We would like to express our sincere thanks to all of you who offered such great suggestions for making School Island such a wonderful study and review experience! In this issue, learn about some great newf School Island features as well as how you can use School Island to differentiate classroom instruction. Also, in this issue...we welcome the newest members of our School Island family!!!

New Features/Updates

The Self-Assign tab of the Assignment Details page now allows teachers to unassign an assignment from themselves. Previously, they could only assign and reassign an assignment to themselves.

A new Information Center feature replaces the New Feature Alert. Appearing at the top-right side of the Admin Home and Teacher Home pages, the Information Center:

• Displays a list of links, which display important School Island information for teachers and administrators.
• Anounces new features.
• Provides the latest issue of the School Island Newsletter.

Differentiating Instruction - The School Island Way

While all teachers teach content, good teachers teach students! Unique as their handprints, no two students in your classroom are alike. Learning styles vary. Any form of enrichment pursued for one student may send another student into a tail-spin. Many of us have incorporated different methods to individualize the learning experience, but now there is a term to go along with what we have been doing in our classrooms for years- it's called "differentiated instruction".

One aspect of differentiated instruction is to allow students to take greater responsibility for their own learning experiences. This is achieved by providing students with opportunities whereby they can peer teach and learn cooperatively at the same time. Using School Island, you can encourage your students to do just that! How?

1. Create self-assignments:
   • Encourage students to create their own assignments with ten questions per section within each unit of study.
   • Let them know that you are monitoring their work and will give them extra credit for their initiative.
2. Import questions from prior assignments:
   • Give students two assignments- 50 randomized questions each - on a Monday.
   • Encourage them to discuss the assignments with their friends and to work cooperatively in arriving at the answers.
   • Afterwards, take them to the lab and give them 25 questions that have been "imported" from the two assignments.
     Note: Be sure to mix questions, selecting questions that gave students trouble with moderately difficult questions.

By week's end, their effort to teach their classmates in this cooperative assignment will help them all improve their performance..

Not all students work at the same pace or at the same level in a classroom setting. The reality is that students co-exist; during any predefined block of time, students are groups together based on scheduling constraints. For example: the Chemistry class scheduled for Period 3 is made up primarly of band students because these students must be on the field for marching band practice during the time when the last period Chemistry class is scheduled to meet. There are many scenarios forcing a particular class configuration of students on a teacher. The most difficult - and least effective way - to integrate technology into classroom learning is to take students to the computer lab to perform work that is identical to classroom work. The solution can be as easy as using School Island's Difficulty Level and Import Feature. To use this feature:

1. Create three versions of an assignment (such as Version A, B, and C) by pulling content from Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced level questions. You may create each assignment using different difficulty levels, or create three assignments that is "heavier" in one difficulty level than another.
2. Assign each assignment version to students based on your knowledge of how they learn, what they can accomplish, and what they need to review.
   • Example 1: When creating assignments, you may wish to Import questions from old assignments.This way students in need of remediation and review receive assignments that are customized to emphasize questions that proved difficult to them in the past.
   • Example 2: Students who mastered previous assignments receive an assignment containing new questions of a higher difficult level..
     

Another School Island tool for differentiating instruction is to create assignments that use questions from several subject content areas. For example: when introducing your next assignment containing 30 questions to your High School Algebra class, ask your students to pay special attention to the last ten questions. This is because content will from from two courses. The initial 20 questions may come from a specific Algebra unit and section, while the last ten questions may come from another course, such as Elementary Math, which requires students to divide or multiply fractions. By doing this, you can determine whether your students truly misunderstand your material in Algebra, or may have come to you with a weakness in some fundamental math skill. Then again, you can always do what Prof. Bill would do and add U.S. Constitution questions to the Algebra assignment :-)

Please feel free drop me a note at billi@schoolisland.com about how you use School Island to differentiate your instruction. We'll do our best to share it with your colleagues in a future newsletter.

Bill Ingui (a.k.a. Prof Bill), President and Retired NYS Educator

Sales News / Welcome to the School Island Family

CASTLE Software would like to welcome the following new schools and school districts to the School Island family of users:

• Berea Elementary School, Orange County, NY
• Burns Avenue Elementary School, Hicksville, NY
• California Avenue Elementary School, Uniondale, NY
• DeWitt Road Elementary School, Webster, NY
• Dutch Lane Elementary School, Hicksville, NY
• East Coldenham Elementary School, Orange County, NY
• East Hills School, Roslyn, NY
• East Street Elementary School, Hicksville, NY
• Fork Lane Elementary School, Hicksville, NY
• Grand Avenue Elementary School, Uniondale, NY
• Harbor Hill School, Roslyn, NY
• Klem Road North Elementary School, Webster, NY
• Klem Road South Elementary School, Webster, NY
• Lee Avenue Elementary School, Hicksville, NY
• Liberty Elementary School, Nyack, NY
• Martin Road Elementary School, Lackawanna, NY
• Maybrook Elementary School, Orange County, NY
• Montgomery Elementary School, Orange County, NY
• Northern Parkway Elementary School, Uniondale, NY
• Old Country Road Elementary School, Hicksville, NY
• Plank Road North Elementary School, Webster, NY
• Plank Road South Elementary School, Webster, NY
• Schlegel Road Elementary School, Webster, NY
• Smith Street Elementary School, Uniondale, NY
• Southwestern Elementary School, Chautauqua County, NY
• St. Raymond's Parochial School, Nassau County, NY
• State Road Elementary School, Webster, NY
• Upper Nyack Elementary School, Nyack, NY
• Valley Cottage Elementary School, Nyack, NY
• Walden Elementary School, Orange County, NY
• Walnut Street Elementary School, Uniondale, NY
• Winter Park Elementary School, New Hanover County, NC
• Woodland Elementary School, Hicksville, NY
• Wrightsville Beach Elementary School, New Hanover County, NC
• Cheektowaga-Sloan John F. Kennedy Middle School, Erie County, NY
• Depew Middle School, Erie County, NY
• E. J. Dillon Middle School, Phoenix, NY
• East Aurora Middle School, Erie County, NY
• Garden City Middle School, Nassau County, NY
• John F. Kennedy Intermediate School, Deer Park, NY
• Lawrence Road Middle School, Uniondale, NY
• Roslyn Middle School, Nassau County, NY
• Southwestern Middle School, Chautauqua County, NY
• Turtle Hook Middle School, Uniondale, NY
• Valley Central Middle School, Orange County, NY
• Andover Central Schools, Allegany County, NY
• Beaver River Central Schools, Lewis County, NY
• Bellport Academic Center, Eastern Suffolk BOCES, NY
• Biondi Education Center, Yonkers, NY
• Camden County High School, Camden County, NC
• Canton Central Schools, St. Lawrence County, NY
• Chester Academy, Orange County, NY
• Depew High School, Erie County, NY
• East Aurora High School, Erie County, NY
• Garden City High School, Nassau County, NY
• High School for Law, Advocacy and Community Justice, New York, NY
• Lakeside High School, Wilmington, NC
• Lynbrook High School, Nassau County, NY
• Moriah Central Schools, Essex County, NY
• New Hanover High School, Wilmington, NC
• Oppenheim-Ephratah Central Schools, Fulton County, NY
• Roslyn High School, Nassau County, NY
• South Robeson High School, Robeson County, NC
• Southern Cayuga Central School, Cayuga County, NY
• Southwestern High School, Chautauqua County, NY
• Uniondale High School, Uniondale, NY
• Valley Central High School, Orange County, NY
• West Brunswick High School, Brunswick County, NC
  

Correction

NYS Council for Technology Educators (NYSCATE) Conference will be held from November 19-21 in Rochester, NY. this year; not in Albany, NY as stated in our October newsletter. More information is available at http://www.nyscate.org/. Our apologies for the error.

We love to hear from you!

If you have any comments, ideas for future articles, or suggestions for a School Island product feature or enhancement, please send it to support@schoolisland.com. We would love to hear from you!