myON

Case Study written by Francesa, a fifth grade ELA teacher from Florida.

What was the problem in your classroom or school that you were trying to solve when you implemented this product?

The problem I was trying to solve while implementing MyOn was engaging and further differentiating all learners in my classroom while integrating technology.

Describe how you used the product.

I used MyOn whole group, before our school became one to one with laptops (in the intermediate grades) in order to choose rigorous engaging texts for my ELA classroom. Once our school became one-to-one, my students all had access to use the program at the same time. This is when I assigned "projects" with differentiated texts. My classroom population consists of many students whose second language is English, because MyOn has bilingual books I was able to immerse them in reading in both English and Spanish. This also benefits below level readers because they have access to texts on their levels and they don't feel as embarrassed reading a lower level book- it also has the feature that it reads to students so this helps to build their fluency! Students are able to sign on during independent reading time and use the program to choose books to read and then journal with. Teachers can also assign graphic organizers for students to complete in conjunction with the book. This was extremely helpful when using MyOn during guided reading, because you can filter books based on guided reading levels, it was beneficial to use MyOn during guided reading. MyOn was also a great way for students to conduct inquiry cycles within our classroom.
What worked and what didn't?
Worked: Some things that worked are having students be one-to-one so that they can use this in the classroom. It is much more engaging when you have multiple computers for students to access. In the past, when we didn't have access to laptops, I would create a computer rotation- but this didn't allow many students access to the program at one time. Didn't Work: Obviously, we had technology issues (bandwith/internet), but other than that, MyOn is extremely user friendly and easy to access for both students and teachers. Our district allows us to access and have student accounts, so I am not sure how it would be for districts that do not have access to it.