Remember those BASF commercials from the 1990’s? Beautifully filmed, vividly colorful, featuring sets of familiar but incongruous products such as computers, jet skis, carpets, jeans, water bottles, followed by the flashing letters BASF. Then they flashed the taglines: “The spirit of innovation.” Then “we don’t make a lot of the products you use; we make a lot of the products you buy better.”
JFYNet is a lot like BASF. We don’t make any of the products that have produced the remarkable improvements in student achievement in our partner schools. We make those products work better. And we are challenged to compress the JFYNet brand into a single message that incorporates all of what we do and the value we add to our customers by closing their student achievement gaps and creating student-centered pedagogy*, (* is the study of being a teacher or the process of teaching).
Like BASF, JFYNet can be defined by what IT isn’t. “We’re not the hardware people. We’re not the software people.” These products are tools JFYNet uses to provide blended online teaching and learning. JFYNet aggregates many instructional products into a single custom – built Learning Management System (LMS). The LMS platform we use is the open source MOODLE, but we aren’t the “Moodle people” either. Nor are we the MCAS people. We simply believe that as long as there are standards, every child should have the opportunity to meet them, and every teacher should have the tools to teach them. That’s why students in JFYNet classrooms consistently outpace their non-JFYNet peers on standardized performance assessments.
Finally, we are not the “geek squad”. JFYNet’s LMS offers a single login and password to access a comprehensive library of engaging digital material — curricula and lessons, instructional and assessment resources, for teachers to teach and students to learn. There are tasks, such as software installation, class batch enrolling and, password set-up to be done and JFYNet staff assists the schools’ technology staff with those tasks. After initial teacher training days, we are present in classrooms on a regular basis and online to coach teachers in how to integrate the technology resources into effective pedagogy. JFYNet’s year-end surveys indicate increasing acceptance, utilization and satisfaction by teachers every year.
There is a wealth of great products – Sebit’s Adaptive Curriculum, ATI’s Galileo Online, NROC’s Hippo Campus, Pearson’s My Foundations Lab, Houghton Mifflin’s Skills Tutor, Knewton, Promethean Classroom, to name a few. But no one product is comprehensive enough to address the needs of every student in every classroom.
There are several LMS’s – Moodle, Edmondo, Blackboard – and several delivery technologies –desktops, laptops, tablets, Smartboards, Smartphones, JFYNet is adaptable to all of the above, but we don’t make or sell any particular product.
JFYNet’s eclectic approach finds the “best of the best,” aligns it to the prevailing performance standards, and makes it accessible and useable for teachers and students. There are also a number of LMS’ – Moodle, Edmodo, Blackboard, etc.
So what is JFYNet, again? We are a team of implementation professionals dedicated to helping teachers and students use technology as a tool for effective teaching and learning. We implement a proven strategy that produces measureable results. We don’t make technology resources. We make technology resources better by applying them to solving real problems in the real world of the classroom.
It’ not the product; it’s how you use it. That’s the spirit of innovation that defines JFYNet.
~Paula Paris is the Deputy Director of JFYNetWorks
