Colabrify.IT

The Problem

The school district’s primary responsibility is to ensure students meet the curriculum benchmarks dictated by their state departments of education. However, meeting this responsibility is becoming more difficult in the face of the following trends:

Textbooks, teachers’ trusty curricular guides, are, for all intents and purposes, history.
Whether provided by the school (e.g., Chromebooks) or via BYOD – Bring Your Own Device – 1:1, where each and every learner has his or her own computing device, is fast becoming the new normal.
But, as many schools are stuck in “PDF World” – essentially just reading a textbook on a computer – the curriculum they are providing does not engage their students and does not take advantage of the computing devices in the hands of each and every student.

NOT the Solution

Teachers are spending countless hours a week searching for lessons on Internet sites; then, they are, in effect, being asked to stitch those 1-3 day, supplementary lessons, into a 180-day, comprehensive, coherent, cohesive curricular experience. This transitional solution is not effective, desirable nor sustainable!

The Collabrify.IT Solution

Building on the proven science curriculum published by J.M. LeBel Publishers, Collabrify.IT provides schools and teachers with comprehensive, semester-long digital science curricula for 1:1 classrooms. Using a “blended learning model”, Collabrify.IT’s science curricula (e.g., chemistry, environmental science, earth science) is correlated to state benchmarks, is straightforward to implement and teachers can use it as is or readily adapt/expand/augment it. Here are some unique benefits of Collabrify.IT’s fully digital solution:

For students: Drawing on the well-respected texts produced by J.M. LeBel Publishers our digital curriculum is anchored in scope-and-sequenced, vetted curriculum. Students complete all their assignments using their computing devices and using the apps embedded in the digital curriculum. Most excitingly, the resources in our digital curriculum go beyond what can be offered in a paper-based textbook; virtually any resource available on the Internet can be added to the lessons: simulations, videos, tutorials, dedicated-content websites! And the assignments – the learning activities – that employ those rich and varied resources leverage the computing devices in the students’ hands, e.g., students can use Collabrify.IT’s “collabrified” apps - apps that support students collaborating synchronously - to co-create or co-edit text documents, concept maps, animations, etc.
For teachers: Among the many benefits of a truly digital curriculum, Collabrify.IT’s apps automatically grade student quizzes and provide a range of learning analytics (e.g., time-on-task, participation level) and thus enable teachers to quickly see how their students are performing. Most importantly, our digital curriculum can be easily modified by teachers so they can include their favorite assignments and resources.