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Alabama School Adopts Social Learning Platform

• By Leila Meyer
• 08/27/12

Central Middle School of Coosa County School District in rural Alabama has implemented a social learning platform and educational resource library.

The school received a technology grant that enabled administrators to purchase laptops, interactive whiteboards, document cameras, and other technology, transforming it into a 1-to-1 campus. However, this infusion of new technology created a new problem of managing content across the many devices. District Technology Director Kevin Thompson began searching for a solution that would solve the problem while keeping the network secure and filtering inappropriate content.

The school was already using the content filtering tool from Lightspeed Systems, and Thompson soon realized that the content filtering tool came with another tool from Lightspeed Systems, called My Big Campus, a solution for K-12 classrooms designed to enable content sharing and collaboration, along with centralized management.

Teachers began using the Educational Resource Library of My Big Campus to incorporate the educational videos they found online into their classroom teaching and share them with other teachers. The teachers also used My Big Campus to access additional videos shared by other teachers across the country and to create class pages where they could post assignments and discussion questions and students could collaborate on assignments.

Students responded well to the implementation, particularly the online assessment feature, which provided them with immediate feedback on quizzes and motivated them to achieve higher scores, according to a statement released by Lightspeed.

My Big Campus also allows parents to log on to see their children's work, which has increased parental involvement in the district, according to the company.

Coosa County School District is located in central Alabama, southeast of Birmingham. The district is home to one elementary, one middle, and one high school.

Further information about My Big Campus is available on the Lightspeed Systems site.