This is the most exciting and challenging time to work in education in the past century. It’s challenging because the methods of schooling honed over the past 100 years do not provide students with the skills they need to compete in the global economy. But it’s exciting because developments in connectivity hold the promise of replacing these approaches with advances that make individualized learning truly possible for the first time in human history.
The transition between these two worlds requires talented educational leaders who can meld together visionary plans with real change management for their schools and communities. BrightBytes is a company which provides essential tools that advance the work of these educational innovators.
BrightBytes: Improving the Way the World Learns
With a mission to improve the way the world learns through the use of data, BrightBytes gathers ideas from the best experts in the world and creates evidence-based frameworks that are combined with data from schools, providing clients the tools to understand and quickly improve student learning outcomes.
In an industry overwhelmed by DRIP syndrome (data rich, information poor), BrightBytes goes to great lengths to provide educators across school, district, and state levels, with personalized and research-driven insights, resources, and support material at each data point. Educators not only see the data in an educative and engaging format, but they also know what actions to take to address any gaps or challenges within their personalized results.
Rob Mancabelli: A Veteran Educator
Rob Mancabelli, the Brightbytes Co-founder & Chief Strategy Officer, is an educator with over fifteen years of experience in schools. Rob is an internationally known speaker, writer, and consultant on educational innovation. He’s the co-author of the book Personal Learning Networks (2011), sits on the advisory board of Education Week magazine and has an MBA from MIT.
The Seven Modules
Mancabelli, a veteran educator himself, aspired to address different challenges educators face with each unique module available on the Clarity platform.
He explains, the first module, Technology & Learning measures the impact of school technology on student learning. It works to narrow the new digital divide and provide fast actionable solutions for more impactful implementation and improved fund allocation.
The Digital Privacy, Safety & Security module, created in partnership with iKeepSafe,™ gives districts the capability to strike the right balance between achieving technology goals and fulfilling privacy and security responsibilities.
The Early Warning and Intervention modules, formed through a partnership with Mazin Education,™ uses predictive analytics to identify at-risk students early based on student-and building-specific triggers. The dropout prevention system identifies students at risk of dropping out as early as first grade, with 90% accuracy. After identification, the modules help connect students with the right support systems, and monitors the success of students within those programs.
Leadership, the fifth module on the Clarity platform, was built in partnership with McREL International. This module helps district leaders understand which initiatives have the greatest impact on the learning process, and whether school leaders are adequately empowered to drive those initiatives.
The 21st Century Service Agency module informs service agencies where they stand in terms of technology readiness, and delivers personalized recommendations for improvement.
Finally, the Financial Transparency module makes it easy for the public to understand revenues and expenditures by organizing and comparing spending throughout schools across the state. Community members can use this knowledge to have informed conversations and ignite change.
Providing Research and Action Plans
Many companies offer dashboards of educational data, but those products fail to transform that information into decisions. The BrightBytes platform provides educators with research frameworks that select only the data linked to improved student outcomes. It then identifies strengths and gaps in those frameworks, and offers insights into how to improve, using specific examples from real schools. This combination of research and action plans set the platform apart from every other offering.
The complex predictive-analytics platform and its research-based content are the product of the combined efforts of the BrightBytes Labs, the research engine behind Clarity, and the BrightBytes team. Together, mission-driven school practitioners, designers, engineers, and visualization experts join forces with statisticians, analysts, researchers, and thought leaders from top institutes to power and inform the seven modules of Clarity.
BrightBytes plans to continue their process of creating products that address issues that arise in the K-12 educational sector. The organization is set to expand their product lines and sales teams, across the US and internationally.
www.brightbytes.net
