Usage: I would have the Director of Special Services use this system to manage our ESL program. We currently are doing this work manually, and it isn't effective.
Strengths: The fact that this product allows administrators, teachers, and students access to achievement data is awesome. The dashboard is easy to read and use.
Suggestions for Improvement: I would want to ensure that this program connects with the district's other systems (e.g. PowerSchool, TieNet, etc.). Also, I will be interested to know how this company supports implementation with teachers through professional development.
Verdict: I would recommend this product, because there is nothing else like it on the market. It would benefit the district, as well as the students in this program. Currently, our ESL students are underserved, and this product will support their achievement.
Usage: I would use this product to track down students ELL progress. I will turn key the information as much as I can to my teachers as well.
Strengths: I love the teacher dashboard and how it provides invidivual students goal plans
Suggestions for Improvement: It would be great if this tool allows you to create assessments done by the teacher and grade them at the same time. This will give the teachers some flexibility in regards to the platform.
Verdict: I would recommend this tool because of the great percentage of ELL in our district
Usage: We piloted RedBird two years ago to replace our online curriculum provider. We could not continue due to Math not being ready at that time.
Strengths: Great interface and usability of data. Less time organizing and more time acting.
Suggestions for Improvement: ~Cost is a bit high ($10) but still reasonable.
~More time to see it (not Ellevate's issue)
~Nothing, I hope we can come to an arrangement and adopt this program.
Verdict: Because they ask for something similar now, but with limited capabilities to do so.
Usage: Support ESL teachers across 5 schools.
Strengths: Unsure at this time. I reviewed the product in the past, then briefly again today.
Suggestions for Improvement: Unsure at this time. I would need to be convinced the investment to set up and learn the system will save and streamline my teachers efforts over time.
The four hundred character expectation makes this task more cumbersome than necessary. I suggest you got to 150-200 characters for the future.
Verdict: Advise against - cost. Capacity/time.
Advise for - quality tool to support our ESL staff and students.
Usage: Strengthen communication between teachers and RSP staff
Strengths: The interface is easy to navigate, user-friendly, and appears to provide a great amount of data to the user. The "student goals" is a living document that enables teachers to add comments, and this is very useful to teachers (and admins) when wanting to create a quick means of addressing student accommodations.
Suggestions for Improvement: The ability to see generated "generalized goals" based on student performance/assessment would be great. However, this would involve the use of assessment scores to narrow down exactly what the student truly needs.
Verdict: Student information is very quick and easy to access, and the living document for "student goals" is a great asset for staff.
Usage: English language learners
Strengths: ELLevation is a great organizational tool for schools with high English language learners. It's essentially a data base that teachers can use to monitor the interventions that they are using with students. A great component of the service is that they generate simple reports that teachers can use to share with specialists as well as parents.
Suggestions for Improvement: One of the challenges with ELLevation is consistency between users. Anytime measurements are being used, it's hard to compare, especially when teachers may not be using the same types of interventions as others.
Verdict: It is a great resources that increases the monitoring of the work that a teacher does with their ELL students.
Usage: To Address the ELL population and staff
Strengths: The product looks like a great tool for teachers for formulating plans and correspondence that can be used to interface between parents, other staff /professionals. It is fantastic that it is able to generate these in different languages as opposed to having to wait for translation services.
Suggestions for Improvement: At this time I cannot think of any improvements other than to state how you are guaging improvement.
Verdict: Yes, I would recommend this the resource personnel who are having to constantly evaluate students and report their findings to the various agencies, staff and parent.
Usage: Monitoring progress of ELLs
Strengths: I think it does well on organizing data from students progress in the language. It creates a centralized platform for organizing information.
Suggestions for Improvement: Having a clear distinction between the tools used to measure growth. My biggest question was how the information was compiled.
Verdict: Yes, but I think understanding the cost and limitations of the program would be beneficial to know and understand.
Usage: I would use to to monitor ell progress
Strengths: ELLevation has a strong tracking tool to monitor ELL progress over time. It's the only data management system for ELLs that I've seen that has a way to track long term ELLs.
Suggestions for Improvement:
Verdict: Currently in our district, teachers are responsible for progress monitoring. This system would centralize that process, freeing up time for teachers to focus on instruction.
Usage: Pass information along to my ELL ESL teachers
Strengths: Great student tracking and data organization. Easy user interface.
Suggestions for Improvement: Student interface needs some gamification - seems like it's worksheets on-line. Doesn't look very fun for kids.
Verdict: The great data.