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REACH FOR TOMORROW EXTRALEARNING.ORG /TUTOR.COM TUTORING AND TEST PREPARATION In collaboration with Extralearning.org/Tutor.com, Reach For Tomorrow, Inc. will incorporate a web based, academic complement into the existing state standards for K-12 curricula, in combination with daily online live tutoring available to each participant for the entire academic year, and in the summer for Gear Up students in Alaska, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. This complement is through the Remediation Training Institute of Alexandria, Virginia, a 20 year old program initially developed under a Ford Foundation grant. For the past 20 years the Alternative Schools Network (ASN) in Chicago, IL as well as the Aurora, Colorado school system have made this "Extra learning" program the core basis of its curriculum. It is currently available at www.extralearning.org. The development of the Extralearning program was entirely research based. Initially it was developed through a grant from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation in the 1980's. Created by Dr. Robert Taggart, the Comprehensive Competency Program (CCP), as it was then called, continued to develop and was placed in schools across the country throughout the 1980s. This expansion was accomplished with assistance from the Mott Foundation, UPS Foundation, Public Welfare Foundation and the Ford Foundation, each of whom funded key projects over several years. The CCP was updated in the 1990's and eventually the name was changed to Extralearning Online. Some of the updates, such as addressing different student learning styles made the Extralearning program an exceptional tool that can be molded to meet the needs of students, teachers, schools, and school districts. Increasingly the program is used in remediation labs to assist those schools in meeting the requirements of "No Child Left Behind" legislation. This would definitely be a great addition to schools throughout the nation. The Extralearning program includes
every subject (with the exception of foreign language) taught in
grades K-12 in a programmed learning environment. Extralearning
offers a well-rounded curriculum to meet the needs of diverse
learners and trainees of all ages at an affordable cost. Learners enjoy unlimited access to all of Extralearning's courses, skills and library resources. There is no Per-Course Fee. The curriculum is modular, thus
offering choice and flexibility to: Each course and skill module includes everything needed for mastery: assessments, instructional content, quizzes and tests, plus optional supplements. \Content is presented step-by-step with in depth feedback and reinforcement. This promotes self-confidence whether the material is being learned for the first time, or forgotten skills and information are being relearned. The Extralearning curriculum is tied together by integrated management systems that make administrator, teacher, and program staff jobs easier. Detailed progress information and reports keep teachers, trainers and tutors tuned in to learner achievement and needs. Reports are available for groups or subgroups. COMPREHENSIVE COVERAGE Academic Subjects Number of Courses*
Number of Skill Modules Functional Subjects Number of
Courses* Number of Skill Modules
PROGRAM EFFECTIVENESS:
In addition, the program is being
used in 5 other school districts in the state of Colorado, as well
as school districts in California, New Mexico, Wyoming, Illinois,
Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kansas, and Texas. Academically, Reach for Tomorrow will provide students access to the Extralearning Online Program. The Extralearning Online Program is a self-paced, individualized, computer-delivered, computer-assisted, mastery learning program. It provides a complete curriculum (K-12) with course offerings in Reading, Writing, Math, Social Studies, and Science, in addition to an extensive number of Functional (Life Skills) courses. Students will be provided access to this system 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They will also be able to use the program if they are home schooled, at home, or any other location where a computer is available with Internet access. The actual delivery of the program will be over the Internet. Reach for Tomorrow will insure that teachers, at schools using the program, will be trained in how the program works, how to use the program, how to teach students to use the program, and how the program can be used to maximize student learning. Schools may offer the program during the current school day, as was done in Colorado, in after school programs to insure students do not fall behind, in summer programs, or whenever and wherever they feel it would be beneficial to their students. Extralearning Online will provide each school with access to over 2,000 lesson books, over 1,000 assessments and tests, over 2,500 Internet links, and thousands of streaming videos. But the effectiveness of this program can best be seen, not in the number of materials provided, but in the way it operates. With Extralearning Online, students begin with an assessment (provided as a part of the program). Assessments are used by teachers to evaluate the functioning level of a student in the areas of Reading, Writing, Math, Social Studies, and/or Science. The assessments will also help to identify gaps in the student's learning in these same areas. Once these needs or gaps are identified, the teacher creates an Individualized Education Plan for each student. This plan may consist of any combination of lessons (focusing on a single competency), units (comprised of several lessons), or even an entire course if that has been identified as a student need. The learning process used in Extralearning Online addresses a variety of learning styles. Initially, the content is delivered through lesson books. These books are a small portion of a grade level course and are written in a format that provides a small amount of information followed by questions to insure the student understands the material. If a student is having a problem understanding the concepts, they may call upon a teacher (if they are in school) for one-on-one instruction. If they are not at school, students may contact Tutor.com (another component of the Extralearning Online Program) and a content area instructor will provide assistance on a one-to-one basis. Students even have the ability to contact their teachers over the Internet through Extralearning Online if needed. At the end of the lesson book, the student is given a lesson test to insure mastery of the material. If the student demonstrates mastery (at a level determined by the school - usually 80%) they move on to the second phase of instruction. If they do not demonstrate mastery, they are provided with additional activities to assist them in their learning. After completing the activities, they move on to the next phase of instruction. The second phase of instruction provides multiple opportunities to practice and expand on what they learned in the lesson book. This is done through the use of interactive Internet sites and interactive videos. These are the type of learning activities which help all students, but especially those who are Kinesthetic (hands-on). After completing the assignments for the second phase, they move on to the Visual phase of the program. In this phase the students are assigned videos, which reinforce what they learned in the lesson book. The videos help all students learn, but are extremely valuable to the students who are visual learners. At the end of the third phase of the learning process, the student moves on to a new lesson or, if they are at the end of the unit, they move on to the unit test. The unit tests evaluate mastery of all of the lessons in that unit. The student will be presented with an overall Unit evaluation, as well as an evaluation of their mastery of each individual lesson within a unit. As both teachers and students become
familiar with the program, they can mold the program to meet their
needs. For example, a student who is a visual learner might decide
to watch the videos before they go through the lesson book. This
inherent flexibility illustrates that Extralearning can be used to
meet the individual needs of students. Academically, student needs will be assessed prior to the enrollment into the program. These assessments are a part of the program and have been described previously in this document. Results of the assessments are available to teachers so they may continue to monitor each student's Individual Education Plan. Student progress is monitored on a constant basis. Every time they log onto the program their time is recorded. Every time the student takes a lesson, unit or course test, their scores are recorded. These files are available to the teachers, and may be used to insure the student is progressing and, if not, to help identify problem areas the student may be encountering. Assessing student proficiency is simple, because that is what the Extralearning Online program is all about - Mastery Learning. Students using the program are not evaluated on how much time they spend working, but rather the progress or mastery they demonstrate. With Extralearning Online: Time is the Variable, and Learning is the Constant. EVALUATION Academically, there are several ways in which to evaluate the program's effectiveness. First, you can gauge the success by the number of grade levels in a subject area that a student completes. Since students must demonstrate mastery at an 80% level or above (or at whatever level the school selects) before they move on, effectiveness can be evaluated on how far each student has progressed. Second, since more schools across the country, are required to take either state created tests or nationally normed tests (IOWA, Gates-MacGinitie, TABE, etc.), program effectiveness may also be evaluated by comparing the results of previous tests to current results. This would also insure you are meeting state requirements where applicable. Finally, since Extralearning Online provides assessment tools of their own, you could use their assessments to evaluate the effectiveness of the academic component of the program. The online assessments are automatically recorded in the students file and could be compared with where they were when the started the Extralearning program. The choice of how the academic
program will be evaluated is really up to the school, the school
district, or the state. Whatever way is best is the one which should
be used. Extralearning Online System
Requirements PLATFORMS:
COMPUTER SPECIFICATIONS (minimum):
CONNECTIVITY:
REQUIRED SOFTWARE/PLUGINS:
Set Up: If your network is operating behind a firewall, proxy, or filtering devices, certain allowances will have to be made in order for some ExtraLearningOnline system content partners to work efficiently. Additional allowances will also have to be made to make SimDesk talk to its network. This will be explained below and additional assistance can be obtained from RTI. The ExtraLearningOnline system needs access to a printer. It is a mastery learning system with constant evaluations that require test results to be printed. Additionally, all lessons and activities, in Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format, can be printed. For learning center configurations with at least 10 learners, a medium caliber laser printer is recommended. EXTRALEARNING ONLINE WITH LOCAL MEDIA OPTION ExtraLearningOnline works best with
the local media library. Although not required, the local media
library will deliver bandwidth intensive multimedia options (the
Discovery Channel streaming videos and Chalkwaves videos) at the
speed of the local area network, rather than the inherently reduced
speed of a broadband connection. The local media library contains
all the files that provide local access to streaming videos and
Chalkwaves movies. RTI delivers the local media libraries by leasing
a Network Attached Storage Device, such as a Linksys EFG 250 or SNAP
220. RTI ships the NAS configured to receive an IP address
dynamically. If you are working in a statically assigned IP network,
please refer to the NAS manual for instructions on how to change the
IP address. RTI ships the units to participate in a workgroup
called, "EXTRA". For maximum efficiency, it is highly recommended
that networked computers be made members of the EXTRA workgroup. Extralearning can create a web-based Extralearning Network, custom branded with your logo and message where members of your school district or network can learn, work, collaborate, communicate, and access Extralearning Online and other web-enabled applications. Use your customized e-Network to manage programs at a distance, post information, collect data, and, of course, as a gateway to Extralearning. Extralearning can connects users with one another, and train experienced practitioners to help others get started. They provide a list of Extralearning institutional users, organized geographically and by type, so you can communicate with others who share similar missions. As mentioned previously, staff training and answers to simple technology support questions can be provided within a video conference session and the travel costs and per diem can be reduced considerably. TUTOR.COM Extralearning.org has partnered with Tutor.com to provide live, on-line tutors to supplement their on-line lesson plans. Tutor.com was founded in 1998 to leverage the power of the Internet to connect people for one-to-one instruction in any subject, anywhere, anytime. They are fulfilling that vision by connecting thousands of students, families and business professionals to expert tutors, teachers, or professional librarians in customized online environments. Customers receive the one-to-one help they need to perform better in school and at work, and find the information they need. Tutor.com makes organization's services come alive with real-time connections to real experts with easy to use software and convenient on-demand services. SERVICES Tutor.com is the leading provider of one-to-one learning and information services. Using innovative technology, Tutor.com's suite of services allows students of all ages and seekers of information to connect for one-to-one real-time help from professional subject experts and librarians. They support these highly personalized services with superior training, tracking and reporting features, marketing assistance, and 24/7-customer support. Tutor.com solutions raise the profiles of clients and offer them a cost-effective way to reach a maximum number of families, students and customers. LIVE HOMEWORK HELP The flagship service was introduced in 2001 and is now offered at over 600 locations across the country and internationally. These innovative after-school programs, Live Homework Help and Live Homework Help en Espanolprovide access to hundreds of expert tutors, seven days a week for one-to-one help in math, science, social studies and English via the Internet. Tutor.com provides complete service and support, from technology setup and staff training to quarterly promotional materials, monthly reports and 24/7 customer service. Over 30,000 sessions are completed monthly. TUTOR.COM EXPERTS Tutor.com works with hundreds of expert tutors, librarians and reference professionals to bring clients high-quality, one-to-one services every day. Their tutors are certified teachers, college professors, and professionals with college degrees in the subjects they teach. Each tutor completes the rigorous Tutor.com Certification Program and every tutor is fully background checked by Kroll Background America. Tutor.com reference providers also complete the most comprehensive training program available to serve libraries and their customers when needed. Mentor programs ensure quality and offer career paths for their best professionals. CLIENTS Tutor.com serves over 4,600 public,
academic, military and special libraries across the country and
internationally as well as educational organizations including K-12
public and virtual schools, Boys & Girls Clubs and other community
centers. Clients that offer both Live Homework Help and Virtual
Reference Services include the CLEVNET consortium of 31 library
systems in 9 counties throughout Northern Ohio; Q and A NJ, a
service of the New Jersey Library Network; the King County Library
System in Washington; and Multnomah County Library in Oregon. The program offered by
Extralearning.org and Tutor.com is a supplemental service to the
instruction
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