Houghton Mifflin Targets District Administration with Pinpoint Suite
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 07/05/11
School publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has begun showing an integrated education suite intended to help districts fill gaps in their administrative applications and bring together disparate data. Pinpoint Integrated Education Suite includes programs for learning management, curriculum management, professional development, assessment, analytics, student information management, and grading. The company expects customers to mix and match modules as they need them.
The suite offers features for teachers, administrators, parents, and students. Each user can use single-sign-on to access real-time student and district data, share it, manipulate it, and use whatever content is appropriate for his or her particular role.
Modules include:
- Instruction, which integrates curriculum planning and assessment;
- Online Tutoring, which offers online communication tools for teachers and students, including voice support, an interactive whiteboard, chat, and session recording;
- The Pinpoint Gradebook to enable the user to track and manage classroom data, including grades, attendance, and test scores, through a Web browser;
- Analytics, which combines a data query tool with charting, allowing the user to identify at-risk students, show longitudinal progress across the district or specific schools, view performance of state standards, and identify high and low performing teachers and programs;
- Student Information System, which manages and reports on student data, including attendance, grades, and custom queries;
- Pinpoint Scheduler for setting up a school's classes;
- Professional Development, which provides access to embedded lessons that make up a district's teacher and staff training paths; and
- Teacher Effectiveness, a tool for district administrators to use in evaluating teacher effectiveness and track adherence to district goals and standards.
Pinpoint debuted at ISTE 2011, an education conference that took place last week at the Pennsylvania Conference Center in Philadelphia by the International Society for Technology in Education.
About the Author
Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.