several days. Each Instructional Conversation (IC) is focused enough that it could be held within the time limits of a staff meeting, allowing for practice and coaching conversations on the impact of the work. The continued work of the VDOE will be supported through the online component, The TeachFirst Professional Learning Platform, that has allowed us to establish professional learning communities online.

The content of the ICs is rigorous in depth and is grounded in powerful summaries of the seminal research on each of the Core Concepts and related Topics. Although I have only facilitated Instructional Conversations related to Topics under the Core Concept of “Formative Assessment” (12 ICs total), I am utterly impressed and expect the same of the remaining content. I was most impressed by the avoidance of “popular” research and sources of information. Instead, Sandi Everlove and her team worked to present the most rich primary sources of research on the various selected topics- all rooted in solid research and presented in a manner that stimulated deep thinking and reflection, but that was packaged in a fashion that school staff could immediately apply. There is enough new information in each IC to stimulate new ways of thinking for practitioners at all level.

Editure has developed an impressive series of professional development offerings that may well completely revolutionize professional learning as we currently know it!

Editure Professional Development is an approved service provider through the Texas Education Agency (TEA)  to provide professional development support in the College Readiness Initiative for Middle School Students.

Editure PD draws upon the expertise of over 200 professional educators (education consultants and content advisers) from around the globe in order to partner with your school or district to close the achievement gap. editure does this by helping your educators to increase college readiness among students so that students can meet or exceed the performance standards on the new end of course exams and be successful in college and beyond.

Through our comprehensive services we are able to provide the instructional interventions and resources to help teachers and administrators support students who are struggling academically. Editure PD provides job-embedded consultancy support in Adolescent Literacy, Math, and Educational Technology that directly impact classroom instruction and student achievement through:

• On-site consultancy,
• Blended Consultancy (on-site and virtual),
• Workshops and Institutes and
• the TeachFirst Professional Learning Platform.

The areas of focus for your partnership with Editure PD can and should be customized to best meet the needs of your educational community. There is no one approach that will work for everyone. Professional Development should be customized to meet the needs of the educators in your community and the students they serve. That being said, we know, through research and our work with schools and districts, that some of the approaches  that work best are a combination of school walk-throughs, modeled lessons, classroom observations and feedback, side-by-side in class support, workshop presentations, and the setting up and supporting professional learning communities/collaborative teams.

For more information about how Editure can support you in one or more of these areas or design a customized plan to address your students needs please contact us.

In November 2009, Editure appointed DB Education as its distribution partner to market and sell the full range of products and services offered by Editure’s Education Technology business. These include the widely used mysuite learning platform and Editure’s next generation products that will be released to market during 2010.  The mysuite learning platform has been used by RBC’s, LA’s and schools across the United Kingdom since 2002. Today mysuite is used in around 2,600 schools across the UK and over 6,500 schools worldwide. Editure also provides a software module for UK school management information system interoperability. These software products are supported by our professional services team to ensure a seamless launch, integration and essential product training. Editure and DB Education are committed to continuing to develop and sell the UK’s leading specialist primary school learning platform DB Primary.

With the appointment of two Editure directors to the DB Education board the parties intend to build an even stronger working relationship to develop their business in the UK. Editure and DB Education already work closely together under the distribution agreement with DB Education providing sales, training and local service desk support to UK clients. Editure provides all software, software upgrades and new versions, hosting and operational support.

Joe Ewart, Chief Executive Officer of Editure, commented: “This investment in DB Education is an important step forward in our goal of building a global education and training company. We look forward to building a stronger partnership with DB Education. Editure and DB Education will work together to bring the full range of Editure’s educational offering to schools in the UK. Together, we aim to positively impact teaching and learning in classrooms across the UK.”

Rod MacLaren, Executive Chairman of DB Education, said: “DB Education welcomes this investment by Editure and the funding provided will help to build our presence in the UK education sector. As both companies have a common vision, values and a complementary skill sets our partnership with Editure will allow us to focus on delivering technology solutions supported by professional development that play an integral part in improving schools performance in the UK.”

Barrie Lambert, President of Editure’s Education Technology business, commented: “We welcome the opportunity to extend our partnership with DB Education. It is an important step forward in our goal of providing a broader range of products and services that will allow us to provide a better service to our UK clients.  Both organisations possess a deep commitment to delivering the highest quality services to our educational clients and we look forward to partnering with DB Education to deliver on this promise. “

Enhancement Courses ® and ACT both offer advancement and recertification courses for United States teachers.  The Enhancement Courses ® program is accredited through Loyola Marymount University (LMU) Extension located in Los Angeles, California.  The ACT program is accredited through California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB).

The Enhancement Courses ® and ACT programs offer more than 550 accredited courses for teachers in a wide variety of topics.  Over 6,000 teachers enrol in courses under the two programs each year and more than 30,000 teachers have completed courses since the programs were introduced.  The programs will continue to be based in Cosa Mesa, California and all staff will remain with the business.  In particular, Madie Murray and Don Jacobs, the founders, will continue to manage the programs after the completion of the transaction.

This acquisition represents a further expansion of Editure’s teacher professional development platform.  In addition to these programs, Editure currently has the following service offerings focused on teacher professional development.

• AUSSIE PD provides embedded onsite professional development to schools and teachers.  AUSSIE PD’s educational consultants provide customized training and development tailored to the specific requirements of our partner schools.
• Digital Schools Solutions focuses on professional development in the areas of digital literacy and instructional technologies in the classroom.  The focus is on improving the use of technology in classroom instruction and assisting in enhancing 21st Century learning outcomes.
• TeachFirst works with schools and school districts to implement, monitor and support professional learning communities (“PLCs”) which are aimed at whole school improvement.  TeachFirst supports PLCs with onsite training, online training content and a proprietary video library.

“We are very pleased to add the Enhancement Courses ® and ACT programs to our teacher professional development platform.” said Joe Ewart, Chief Executive Officer of Editure.  “We are committed to building a comprehensive suite of services and products to assist in the ongoing development and training of teachers and school leaders.  With the addition of the Enhancement Courses ® and ACT programs, Editure’s teacher professional development platform is truly unique in terms of the breadth of the services and products we offer.  We look forward to working with Madie and Don to continue to grow the Enhancement Courses ® and ACT programs”, he said.

“We are very proud of the quality of the programs we have built and the relationships we have developed with LMU and CSUMB.” Jacobs said.  We look forward to working closely with the Editure team to expand the offerings and influence of our programs.”  Murray added, “We believe Editure shares our commitment to raising the professional and economic standards of educators.””