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jfallon

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  1. I understand your concern with losing personal interaction. I have heard from many parents, however, that their interaction with their children (when it comes to writing) has actually improved. The most common feedback I hear is that discussions about a student's writing becomes a lot less confrontational as the parent is no longer "the bad guy with the red pen" and that focusing on working through a revision plan presented by a third party is more like an editor/writer partnership. Also, we strongly believe that MY Access is NOT meant to replace the teacher, but meant as tool to help with instruction.
  2. You can learn a bit more about Intellimetric, the artificial intelligence engine that runs in MY Access, at http://www.vantagelearning.com/school/products/intellimetric/faq.html
  3. Both iSEEK and Lexipedia are available as free services online. They can be accessed from the main page of MY Access at http://www.vantagelearning.com/login/mahome.html, or individually at: http://education.iseek.com/iseek/home.page http://www.lexipedia.com/ As for the differences between the School Edition and the Home Edition of MY Access!, they really are pretty different. The Home Edition is much more streamlined and a bit easier for a parent as it takes into account that the parent may not be a "classically trained" teacher. It is much more intuitive and strips out a lot of the reporting and assessment that is really meant for use across schools or an entire district. Additionally, the Home Edition includes coursework and activities that are not found in the school edition making it a more complete learning solution. We are currently creating new demos of the home edition to make available on our website, but they are not yet complete. We do, however, have an older one available online that will give you a basic understanding of how the student is guided through the program. To view the demo, please visit http://www.vantagelearning.com/home/demos and select “View Now”. You will be asked supply your name, email address and state. Once you submit this information, select “View Now” again and you will be taken to the demo.
  4. You can find a review from The Oldschoolhouse magazine at http://www.thehomeschoolmagazine.com/Homeschool_Reviews/2168.php Additionally, Sonlight carried the school-based version of MY Access a few years ago, but it was not a great fit as, at the time, it was never designed for home use. Since then, Vantage developed and released the home Edition which was designed specifically for home use based in large part on the feedback from Sonlight users. For full disclosure, I work for Vantage Learning/MY Access and would be happy to answer any questions you may have.
  5. MY Access! Home Edition http://www.vantagelearning.com/home/
  6. Here's a recent newsletter about what a rubric is and how you can use it. It's from MY Access Home Edition (for whom I work) and some of it is geared toward users, but there may be some ideas in here for you to use. http://www.myaccesshome.com/mahome/pages/2008_01_1_mahome.release.html
  7. My dd is also a lefty and did the same thing. She grew out of it on her own by 7 and actually has better handwriting than I do now.
  8. Author Dan Gutman (The Homework machine & My Weird School series) has some tips that I think are pretty good to keep them moving beyond a single thought. You can read them here: http://www.dangutman.com/pages/tips.html or here: http://reach.vantagelearning.com/2008/04/11/tips-for-young-authors-by-dan-gutman/
  9. Try this thread...http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?p=157290
  10. I'm glad I can help, and you are not alone. A lack of confidence in how to teach writing is one of the most common concerns we hear from parents. We do have a number of resources to help you as the teacher by giving you ideas and strategies you can use right away. Within the program, we have links to documents and resources we’ve pulled together to get you started. Additionally, the revision plans that are presented to the students upon scoring are pretty detailed so both you and your child understand what is need to improve and how to go about doing it. Also, as I mentioned in my previous post: The newsletter and community are both designed for parents rather than students as we recognize that not all parents are “trained to teach writingâ€. To give you a sense of the kind of information we are sharing, you can view our most recent newsletters here: January: http://www.myaccesshome.com/mahome/pages/2008_01_1_mahome.release.html February: http://www.myaccesshome.com/mahome/pages/2008_02_1_mahome.release.html As our community grows (it's still fairly new), we'll keep adding tips for you to use in our teaching efforts. With both, we try to respond to some of the most common questions we get from parents. I hope this helps.
  11. The Home Edition now has 90 Prompts as well as the ability to add your own prompts so you can add writing instruction and development into the content areas. We created the Home Edition as we realized the version SL was offering was not meeting homeschooling needs since it was not really designed for home use. We received a lot of feedback from SL users that helped us change the way students interact with the program (most notably by adding courses and exercises as an instructional component) and to add features and functionality more relevant to a parent rather than a school adminitrator. Also, we’ve started sending monthly newsletters to offer strategies for parents to teach writing and to keep students motivated, and launched a community with resources for parents to use in their teaching and a discussion board for exchanging ideas with other users.
  12. We have indeed changed it quite a bit. When Sonlight was offering the program, it was really designed for use in large institutions (schools and districts) but they thought it could apply at home as well. Since that time, we have created the Home Edition which is designed specifically for homeschool use by focusing more on the needs of parents rather than those of a large organization.
  13. We do have a 30 day guarantee so if you try it and don't like it, you can get a refund.
  14. I've recomended MY Access Home Edition (for whom I work) in other threads for teaching children to write. We also have writing instruction programs for adults learners as well including MY Access College Edition and MY Access Professional Edition. We also have writing enhancement software called CorrectEnglish that is more of an everyday writing tool that guides and instructs you as you are righting versus providing actual courses as MY Access does. You can read more about them here: http://www.vantagelearning.com/home/ and here: www.correctenglish.com, or contact me directly with any questions you may have. jfallon@vantage.com
  15. I recently recommended MY Access Home Edition in another thread (http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15143). As I posted there as well, I do work for MY Access. While it guides the student through the writing process and helps them with revision plans and feedback, it also provides tools for parents to help them teach writing. We also send a monthly newsletter via email and host a community site, both of which are designed for parents rather than students to help them teach writing and give them ideas and strategies to keep their children motivated as they learn. You can read more here: http://www.vantagelearning.com/home/products/mahome/
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