What exactly IS the New York Learning Network and why does Nassau BOCES partner with this group?  

All K-12 LMSs were investigated by a team of Nassau BOCES administrators during the start-up phase of the Center for Online Learning (COL).  Final candidates included BUZZ, Brightspace, Canvas and Schoology.  BUZZ was chosen for the following reasons:

1.  Agilix was the most well-established provider.

2.  Its system was powerful both for operability and student data.

3.  Cost

4.  Most importantly, CONTENT

The goal of the New York Learning Network is to create and purchase content and services that can be shared throughout New York State.  Since its inception, local BOCES have employed New York State teachers to build content in a manner that they would like to see content provided for their classrooms.  With the infusion of vendor content that is editable to supplement teacher-created materials, this provides a strong cache of live curriculum housed within a powerful LMS.

The Nassau BOCES Center for Online Learning  (COL) has already built fully-functional domain infrastructures for all districts on Long Island, including subdomains for each district building.  With a single training session, the COL team will train your district tech team on how to bulk import all administrators, teachers, and students as users into their proper domains.  Thus, any Long Island district can have access to a fully-functional system ready for teacher training within a 2-3 day period.

For more information, please contact:

Elisa A. Maggi, Supervisor

emaggi@nasboces.org

(516) 608-6638

The goal of participation in the NYLN is for each district to have control over its own domain, including Level 1 tech support.  Through its blended PD format, training of district tech teams will include access to a cache of tutorials that can be referenced at any time.  Nassau BOCES will provide Level 2 tech support for needs beyond district tech teams.  OHM BOCES will provide Level 3 support and Agilix will provide Level 4.  In all, a solid hierarchy of support is available to meet individual user or district tech team needs. 

Content is key to the adoption of any LMS.  The following content is already included in the OHM Learning Network's domain infrastructure and is available for all participating districts for the 2022-23 school year.

Lincoln Learning K-12 Full Course Content:  The NYSLN has partnered with Lincoln Learning, a high-end K-12 virtual course developer to offer its full catalog of K-12 courses at for the 22-23 school year at a cost of $25/student.   Browse its 170+ course catalog here. Courses contain full instructional materials and are crafted to work with students remotely.  Courses are aligned to New York State Standards and can be translated/narrated in multiple languages.

OHM BOCES Blended Content: including a full assessment suite.  Math and ELA are enhanced versions of the Engage NY modules.  K-12 Social Studies includes a full-year course meant to be utilized in a blended setting.  (See list of OHM content. )

Assessment Suite: (Assessment suite is part of a combined content/assessment package). Access a full assessment suite, including past New York State regents exams.  Assessments can be imported into courses as a whole or by choosing individual questions.  All assessments are aligned to New York State Standards.  Some assessments contain feedback videos targeting right/wrong answer choices.  (See a listing of available assessments here.)

Teacher Created Content: Teachers have the option of creating courses from scratch or creating hybrid courses based on a combination of vendor-based and teacher-created content.   

Master Courses and Course Derivative System:  Through its powerful course sharing options, Master Courses can be created at the regional, district, or building level and can then be personalized on an individual basis.  All derivative copies will have live updates through the connected Master Course.

Integration with 3rd Party Apps:. It has open LTI compatibility to link 3rd party applications similar to other LMS systems.

Available at an additional cost: (See pricing sheet)

Lincoln Learning K-12 Full Course Content:  Browse its 170+ course catalog here. Courses can be purchased on an individual basis for those districts not subscribing for the full student population as listed in the section above.  All courses contain full instructional materials and are crafted to work with students remotely.  Courses are aligned to New York State standards and can be translated/narrated in multiple languages.

eDynamic Learning Elective and CTE Courses: All online courses include next-generation instructional design, professional audio narrations, and engaging interactive activities. No external textbooks required.  Full Course Catalog. 

NYSNL platform is completely integrated with Google GSuite.  Users can easily create new documents, locate and submit already created documents, and use previously created GSuite Templates for submission.  All permissions are maintained and updated, giving teachers automatic access when submissions are done.   Courses cannot be directly imported from Google Classroom, 

More information can be found here:  https://support.agilix.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000875563-How-do-I-create-a-Google-Doc-activities-in-Buzz- 

NYSNL platform has an extensive assessment tool supporting a large number of question types, auto scoring, data analytics, and district wide assessing.  The assessment tool automatically rolls up district wide data and allows for individual sums at building level breaks.  There are 7 additional reports to export the data for further manipulation by various tools.  

NYSNL platform is written in Angular with the latest in Material Design to ensure content created will play as intended on multiple devices.  Available to assist in creating responsive content include Content Templates and Assessment Templates.  By using these tools to correctly create your content, we believe that it will play well on a variety of smaller form factors without the need of creating separate apps for different operating systems using different coding languages in a hope that they will all function the same.  In most instances, the content simply will not play the same via apps as they are not build using the same tools.  The NYSNL platform prefers to make the base solution as modular as possible following industry standard Material design requirements and cross platform friendly Angular as our code base.  

NYSNL platform includes the ability to create emails to different users in the system.  We believe there are sufficient email solutions, so all emails go to the email address of record for the user.  Discussion boards, journals, and other areas of the system can be used to communicate, especially when used with small or individual groups.   

NYSNL platform supports the creation of domain wide badges as well as course-specific badges.  Badges can be granted automatically when the course is complete, when a play list is completed, or when a single learning activity is completed.  Badges can also be granted at anytime by a teacher based upon observations and citizenship through the Clipboard.   

NYSNL platform supports PBL.  We have listed the leaders in this space, like New Tech Network, to create the right solution.  The platform includes: 

• Multiple scoring buckets for each assignment 
• Alignment to objectives and over-arching 21st Century College and Career ready outcomes 
• Automatic Group Creation 
• Group Submission 
• Peer Review  

Same as above, NYSLN is uniquely positioned to maintain their content collection just like any other publisher.  Content can be maintained by all the publishers who simply release their updates and all licensed users get those updates without doing anything.  Maintain it once, and all derived copies are updated.   

NYSNL platform uses a robust API solution to create integrations between SIS and Buzz.  Generally these integrations can be automated for course, enrollment, and user creation through a statement of work.  CSV files are also supported to create the same course, enrollment and user information in Buzz.  We are currently writing the specifications for a more generalized IMS OneRoster which is slated for the end of the year.   

NYSLN has established relationship with online publishers.  These publisher’s courses can be used as whole courses or individual units or activities can be brought into existing courses.  The platform also provides access to Open Education Resources like Khan Academy, Open Education Resources, and other free content.   

Course can be easily shared among districts and school buildings so that you don’t have to create things twice.  More information can be found here: https://support.agilix.com/hc/en-us/articles/206143056-How-do-Master-and-Derivative-Courses-work-, and https://support.agilix.com/hc/en-us/articles/207738953-How-do-I-add-content-from-the-Digital-Library- 

$0 Included in the license 

Dawn Professional Development Platform:

As part of the PD offering, NYSLN can offer the Dawn Professional Development platform.  Dawn is mobile first, video centric, social learning tool with coaching, progress tracking and certifications.  A teacher can follow along on their phone, pausing the video to try it on the platform, and rewind if necessary to review.  Dawn will cover the learning platform, student, teacher, and authoring courses. 

Nassau BOCES BUZZ Professional Development

Professional Development for domain administrators, teachers and students is a snap through blended and virtual learning opportunities.  Nassau BOCES will provide (2) webex training to district domain administrators and turn-key trainers who will guide teacher implementation utilizing video tutorials and guides.  See examples of online PD resources below:

Teacher and Student Quick-Start Video-based Tutorials

BUZZ Educator's Corner

BUZZ Student's Corner

Basic PD Cost as stated above is included in license. 

Additional district-based PD at normal Model Schools PD rate

The NYSNL platform has many benefits that are unique.  A list of several is below:  

• Price: All the features of the LMS are included in the license fee.  There are no separate charges or hidden fees.  What others sell as advanced features are included by default in the NYSNL platform. 
• Localizability:  Buzz is designed to support international markets and has already been localized into 18 languages with customers in more than 50 countries.  
• Powerful Assessment System:  Including assessment templates, formative assessments, and support for assessment items banks, randomization, data analytics and roll up, etc.   
•  Pre-diagnostics: Formative assessments allow students to “test out” of concepts they already know. 
• Sophisticated Gradebook: SpeedGrader, Bulk Update, Spreadsheet entry, etc.  Provides a comprehensive view of student progress and powerful tools for tracking, reporting, and notifying students of their status 
• Grouping: Students can be grouped by readiness to support accelerated learning, remediation, special education and differentiated instruction. 
• Digital Library: We support content from leading publishers to provide the best learning content for each student based upon their needs. 
• Domain Management: Our flexible hierarchical domain management system supports many different school configurations, yet can inherit the basic configuration from the parent domain. 
• Configurable: User Experience “switches” to turn on/off program functionality (based on user needs and experience) 
• Customer Library:  User configurable collection of documents for running the organization, onboarding new staff, and policies and procedures.   

Prices below are in addition to the Nassau BOCES COL subscription fee and an administration fee (15%)