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The Research and Development group at Renaissance Learning has been mighty busy over these last few months planning some great new features. In fact, there are so many exciting enhancements coming in the next few months that we couldn’t decide on just one to spotlight. So, we’re including them all.
NEO 2 already functions like a classroom response system, allowing teachers to quickly determine if their students understand the material being taught. To date, teachers could use true/false, multiple choice, yes/no and numeric question types to assess student knowledge. With the next release of the NEO 2 suite in October, teachers can add short answer question types to their assessment toolbox. Here are just two examples of how you could use this new function. Imagine the possibilities!
- You’ve just finished teaching a science unit on the structures of the cell. You want to ensure that students have their facts straight before you deliver the end-of-unit test. So, you launch the 2Know! Toolbar and ask students to turn on their NEO 2s. You ask, “Which structure is the powerhouse of the cell?” Using NEO 2’s full size keyboard, the students type the word “mitochondria” and press enter to submit. Within seconds you can see if your students know the answer and the proper spelling.
- Your students have been busy learning a new set of vocabulary words this week. It’s Friday and time to see how they’ve progressed. You start by creating a vocabulary test in AccelTest using the short answer question type. Students turn on their NEO 2s and connect to your AccelTest session. They read the definition and then type the word that corresponds. Within seconds of finishing, you have their vocabulary tests graded and the results available for you students.
Look for this new feature in October 2008.
Talk about cool. With this new feature, students can wirelessly transfer their writing projects and other documents to Google Docs, Google’s™ document, spreadsheet, and presentation program. Why is this cool? Here are just a couple of reasons:
- At the end of a class period, students can transfer their drafts from their NEO 2s to Google Docs, enabling access to their documents later from any web-enabled computer. This will make it easier for students to continue working on their writing assignments at home or another classroom at school.
- Teachers can easily monitor the progress students are making on their drafts when they use the sharing feature in Google Docs.
Look for this new feature in early 2009.
Sometimes struggling and emerging writers can benefit from hearing their words read back to them. Until now, NEO users had to depend on someone else to do the reading. But in early 2009 they will have a new option when text-to-speech is introduced on the NEO. By purchasing the NEO Text2Speech™ package, new and existing users of the original NEO and the new NEO 2 can add text-to-speech capability to their device.
Look for this new feature in early 2009.
In April 2008, we released support for Accelerated Reader quizzes on NEO 2. This gave our customers another option in their quest to build strong literacy skills and a love of reading in their students. In the spring of 2009, we’ll do it again—but this time for math students, when we release support for Renaissance Learning’s MathFacts in a Flash™ software. With the easy access NEO 2 provides, students can practice their math facts any time they have a little extra time. No more waiting for an available computer or a trip down to the computer lab to practice. What a convenient and cost-effective way to build students’ computational fluency!
Requires an active subscription to Renaissance Place™ version 4.1 and MathFacts in a Flash version 3.1, both releasing in Spring 2009.
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