About SchoolKiT

The Leader in 21st Century Teaching and Learning

SchoolKiT is a leading provider of technology integration curriculum software and online and in-person professional development services.

In 1996, education systems and their key stakeholders were demanding that technology be better integrated through all curriculum learning areas to improve student achievement. While schools had invested in technology, many were not realizing an educational return on their investment. That year, SchoolKiT was founded and the first version of the edClass product was released. By providing classroom-ready activities, edClass provided an immediate pay-off for schools: teachers eagerly applied the activities to integrate technology in a meaningful way and achieve the desired learning outcomes. Recognizing edClass' capacity to support quality teaching within school improvement processes, the Teacher Leadership Program, administered by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, incorporated the product into its initiatives making it available to over 1000 schools across the US.

By 2000, in addition to individual teachers and schools, entire school districts were purchasing this early version of the edClass product to support cohesive systemic school improvement processes. Building upon the success of edClass, and looking toward the enterprise client, SchoolKiT acquired a specialist professional development company and built its professional services division. Today SchoolKiT delivers online professional development via its scalable pdPoint product and complements this with in-person integration and product training.

In December 2001 the signing of the No Child Left Behind Act in the US strengthened the position of SchoolKiT. The act made it necessary for school districts to deliver cohesive professional development programs and to measure the results. Designed from the ground up as a district enterprise solution, pdPoint not only provides quality courses to teachers, it also provides the management and reporting tools administrators must have to meet these new requirements.

Today, SchoolKiT's products form an enterprise solution that is used by schools, districts and states wanting to achieve both systemic change across organizational levels and an immediate payoff on their investment in technology. Focusing on the meaningful integration of technology to enhance learning, edClass provides classroom-ready student learning modules and pdPoint provides ongoing teacher professional development. As a result, schools using our solutions successfully embed technology into their instructional design and classroom practice to improve student achievement.

SchoolKiT is committed to helping educators and students learn and grow with the technology of today and be prepared for the technology of tomorrow. Our products are available and are used across the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

What We Believe About Learning

SchoolKiT delivers a suite of products and services that support schools as they continue to redefine teaching and learning in this age of information and communication. First and foremost, we are interested in the process of learning and the support and management of systemic school improvement.

This section briefly discusses some of the core beliefs that underpin our work at SchoolKiT. We begin with a look at general directions in education, progress to changes in curriculum and then list the 'qualities of learning' that necessarily infuse our design processes.

Directions in Education
This is an exciting era for education. To a large degree, what is best for us as individuals is also wanted for us by society, and is needed from us by the new economy. To participate and contribute fully today and into the future, students must be lifelong learners. They must possess the attitudes and skills necessary to plan and direct their own learning, to collaborate extensively with others, to learn when need arises, and to transform their own belief systems and behavioral patterns.

Continually changing, today's schools seek to present learning environments and experiences that will enable students to become lifelong learners. In attempting to foster the requisite initiative and autonomy, we know that how a person learns at school will be at least as important, if not more important, than what he or she learns. This shift in focus is evident in three fundamental areas: Engagement, Interaction, and Thinking.

The shift in emphasis in Engagement has been from students completing pre-defined tasks because they are compelled to do so, towards learners mindfully constructing knowledge as they pursue their goals. We usually describe this as a shift from extrinsic to intrinsic engagement.

The shift in emphasis in Interaction has been from students passively receiving information and corrective reinforcement to students actively participating and collaborating in the learning process.

The shift in emphasis in Thinking has been from students memorizing facts and behaviors to students dealing creatively and analytically with ideas and generating personal knowledge.

SchoolKiT products and services are designed to support schools as they move along the continua of increasing higher-order Thinking and learner-centered Interaction and Engagement.

What does this have to do with Technology?
Humans drive change and do so through innovation. As we continue to shape our world with new technologies, so too must we use these technologies as a catalyst and vehicle for continuous school improvement. Schools maintain relevance with developments in society not by introducing computer skills as curriculum, but by assimilating information and communication technologies into the learning environment and across the curriculum. As SchoolKiT, we recognize two complementary imperatives.

The medium is digital; there are new things to learn. Digital technologies will be the normal way that our students will access information, share their thoughts, and hope to influence others throughout their lives. The medium presents dynamic and layered ways to convey meaning and so we must revisit what it means to be literate and infuse our curriculum with new notions of information literacy.

The medium is digital; there are new ways to learn. In the extended learning environment, we can access information that was previously out of reach and interact with information in ways that were not possible. Students can, for example, discuss the outbreak of a new virus with an overseas scientist and model its spread and distribution patterns using a computer simulation to predict future events. Many of the most powerful conditions for learning, such as context specific feedback and creative control can be made more available through computing technologies.

We successfully create new learning environments, experiences and expectations when we give technology to students such that they can use it to seek information, analyze and create information, collaborate, add value, and, ultimately, create their own information products and tools. Technology itself is not the solution, it simply provides opportunities and potential. It is up to learners, teachers and students alike, to act as critical users of technology, selecting and exploiting the facilities that truly enhance their learning.

With these factors in mind, SchoolKiT has built its products by:

1. Identifying the qualities of learning that can effectively foster lifelong learning.
2. Creating resources and services that facilitate these qualities in today's classrooms.

Qualities of Learning
At SchoolKiT, we believe that the qualities of learning listed below should be fostered in classrooms that seek to develop lifelong learners. With these qualities in mind, we design resources that are pedagogically sound and open-ended so that good teachers can use them to create quality learning experiences for their students.

• Adaptive Learning. Each individual is different and brings a unique set of experiences and attributes to the learning setting. Adaptive learning environments accommodate and respond to a wide range of individual differences.
• Authentic Learning. Authentic learning is the thinking about and acquisition of knowledge through experience in settings that would normally involve such knowledge and cognitive processing.
• Autonomous Learning. An autonomous learner assumes responsibility for, and initiates, guides and monitors his or her own learning, drawing upon human and physical resources as required.
• Collaborative Learning. In a collaborative learning environment, students work together in positive interdependence to collect and exchange knowledge, receive feedback, and gain insight into the ways others think about, approach and solve problems.
• Constructive Learning. Recognizing that the learner interprets experiences to construct a personally meaningful internal representation of knowledge, constructive learning environments emphasize students generating and developing ideas and knowledge rather than absorbing pre-constructed packages of information.
• Contextual Learning. Meaning is negotiated in a manner that recognizes the essentially contingent nature of knowledge. Context provides a framework for learning, enabling the learner to employ their existing knowledge to interpret and understand new information.
• Discursive Learning. The discursive process (dialogue) provides opportunities for logical disputation, engagement with meaning, perspective, and interpretation that cannot be achieved experientially, and a level of responsiveness and feedback that cannot be had any other way.
• Creative Learning. A creative learning environment enables learners to work in imaginative ways to associate ideas, generate new ideas, and invent their own internal and external representations of ideas.
• Liberating Learning. A liberating learning environment should empower the learner and the learner should be free to fully participate as himself or herself.
• Higher-Order Thinking. Higher-order thinking emphasizes cognitive tasks such as the analysis of, and synthesis of knowledge in order to form new understandings.
• Reflective Learning. Reflection requires learners to examine the reasoning behind and to assess the validity of their own interpretations, conclusions and opinions. In many ways, reflective learning can be considered an aspect of higher-order thinking. We separate this quality of learning in order to emphasize the importance of metacognition and self-awareness.