www.studysync.com ■ Retail Price: Prices available per student, per year, or as a multi–year bundle.
StudySync, available on McGraw-Hill Education’s ConnectED platform, is an award-winning, comprehensive ELA/ELL curriculum for Grades 6–12.
Quality and Effectiveness: StudySync is packed with digital materials that teachers can assign digitally or project and use alongside student print consumables. The overarching curriculum for each grade level contains four distinct 45-day Core ELA thematic units that consist of a unit overview, detailed day-to-day lesson plans, engaging content-related materials, differentiated access points, scope and sequences, and pacing guides. The unit overview provides teachers with an outline of all the different texts, assignments, vocabulary, skills, and extended projects that are integrated into each unit. Teachers can use their personal dashboards to assign the daily materials—as well as supplemental lessons and ELL materials aligned to the unit—digitally. StudySync also provides teachers with a daily real-world issue and writing prompt. Students read a short background article and respond to the prompt in 140 characters, creating a Twitter-like post. Digital resources, a class poll, and a mystery fun fact related to the topic are all included in “Today’s Blast” to support and broaden student knowledge.
Ease of Use: StudySync has an easy-to-use interface that makes it simple for students and teachers to navigate around the platform. Every unit follows the same layout, so it becomes intuitive in no time. Full text items are available in both ePUB and PDF. StudySync is browser-based, so there are no software downloads to perform. To optimize performance and use of the platform with filtering systems, a list of domains and subdomains to whitelist is available. StudySync requires both teacher and student login, but single sign-on with Google is available by request. StudySync works on Mac or PC with Windows 7+ or OS 10.10+, and with JavaScript and Flash 25+ enabled. StudySync requires Chrome, Safari 9+, Firefox 51+, Edge 13+, or Internet Explorer 11+ and works with iPads running iOS 9 or higher, Android tablets with Android 4.4 2 or higher, and Chromebooks running current Chrome OS. All devices must have Internet access and a minimum screen resolution of 1024 x 768.
Creative Use of Technology: StudySync contains a wealth of digital resources, multimedia components, and built-in tools and features for both students and teachers. From the Twitter-type responses to movie-trailer-style videos, everything is tailored for student relatability and engagement and reflects how students are already interacting with technology. Helpful features such as multi-color annotation, audio text highlight, paragraph numbering, and split-screen mode enable students to interact and learn in this digital environment. Helpful features for teachers include the ability to tailor digital content to meet individual students’ needs and to view content as students see it from their dashboards, as well as the ability to share teacher-created content with colleagues within the platform.
Suitability for Use in a School Environment: StudySync is ad-free and can be used either as a complete ELA/ELL curriculum or to support an existing curriculum. Because the library is cross-curricular, it can be used in a variety of disciplines. Many teachers have students at multiple grade levels, so StudySync gives full access to material for all grade levels and to the extensive digital library. Teachers can customize content and all content is leveled, so every learner—including ELLs, reluctant, and advanced students—is supported. Blast articles are available in three different Lexile®—levels—750L, 980L, and 1120L. Teachers also have real-time monitoring capability to view stats on each student, view assessments, and leave reviews. In addition, teachers can turn on the peer review feature so students can leave reviews on each other’s work.
OVERALL RATING:
The abundance of built-in features and multimedia supports, along with its easy access and interface, make StudySync an excellent choice for schools that want a comprehensive and rigorous ELA/ELL curriculum platform that is also fun and engaging for students.
TOP FEATURES
• Browser-based, easy-to-use interface
• Content is in-depth and rigorous, yet also engaging
• Leveled content supports all student learning levels (with the ability to edit existing content or create new content).
