WNYRIC Moves to Schoolwires To Support ePortfolio Initiative

• By Scott Aronowitz
• 12/16/09

The Western New York Regional Information Center (WNYRIC) has selected Schoolwires Synergy as its primary technological solution for mounting its effort to have students maintain, edit, collaborate on, and present their work in ongoing electronic portfolios.

Synergy is Schoolwires' comprehensive, Web-based digital file sharing and management software, which gives users a secure cloud-based solution for creating, editing, and sharing content such as documents, files and presentations. At present, 41 districts served by WNYRIC use Schoolwires' community management platform, Centricity, with which Synergy is already fully integrated.

"Implementing and accessing Synergy will be easy for our districts that are already successfully using the Centricity platform," said Mary Kovach, a technology services coordinator for Erie 1 BOCES/WNYRIC. "The flexibility and full functionality of Synergy will enable districts to build electronic portfolios to track the performance of students from kindergarten through 12th grade. They can also use Synergy as a file-sharing application for students to submit their homework and for teachers and administrators to easily store and share resources."

WNYRIC is the public provider of technological services for five Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) in Western New York and the school districts they serve. BOCES are New York's regional public entities in charge of operating high school-level career training education programs, as well as adult, alternative, teacher training, and technology training programs.