The Royal Treatment

eInstruction makes eClassrooms for eEducators.
Steve Kaye eInstruction President Interviewed by Ken Royal for District Administration Magazine
 
Steve Kaye is president of eInstruction. Kaye was (before the acquisition) Interwrite Learning’s co-president and CEO.

DA: “Steve, can you give me an overview of eInstruction and what you have to offer K12 education?”

Steve Kaye: “eInstruction is really a team of both technologists and educators. There’s a general movement in education to upgrade the classroom. eInstruction does this in a user friendly way, allowing teachers to use digital resources in their classrooms in an interactive, collaborative and engaging fashion. And at the same time use technology to capture feedback from students in real time, through the use of our student response system.”

DA: “Yes, that real-time feedback is important. What separates your system from other response system providers?”

SK: “I think the difference of what we are doing over the other folks in the assessment market is that our system is specifically geared to be used every day as an instruction and assessment tool. It’s meant to be embedded in the daily instructional routine of a teacher. It’s not once a month, or a few times a semester — taking students down to a computer lab. Our system is intended to be used every single day for real-time feedback, and in that way instruction can be adjusted quickly. Every student has an individual voice and the teacher can make sure that each student can be attended to — so educators can provide differentiated instruction, and it’s done in a whole classroom environment.”

DA: “Right, I noted this viewing your online demonstration at the eInstruction site. And yes, most schools today either have, or are working toward getting that teacher station machine, so these possibilities can happen.”

SK: “It’s true, that in order to use our solution, schools and districts do not have to re-architect their technology. We pretty much dovetail into an existing classroom as long as the teacher has a PC and projector. That’s the only infrastructure needed to fully utilize our system, so it’s quite cost effective.”

DA: “Steve, where is this happening?”

SK: “We’re deployed in both K12 as well as higher education classrooms around the world. We have about 325,000 classrooms installed in about 40 countries, and our system is available in 41 languages. We address the global marketplace through sales partners.”

DA: “Steve, can you give me an example of eInstruction partners?”

SK: “In the U. S. we have independent representatives and also sell through educationally focussed resellers. We also have a corporate relationship with Dell as an authorized eInstruction partner.
And since we have two companies that have just come together — eInstruction and Interwrite Learning — I’m really speaking of the combined solutions of the two companies.”

DA: “Can you speak to the direction of the company? For instance Interwrite had an interactive writing pad and eInstruction has the slate.”

SK: “Yes, Interwrite Learning was more focused on the interactive part — interactive whiteboards and wireless teaching slates — actually Interwrite Learning invented the wireless slate — and of course eInstruction is focused more on the SRS (Student Response System) or formative assessment side. But when you get in the classroom the interactive instruction and the formative assessment are all being used in the same breath, if you will. So, they’re a perfect match for each other, and that’s one reason we brought the companies together. We’re working to integrate the interactive instruction products with the student response system in a platform that provides seamless integration and blends in the content we’re using. Are you familiar with Exam View?”

DA: “Just what I’ve seen and read at the eInstruction site.”

SK: “It’s the important content part of our solution. It has a test generator program. Essentially all the K12 publishers publish assessment items — assessment questions in the Exam View format. We have thousands of textbook questions in the format and those can be used with our student respond systems as well as the Chalk Board or the Interwrite School Pad and the Interwrite interactive whiteboard. So we’re in the process of integrating the assessment with the interactive instruction and the content together into a seamless platform.”

DA: ”A teacher could go in and create his or her own questions?”

SK: “Yes, you could go in a create questions on the fly, or teachers could simply pull questions from the textbook and the chapter he/she is teaching at the time. And all those are pretty much right there at the teacher’s disposal. Then you could use the wireless slate or interactive whiteboard to interact and annotate, and then use the response systems to capture the assessment and adjust instruction in real-time according to how students are understanding the material.”

DA: “What are you calling the solution?”

SK: “We’re calling it The Interactive Classroom Solution.”

DA: “I’ve seen other solutions offering responders with screens. Do you have anything like that?”

SK: “Yes, we offer two devices — one without any screen on the clicker and then one with an LCD display, which offers some feedback to the student on the handheld itself. We’re focusing on whole classroom solutions. So, you get to a point to where you have to decide what you want to put on the individual devices and on the collective screen. I think we’ve focused on keeping the student response system simple, easy to use and leveraging the computer the teacher has to do to any of the presentation of material.”

DA: “What about pricing?”

SK: “We’ve tried to design a system that would allow every student to have something in their hands and do it at a very affordable rate. We keep the handsets simple to use and cost effective, as well as reliable and easy for schools to maintain and support.”

DA: “What would it take for a school district to do this?”

SK: “We look at pricing on a per classroom basis, so just giving very round numbers — about $2,000. That would include the assessment system and wireless teaching station, digital content, student response systems and the teacher’s wireless slate. That’s why we’re seeing more districts embracing it. Teachers are not only connected to the individual student, but the class as well. The only upkeep would be an upgrade to the teacher software, and that happens maybe once a year.”

DA: “What about professional development or training on how to use eInstruction?”

SK: “We have training to help teachers to use eInstruction, using best practices that we’ve learned from what we’ve seen that works the best and we share that with our new adopters so they can be successful. We train online, over Web conferences as well as face to face training, and that’s included with the purchase. It’s more than just the technology, we need to have the training wrapped around that, so that classroom teachers are properly trained in its use and best practices and feel comfortable with the technology.”

DA: “Steve, if I’m a district leader and wanted to get more information, how would I go about doing that?”

SK: “See us at an education tradeshow, where an administrator can touch and feel the system – in classroom simulations, or contact us through the contact points on our Web site. The next step would be to have one of our instruction specialist to come out to share some of our experiences. They could talk with our references. We’d also send one of our consultants do a demonstration.”

DA: “Thank you for all the information and your time, Steve.”