Supporting Student Success with SOLO 6: A New SET-BC School Support Project
SET-BC is excited to be supporting classroom teachers employing personalized learning (21st century) strategies and resources (www.personalizedlearningbc.ca) that utilize technologies to integrate students into the classroom environment and provide access to their curriculum.
SOLO 6
Solo 6 is a literacy suite of popular assistive technology supports: bundled within the software is a text reader, graphic organizer, talking word processor, and word prediction (Don Johnston Inc, 2012). This software is a valuable support for students’ reading, studying and writing in the classroom environment.
A Success Story
Birchland Elementary School in Coquitlam has recently highlighted the success SOLO 6 has had in impacting school wide student achievement. Birchland has attributed their school wide success with assistive technology integration as stemming from their participation in the SET-BC Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Project. The principles of UDL encourage classroom differentiation through the provision of multiple means of representation, multiple means of engagement and multiple means of expression (Cast, Inc, 1999-2011). Following their participation in the project, the school acquired a school license for SOLO 6, and integrated it into each of their school classrooms. The school staff report: “We finally felt we were able to deliver what UDL truly called for.” Classroom teachers utilized the tool in their instruction and allowed ALL students access to the software as they engaged in curricular tasks throughout the day. The school has reported significant gains in reading and writing achievement, decreased negative behavior and an overall increase in student engagement (Birchland Elementary School Report, 2011).
Project Outline
SET-BC has provided an unlimited site license for SOLO 6 to 12 participating project teams across British Columbia. Project teams consist of a classroom teacher and a willing support (resource) teacher. Each classroom also received a number of additional technologies (e.g. laptops, projector and/or smart board) to assist the teacher in achieving effective implementation. Participating teachers will be documenting their experiences on the project on the SOLO 6 Community Blog. To view or follow the SOLO 6 Blog click here. Project teams will be supported by provincial SET-BC consultants throughout the 2012-2013 school year.
April 19th 2012 |
Project application deadline |
April 23-27th 2012 |
Project Collaborative Action Plan meetings |
May 3rd 2012 |
Full day training on SOLO 6 |
June 2012 |
1 hour follow-up session, debrief and goal setting for 2012-1013 |
September 2012 |
1.5 hour training (refresher) on SOLO 6 and goal setting (online) |
October-May 2012/2013 |
Monthly 1 hour collaboration meetings (online) |
June 2013 |
1 hour debrief (online) and summative report due |
October 19, 2012 |
SOLO 6 Project Training/Collaboration Day |
September ‘13 – June ‘14 |
School-based train the trainer activities take place |