>> A second category is supplemental software.
Supplemental software is that which really supports a core course but
it's not delivering the core instruction per se.
A teacher is still designing that experience or
delivering lessons in certain aspects, and so forth.
So think about our KIPP LA example, where they use a lot of supplemental software,
such as ST Math.
The teacher is still delivering core lectures, helping to group students and
deliver interventions, and then students are going off to the online software
to do various supplemental activities at various points.
>> And ST Math, along with DreamBox,
are two of the titles we've seen in a lot of the schools we've visited,
in this elementary and middle school for the topic of math.
ST Math is really nice because it's almost an entirely visual based way of
teaching math.
Students can start with a sort of numbers sense, back in kindergarten and
go all the way through more complicated algebra for middle school.
And each topic that a student gets is just a little bit harder than the topic
beforehand and kids are getting a lot of practice.
So, it's just as very iterative, intuitive way of students to learn and
it doesn't rely on them having to read anything,
very self-directed in their own learning process.
The other program that Bryan mentioned is DreamBox Learning,
and DreamBox uses a game based engine for a lot of its content.
But it's actually adaptive, and that's the real key part of it, which is that it
delivers problems to students that are generally just at their level, and
if they miss something, then it will level down and give them something easier, or
it they need more challenging problems based on their performance
then it will serve up harder and harder problems over time.
>> And we've put resources to both ST math and DreamBox in the resources section.
They have a couple nice little videos to have you get a feel for the program.
I'd highly encourage you to take a look,
because they actually tell their story nicely,
and it helps to really understand how these pieces of software work so you can
generalize to the broader sector of the way software can work in the classroom.
>> A third supplemental resource that a lot of people use and
are familiar with is the Khan Academy.
Now, the Khan Academy has gotten a legendary following for
its videos on an impressive array of topics that started with math.
But actually, what we find most impressive about Khan Academy has nothing to with its
videos, but this infinite set of practice problems that the Khan Academy provides
that allows students to continually practice and practice to actually show and
demonstrate mastery,
and then dive back into concepts if they're still not getting something.
So the Khan Academy is also a free resource, which is why we
see a lot of schools get their start into blended learning by demoing with Khan.
>> I joke. I call it the gateway drug into
blended learning.
And it makes sense that math is where so many people start, because math has
a relatively concrete set of steps that you're supposed to go to learn it,
and there's a discrete right and wrong answer.
And arguably it's gonna be a lot harder to design great software to teach philosophy,
but even in the English language arts,
we're seeing a lot of new titles come that people are finding a lot of benefit from.
There's a program that a lot of the schools we visited use called
Achieve 3000, which essentially takes current event topics and it writes
the same article at different levels of reading comprehension for the text.
So the whole class can be engaging in interesting learning and
conversations together, but students are reading at their just right reading level,
and then that can grow with them as their reading levels improve.
>> Another tool that our schools are using is Accelerated Reader.
In Accelerated Reader, schools create libraries of leveled content
at different lexile levels of different books.
And then basically what happens is that students read those different books
at their appropriate level.
After they've read the books, they take quizzes on Accelerated Reader,
where then they get the data inputted in the system where teachers can check
to make sure students are actually comprehending what they're reading,
and that they're at the right level.
From there then, basically, what Accelerated Reader does is create a really
cool virtual bookshelf that sort of looks like your books on iTunes,
where students can keep track of all the books that they've read.
And Accelerated Reader also keeps track of all the words that students
are reading as well.
>> When I was at navigator schools, a student was showing me her
Accelerated Reader bookshelf, and she was with pride showing me the books.
And I said wow, you've read all those books this year?
She looked at me and said no, that's this month, and then she
scrolled down showed me this incredible bookshelf of titles she had read.
And the pride that she had was really neat to watch, and
this is an example of where the software doesn't have to do everything, all right?
The act of just reading a book is arguably probably the most
important part of the learning process, we would imagine, in schools.
But the combination of a nice piece of software to ensure comprehension and
then to give the teacher data and
maybe motivate kids a little bit, makes it work so much more compellingly.
>> And we're also seeing some innovations in English language arts around the book,
itself.
So we're seeing companies pop up, like Gobstopper and
Light Sail, that are essentially trying to be the e-book for a lot of schools.
And what they're doing is taking these books and putting them into a digital
format, and then providing some intelligence around it.
So, the opportunity for teachers to embed videos or quizzes.
Just little notes to say hey,
did you pick up on this little passage, what do you think it means?
Ways to interact more and more deeply with their students.