This site provides great ideas on how to implement Study Island in the classroom. It is a blog entry completed by a Study Island representative for Kentucky schools. They give great ideas on how to track student progress and ideas for where to place computers in the classroom. They highlight the fact that computer access is a huge component of implementing Study Island successfully. A computer lab in the school is the absolute bare minimum required in order to use Study Island.
This provides a pdf of a case study that focuses on the effects of Study Island in various Ohio school districts. This was conducted by a professional research team- Magnolia Consulting. It highlights the gains of 3 different school districts. Each school has had significant success with Study Island. I was pleased to see that each school district represents a different demographic- suburban, urban and rural. Within each school district, they include graphs to indicate the impact Study Island use has made.
ABC news conducted a story on Study Island and how local schools were implementing it in order to improve test scores. It gives a basic layout as to how the program works, and provides some great screen shots of the site.
This site provides a great segment on how Study Island supports ideas of No Child Left Behind. NCLB is research driven, and dependent of data. Study Island runs of os similar values, as highlighted in this article.
I also referred to the actual Study Island website for information. They offer pricing tables, and specifics on their program for each state. The offer training tips, success stories, and video tutorials specific for the state of Ohio.
What I Learned Through This Search Process
I began my search by referring to the article on Study Island in the current issue of Tech & Learning. This article didn't necessarily provide information that I could use in my project, but it was a great first step. I dropped the names of researchers that have studied Study Island, which was a great help. I then googled the name of the lady that conducted a study and found a great article. This is how I stumbled across Magnolia Consulting. They offer case study results for most of the states that utilize Study Island. I was happy to have found that so quickly. From there I continued to wander off of links that I visited, hoping they would lead me to more resources. I have not practiced this technique in the past, but I found it very valuable. Being able to hop from one page to links that they had provided was great. I trusted many of the sites I went to, and in return trusted the reliability of the links they provided on their page. The "hopping from link to link" strategy really worked for me.
Being able to use names and cases from an actual article gave me some direction as to where to look. I was able to search with a purpose instead of wandering the internet blind. Using key words is also hard to master. I looked to include words such as "implementation" and "case study" in my searches in hopes it would narrow my results.
It is often frustrating to look for quality research. I was lucky to have found what I did so easily. I am a bit embarrassed to admit I used google for my search. I often tell my students to shy away from that, as it is a daunting task to weed through and find something reliable within the list of search results. Yet, I used it myself. Thanks to Tammy, I was referred to the Tech & Learning article. If I had not started with that site, I would have rather began with an article database such as EBSCO or Academic Search Complete. Unlike the internet, I can trust that they provide articles from professional journals, books and magazines. I know they are reliable sources.
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