Journal 5

Vantage Upgrades MY Access! School Edition
According to the article MY Access has been updated and now has a special school version which meets state standards for all 50 states. This online writing program seems like it would be a huge help to both teachers and students. The program was designed to help students with their writing skills. It even has tools like MY Tutor and MY Editor to help multilingual/ELL students with their writing skills. MY Access allows students to enter their own work and check to see if their writing is up to par with current standards for their grade. The site can even give a score to a students writing, which helps teachers figure out who needs help with their writing to bring it up to the state standards. Much of what the article portrays of the program seems like it would be a great tool for teachers and students. I chose to visit the site and this is a great tool for teachers who are interested in their students meeting the standards for testing. The program really focus’ on testing material and the markers students need to meet in order to do well on state tests. It is a very test based program which is understandable today because teachers are forced to “prepare” their students to pass the state mandated tests. But I feel that until a teacher has taught multiple lessons on writing and has taken steps to personally connect with their students about writing, this site would be very impersonal and not give students a good feel for writing and all of the creative places writing can take a students mind.

Question 1: Why would a site like this be valuable for a teacher?
A site like this could be very valuable for a teacher to help their students practice their writing skills before testing dates. Using the site properly could also help a teacher better communicate with their ELL students about writing skills.
Question 2: Does a site like this allow teachers to become overly test driven?
Using a site like this could allow a teacher to focus too much on test results and how their students could meet those expectations. However, if a teacher uses this site to aid their lessons and not lead their lessons the site could be a valuable aid.
Source:
Dave Nagel, "Vantage Upgrades MY Access! School Edition," T.H.E. Journal, 7/30/2008, http://www.thejournal.com/articles/23025