Vantage Learning, an online testing and assessment company, announced at this week’s National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) the introduction of MY Access. The program provides students, teachers, administrators and parents assessment and instructional technology that allows students to continually practice their writing online and have essays scored.
The essays are returned along with feedback for improvement. The online assessments take place in the classroom, while students are working at computer terminals or any place where they have access to a computer and an Internet connection. Teachers can monitor the students’ writing process no matter where the practice is taking place. Students will receive feedback within three to five seconds after submission, according to Scott Elliot, COO of Vantage Learning.
MY Access! also allows teachers to compare student writing proficiencies against state and national standards, leaving more time for instruction. The product is based on the experience and knowledge from panels of human scorers who review sample essays and create a profile against which submissions are assessed, Elliott said.
“We’re simply using technology to speed the assessment process,” added Peter Murphy, Vantage Laboratories CEO. “The actual assessments are based on the combined wisdom of human scorers.”
The feedback provided by MY Access! includes details on essay focus, organization, fact patterns, sentence structure and mechanics. The technology, which can be integrated with any existing classroom management or testing software, can assess any and all content areas — from history to science, mathematics to geography, and all other subject areas, Murphy said.
Since it’s Web based, My Access is cross platform. However, during their NECC press conference, Vantage officials didn’t offer details on the pricing structure of the service.