wp.pivoted.com/■ Retail Price: Pricing available for single educators, buildings, and districts.
PivotEd partners award-winning Capstone fiction and informational text with interactive technology to create learning experiences that encourage creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking for third-through sixth-graders in 1:1 and blended learning environments.
Quality and Effectiveness: Lessons are linked to over 500 Capstone titles, both fiction and informational texts, covering a variety of topics. Each lesson includes both formative and summative assessment and focuses on reading skills and strategies that align with Common Core and state standards for literacy. Lessons include a number of hands-on activities tied to a Capstone ebook and are checked out individually. After checkout, lessons remain in a educator’s account to be published to students when appropriate.
Ease of Use: Interfaces for both educators and students are clean and easy to navigate, with built-in help. The most helpful resources are written guides, helpful tips, and the large number of video tutorials that walk educators through the product from start to finish. Additionally, optional in-person training and development is available for a fee. The Lesson Library is easy to navigate, as experiences are organized in a number of ways and keyword searching is available.
There are three options for student account creation so that each school or educator can choose the best method for their situation: students can be imported from Google Classroom; accounts can be created without email addresses; or educators can provide students with a educator code to sign up.
Creative Use of Technology: pivotEd is perfect for a blended learning environment, where some work is done online and some offline, as well as for 1:1 classrooms, and it also allows for differentiation as educators can assign different lessons to individuals, groups, or whole classes. Educators set the duration of each learning experience, so it can be set to open only during the class period or for a number of days so students can work at home as well. Educators can also control the pace of each experience by choosing to keep parts locked until all students have reached a certain point or by unlocking them so students can work at their own pace. pivotEd integrates with most device cameras for uploading images.
Suitability for Use in a School Environment: Lessons are educatorled and allow for differentiation based on activity types as well as on the levels of different students and groups. Educators are able to view work in progress, which allows them to adjust their instruction in real time, leading to increased student gains. Students can work independently or in groups to practice language arts skills by writing, drawing, responding to questions and polls, reading text, and taking notes. They can also create and view images, video, word clouds, and graphic organizers, in addition to interacting with peers and educators.
pivotEd gives details for each lesson in the Lesson Library including reading level (Lexile and AR/ATOS), primary language, age group, lesson type, and genre.
OVERALL RATING:
pivotEd is a fantastic resource that provides educators with pre-built lesson sequences to engage and assess student learning in literacy. With over 500 lessons centered around a variety of texts utilizing various forms of assessment, educators will be able to gain a more robust understanding of where students are in their literacy development. The ability to assign different activities to different groups allows educators and students to realize the true benefits of 1:1 and blended learning.
TOP FEATURES
● Selection: With over 500 lessons built on Capstone’s award-winning literature titles, there are lessons appropriate for all students in grades 3–6.
● Ease of Use: The easy-to-navigate interfaces make finding lessons a snap.
● Support: The onsite training and professional development that come with pivotEd subscriptions are invaluable for implementing new technology in the classroom.
