Lightspan

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(Note from the Washington State Library:  In order to participate in the Fall 1999 Washington State Databases Trial, each vendor was asked to address questions the Statewide Database Licensing Committee felt were most critical in order for library staff to evaluate products and vendors.  Please contact the vendor's representative, listed below, for additional information on this product.)

1. Describe the database product(s). Include information on subject scope, percentage of full-text, dates of coverage, target audience (including age ranges), and how often the contents are updated. 

Lightspan

To be successful today, students need more than the basics. They also need to know how to use technology and information. This is where Lightspan Internet services can help. These services not only help students learn skills and concepts through stimulating activities, but they help students to find, evaluate and apply information. Lightspan Internet services help schools take advantage of the Internet’s potential to foster communication and collaboration between school and home.

Teachers’ Internet concerns:

• Too time consuming
• No easy method for home-school communication
• No alignment to curriculum standards or grade appropriateness
• Lack of safe, accurate and appropriate content

Three new products from Lightspan address these concerns and make the Internet "friendly" for teachers, students and parents. Lightspan Internet Professional Development services are available to support your teacher development needs in effective implementation of the products.

Lightspan PageOne� – Co-developed with Yahoo� , this is a teacher’s starting point on the Internet, helping them to assemble the best educational Web resources quickly and easily. PageOne is a FREE classroom resource page that supports instruction for improved learning and increased family involvement. This "one stop" saves teachers’ time.

Lightspan PageOne is a simple way for any teacher to bring the best of the Internet into the classroom. These specific features address teachers’ basic concerns regarding the Internet:

• Keep Web resources organized together for quick and easy access
• Show families what kids are doing in class
• Get direct access to relevant, appropriate material
• Create a password-protected Internet environment for students

Lightspan PageOne puts these effective, practical teaching tools at the teachers’ disposal in one organized classroom resource page that can be personalized and adapted by the teacher in a simple, "wizard-driven" manner to reflect their classroom focus:

• Lightspan Learning Search� lets the teacher quickly find sites that bolster the lessons being taught. It searches through approximately 150,000 sites indexed by grade level and subject area. Each site is reviewed by a curriculum expert and includes a description of what makes it useful in the classroom.
• The Bookmark Organizer lets the teacher organize the links found through Lightspan Learning Search and display them on the teacher’s personalized Lightspan PageOne class resource page. Once the sites are selected, they’re immediately available to the students, from any computer linked to the Internet.
• The Calendar is the place to post homework assignments, school events, and other information to help families get more involved in their children’s education.
• The Class Album lets teachers show off their students’ work. Kids love it, and families get to see what their kids are doing every day, not just at open house.
• Curriculum Challenge offers a collection of interactive learning activities. Teachers will find K-8 curriculum content in reading, writing, vocabulary development and mathematics aligned with national and state standards.
• Today’s Beat is a collection of grade appropriate challenges and "brain starters." Teachers will use them to start each school day.
• Vote On It! Gives kids a chance to say what they think about current issues, then compare their opinions to those of other students across the country. (Over 25,000 classrooms have their own PageOne as of 9/1/99. And the number increases everyday!)
• References and Resources is the classroom’s online reference shelf, including a dictionary, a thesaurus, an online encyclopedia (currently Compton’s Encyclopedia), and other homework and research resources.
• A Password-Protected Environment makes access to a classroom’s Lightspan PageOne available only to students, their families and other invited members of the school community.
  

Your School Online� – is the FREE and easy way for schools to create their own web page and provide ready access to important school news for the community. This two-way communication center increases collaboration among teachers, families, and the school community. Teachers’ classroom resource pages (PageOne) roll into this one site so all information about the school can be accessed from one location with simple point and click technology. No one needs to learn special programming skills to build and maintain this site. Lightspan has created simple to use templates that let you design and personalize the page with ease!

• Easy to use Web site builder – With Lightspan’s easy to use wizard, a step-by-step process that allows teachers to easily and quickly build a web site, creating and updating a web site is a snap!
• Extensive Communication Tools – An extensive set of communication tools, which combine all of the most popular elements of existing school Web sites into one concise point – designed specifically to provide teachers with the ability to reach out to the community and share student achievements and increase parent interaction with the classroom. Schools can post information such as schoolwide news, pictures, and links to community partners; teachers can post homework assignments, classroom news, and spotlight student achievement.
• Multiple Levels of Security – Your School Online includes multilevel security and password protection to give teachers and technology coordinators control over published content.
• Remote Hosting – A school’s Your School Online site is hosted by DIGEX, a commercial web hosting facility, eliminating the need for schools to invest in costly hardware and software.
• Communication Tool – Like schools subscribing to the Lightspan Network, Your School Online schools can offer every member of their school community a personal Lightspan Ed-Mail� account.
• Your School Online services are easy to integrate within a school’s existing Web site or can be used to create a site from scratch.

The Lightspan Network� – For a small annual subscription fee, teachers, students and parents can increase their access to age-appropriate content that is aligned with state and national standards. The largest collection of curriculum-based activities, lesson plans, projects and web links are available at this central location with an easy-to-use search engine. All sites have been reviewed and approved by educators.

• Curriculum Content - The largest collection of curriculum-based activities available on the Web today with professionally designed educational activities in reading, mathematics, writing, vocabulary development and web literacy that align to your state standards.
• Sophisticated Searching - The Lightspan Network makes it even easier to align students’ use of the Internet with curriculum objectives. In addition to the Web reviews (also available in PageOne), teachers have access to hundreds of lesson plans and online activities, and most importantly, all content can be searched by state objective.
• Communication and Reference Tools – Schools subscribing to The Lightspan Network can offer everyone in the school community a free e-mail account through Lightspan Ed-Mail� , plus access to Compton’s Encyclopedia Online� .

SPECIAL NOTE:  To better determine how classroom teachers can use the Lightspan Network as a daily instructional tool, we highly recommend that interested parties arrange for a guided tour of the Lightspan Network. This guided tour will be conducted live and on-line from a remote site at the discretion and initiation of interested school. To arrange for a guided tour, please contact Rob Magliano at 1-888-4-ALL-KIDS extension 8222 or email at [email protected]. Rob is available from 8AM-5PM (Pacific Time) Monday through Fridays.

2. What are the hardware and software requirements for using all the features of the product?

Minimum Clients Specifications for The Lightspan Internet Products:

Hardware	PC Running Windows ‘95/NT	PC Running Windows 3.1
Processor	486/66 Intel or 100% compatible computer	486/66 Intel or 100% compatible computer
Operating System	DOS 5.0 or greater Windows 95 or greater	DOS 5.0 or greater Windows 3.1
Web Browsers and Plug-ins	Netscape Navigator 4.0 Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 (recommended to play Java content) Shockwave Plug-in 5.0 or greater Chat plug-in 2.1 or greater	Netscape Navigator 4.0 Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 Shockwave Plug-in 5.0 or greater Chat plug-in 2.1 or greater
Internet Access	28.8 Modem Internet Connection	28.8 Modem Internet Connection

 

Hardware	MAC Power PC	MAC 68K
Processor	603c minimum (100mhz or higher recommended	68030 minimum (68040 recommended)
Memory	16MB installed RAM minimum Virtual Memory turned on to add more MB RAM for a total of 18 MB RAM	16MB installed RAM minimum Virtual Memory turned on to add more MB RAM for a total of 18 MB RAM
Operating System	System 7.5 or greater	System 7.5 or greater
Web Browsers and Plug-ins	Netscape Navigator 4.0 Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 (recommended to play Java content) Shockwave Plug-in 5.0 or greater Chat plug-in 2.1 or greater	Netscape Navigator 4.0 Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 (recommended to play Java content) Shockwave Plug-in 5.0 or greater Chat plug-in 2.1 or greater
Internet Access	28.8 Modem Internet Connection	28.8 Modem Internet Connection

3. Is remote access included for the subscription price?  If there are additional charges or requirements in order to offer remote access, please describe.   What methods of remote access are supported?

Remote access is included with the subscription price. Subscription price is per school site and remote access is offered to anyone within the "educational community" of that school. In other words, staff, students, and families are authorized to use the Lightspan Network "on" or "off-site" from the school, from any location, for the basic subscription price.

4. Please discuss any methods or assistance you offer regarding remote access patron verification and authentication.

Once the initial access password is assigned, user passwords and management are the responsibility of the subscribing school. We offer management advice to the Lightspan Network Administrator but do not conduct any usage monitoring.

5. What end user delivery options, such as printing, emailing or faxing results, are available beyond just viewing results on the computer monitor?

All sites that can be viewed on a monitor can be printed, bookmarked, or e-mailed for alternate forms of delivery.

6. What customer training is provided, and at what cost?

Obtaining the best results with any new instructional resource depends on appropriate training and support for the teachers using it. Lightspan’s Internet Professional Development is designed to help teachers maximize the impact of Lightspan’s Internet resources on students’ learning and achievement. Professional Development sessions are led by Lightspan Consultants, a national team of experienced classroom practitioners who work on-site with teachers and staff.

The goal of Lightspan’s Internet Professional Development sessions is to create a learning environment in which teachers will gain basic KNOWLEDGE of Internet resources, be able to INTEGRATE these resources into their classroom instruction, and EXTEND theses resources into their school and community, with the overall aim of improving student achievement.

Lightspan’s Internet Professional Development moves teachers, regardless of their level of Internet experience, through the process of knowledge, integration, and extension and provides them with the skills and knowledge needed t maximize the impact of Lightspan’s Internet resources on student achievement.

At the Knowledge level, the instructional process includes:

• Introduction: learning to use comprehensive Web-based resources
• Overview: access to relevant, appropriate Web sites; access to curriculum activities; Alignment of content with state and national standards; demonstration of ways to share lessons and ideas with other teachers; encouragement and opportunities to create family involvement

• Curriculum Content: challenging students with daily curriculum content; find and create links to Web resources that are relevant to current classroom instruction
• Application/Integration: acquire information from Internet resources; assign reading, writing, vocabulary and math activities, aligned to state and national standards; access online lesson plans; prescribe a list of Lightspan activities for use in the classroom or at home.

At the INTEGRATION level, the instructional process includes:

• Research/Information Acquisition: acquiring information from Internet resources, establish links to Web resources that are relevant to current classroom instruction; use interactive online reference tools, such as Compton’s Encyclopedia
• Publishing: acquire information from experts in specific fields of study; motivate students and communicate with families by publishing class projects, writings, and artwork.

At the EXTENSION level, the instructional process includes:

• Communication/Collaboration Projects: give everyone in the school community an email account; use email to improve students’ communication skills; collaborate and participate in email projects; establish dialogue with experts; access to experts in specific fields of study; develop lesson plans to share; collaborate to display work and projects
• Family Connections: access Web tools that enlist family support of schoolwork; assign online curriculum activities for students to complete at home; post information about school events, homework assignments, and class activities; publish student work for families to view; access online professional development resources.

One day of Professional Development services is included with a total purchase that is greater than $15,000. A purchase greater than $30,000 receives two days of Professional Development services for no fee. (These amount can be reached by pooling schools' purchases, with on-site training then provided at a single location all could attend.) A single day of Professional Development services is available for $1150.00.

Large projects, such as statewide implementations and/or train-the trainer approaches will be uniquely calculated. Contact Pat Alexander, Director, Internet Business Development, for more details. (1-888-4-ALL-KIDS ext. 1278 or [email protected].)

7. What customer and technical support is provided, including hours of operation.

Lightspan also offers PartnerLine, toll-free telephone and e-mail customer support, between the hours of 4:30 AM and 8:00 PM (Pacific Time) for the Lightspan Internet services. The PartnerLine annual fee is $500. We offer e-mail customer support for Page One and Your School Online at no charge.

8. Describe the statistics you provide, and discuss whether your statistical reporting complies with guidelines developed by the International Coalition of Library Consortia which may be found at www.library.yale.edu/consortia/webstats.html .

Lightspan can provide statistical analysis of usage of the Lightspan Network either at the school level or by password. In other words, we can provide analysis of overall log-on activity of the Lightspan Network to determine overall rate of usage, or analysis based on usage by password. This second level of analysis is useful in determining rate of usage among teachers, students, or families to get a sense of who is finding value in the Lightspan Network and how it is being used.

9. Describe your pricing structure or formula for the product. If there are additional costs for retrieving full text, describe the pricing for this service. 

PageOne and Your School Online are FREE services to subscribers. Teachers may sign-up on-line for these services at www.lightspan.com   .

The Lightspan Network is a yearly subscription of $2500 per site (regardless of enrollment size) that includes on-site and remote licenses to all school community, including staff, students and parents.

A minimum of one-day comprehensive training is advisable for maximizing the power of these products. (See pricing for Professional Development in item 6.)

10. What is the minimum participation level (however you care to define it) that would be needed to allow participating libraries to receive a discount? What is the minimum discount for a group buy? Please clarify how you would treat existing library customers with regard to a group buy.  

Volume discounts apply to districts or regional areas wishing to purchase 20 or more subscriptions. Purchases must be made at the same time to qualify for the discounts. Depending on the volume, up to a 20% discount could apply. For more details please contact your Lightspan Partnership Director

11.  Please provide name and contact information (toll-free telephone number, e-mail address, hours, etc.) should libraries wish to make further inquires.

For more information please contact Pat Alexander, Director, Internet Business Development, 1-888-4-ALL-KIDS at extension 1278, or e-mail at [email protected]. You will receive a response within 24 hours.

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