Transforming Data into Decisions
Finally, a simplified yet powerful solution has been found for complex district reporting needs. Excelsior Software's Pinnacle Insight is a tool that allows schools and districts alike to quickly and easily customize and distribute parsed data at all levels. With Pinnacle Insight, school districts now have the ability to become their own data reporting warehouse, eliminating the need for expensive, inefficient data warehouse systems.
The Focus is on Learning
For data-driven help geared specifically to student learning, many districts are turning to technology-based tools that gather data about student progress while offering direct instruction, assessment and remediation, which allows for comparisons and trend analysis as well as tracking of individual students' progress.
The best technology systems also offer tools for communicating with parents, administrators and other stakeholders. The foundational concept must be to make the right data available, to the people who need it, by their preferred method, at the right time.
As a complementary application to the Pinnacle Suite, Pinnacle Insight allows both individual schools and entire districts to query data that has been collected across multiple years and across all campuses and classrooms -- and to share those findings with all of their stakeholders in order to improve instructional practices and help their students succeed.
The Tower of Babel Problem
Although the typical educational enterprise has access to overwhelming quantities of data on which to base decisions, the problem is that these databases don't talk to each other, and are not agile enough to provide real-time answers to the questions educators need to know.
The holy grail of information management is to put in place systems and procedures that gather pertinent data regarding performance of all parts of the system, and provide analysis that informs decision-makers about how they can do more with less. The decision-maker with the greatest ability to increase student achievement is the teacher. The system must be designed to provide the teacher with a clear picture of progress toward learning goals and how to improve, by using technology that provides frequent and encouraging feedback.
Pinnacle Insight not only allows users to connect to Pinnacle system data, but it will gather information from any additional ODBC compliant data source as well. Additional data sources may include the student information system, curriculum management system, state or district assessment data, back-office enterprise systems or any other type of data that will help administrators see a clearer, broader picture of their school or district.
Benefiting from the Tests
Unless the feedback we receive from mandated testing is put to good use in shaping student learning, we will have missed the point entirely. It is important for districts to find the right tools that allow them to analyze the results in a meaningful way. Among the important questions that need to be asked as we analyze student performance data:
- What are the strengths and weaknesses of each of the students? What is their educational history? Are there learning style or family issues that affect their performance?
- What learning opportunities are being provided to students and how does that appear to be impacting achievement?
- For which students are current practices working? For which students must other approaches be tried?
- For which students is there a large discrepancy between their performance on and off tests? What sorts of test-taking skills can we teach those for whom the test seems to be the problem?
- Which students are at risk across the board?
- Which teachers are most effective? What materials do they use? What training have they taken?
- How can we facilitate the sharing of ideas so that teachers who experience success in a particular area can help others meet similar challenges?
- What is the relationship of dollars spent to student achievement?
- What other information is available to guide classroom decisions based on student performance?
Data-Mining Made Simple
Excelsior's Pinnacle Insight does all of this without the cumbersome limitations of traditional data warehousing solutions for a fraction of their cost. Instead, Pinnacle Insight uses a state-of-the-art technology called Data Cloud™, allowing multiple users to simultaneously connect to multiple data sources that may all reside in different locations. The tool then allows a user to, on-the-fly, point and click their way to the data that they would like to see in either a desktop or browser environment.
On-the-fly Data Parsing
Data Cloud™ technology allows users to improvise and quickly make changes to a report without making physical changes to the interface or the reporting process. Pinnacle Insight provides a multitude of data parsing options that any user can customize without the need to modify the actual data structure. Pinnacle Insight uses a patented technology -- Associative Query Logic™ (AQL™) -- enabling Pinnacle Insight to work with millions of records and still respond to on-the-fly queries in less than a second. High-speed associations occur as the user clicks in the various chosen data objects, and the display is immediately updated.
The bottom line -- your district will be able to swiftly and easily determine what its strengths and weaknesses are and ensure that every child is given opportunities to fulfill their learning potential. The 21st Century has brought with it the technology to turn our education system from simple schools into learning powerhouses. All you need is the vision to do so.
Job Embedded Professional Development
Pinnacle Insight assists educators in learning how to analyze the data available to them. Such analysis is key to the success of a comprehensive learning platform. With the right technology, educators can pose and receive answers to a variety of significant questions:
- How do we learn to see patterns that can inform our choices about curriculum and instruction?
- What information do we track and how do we use it to improve?
- How do we determine when and how to analyze the data?
- How do we share this information with our teachers so they can use it to improve?
Pinnacle offers a student centric differentiated learning solution which includes SIS, performance based scheduler, curriculum, assessments, collaboration, longitudinal data analytics, professional development, supplemental education, and parent portal. Most of these programs can be funded through ARRA education stimulus fund.
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