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Email TopicDecember 2022
Star Assessments
- The Instructional Planning - Student Report can now be generated based on a test from the previous school year. This allows educators to jump right in differentiating instruction before their first Star test of the school year.
- Growth Proficiency Chart includes visual indicators as vertical lines for low, typical, and high growth.
- Star Screening Report – New EOC Benchmarks for Algebra & Geometry (Florida only)
- Florida customers have additional drop-down options for benchmarks
- Florida Algebra 1 End-of-Course (EOC) Assessment
- Florida Geometry End-of-Course (EOC) Assessment
- Applies to Star Math Enterprise tests for grades 7 - 12
- Florida customers have additional drop-down options for benchmarks
Renaissance Growth Platform
- Clever Self-Serve – Add School
- Customers can now add additional (unmatched) schools from within their Renaissance site
- Admins will see an Alert on the Manage Apps & Users page that there is an unmatched school. They should follow the screen prompts to match the school in Renaissance to the school in Clever.
- Clever Integration - Match Schools Help page
- Customers can now add additional (unmatched) schools from within their Renaissance site
myON
- New Titles added to myON
- 177 books released in October and November
- Brings myON core collection count to 7,693 titles – available to all US customers
- Current myON Spanish translated title count is now 410 (for a total of 794 Spanish titles)
November 2022
Star Assessments
- Star Accommodations Preference (now available to all customers)
- Gives students access to assistive tools and technologies which can assist them when taking English Star Reading or Star Math assessments.
- Accommodations Toolbar
- Response Masking: The student can eliminate answers shown on the screen
- Calculator: The student can use an on-screen calculator
- Color Contrast: The student can change the contrast levels of the text and images on the screen to improve visibility
- Font Size/Zoom: The student can "zoom in" or magnify the text and images on the screen to improve visibility
- Highlighter: The student can use a virtual highlighter to highlight parts of the text in an item.
- Line Reader: The student can drag a line reader on the screen which will visually isolate one or more lines of text
- Assistive Technologies
- Screen Reader: The text on the screen can be read by screen-reading programs. Renaissance Learning uses and recommends the Jaws screen reader on Windows in Chrome
- Other: Select this option for students who use speech-to-text (speech recognition), switch devices, other assistive technology, and those who use a keyboard without a mouse
- Allotted Time
- Unlimited Time: removes the time limit for both practice and test questions
- Audio (Star Math)
- Audio & Auto-play: The question and answers will be read out loud to the student; this will happen automatically when the question is first presented, and the student can choose to replay the audio if they wish
- Audio with Auto-play turned off: The question and answers can be read out loud to the student if and when they choose
- Audio Off: There will be no audio provided for the question or the answers
- Accommodations Toolbar
- Gives students access to assistive tools and technologies which can assist them when taking English Star Reading or Star Math assessments.
Renaissance Growth Platform
- Schoolzilla Starter becomes Renaissance Analytics
- A name change reflected on the product tile on the Home page and the logo within the product
- Functionality remains the same
myON
- myON v4.11.2 Released on 11/30/22
- Various updates to the book information window, including the addition of ATOS on the Overview tab
- Large scale language audit: fixed a number of missing translations and incorrect translations across languages
- Fixed issue where if an Admin turns off AR Quizzes, students were still seeing the "Take AR Quiz" button. Also hides the "Disable AR Quiz Link" option from projects if an admin has turned off AR Quizzes.
- Removed the Lexile slider on the User info page
- Fixed issue to make the Student Activity page check to see if the student still has access to a book
- Greys out the "Listen" button when a student is in Record mode if a teacher has set the student’s availability to "Always off" or "Weekends only" (if it falls during the weekday)
October 2022
Star Assessments
- New Accessibility Indicators now available on the Star Test Record report based on what the assessment used. Indicators show if:
- Audio enabled for this test
- Assistive Technology enabled for this test
- Accommodations enabled for this test
- Unlimited Time enabled for this test. Unlimited time icon to be used for Unlimited Time and Extended time
Accelerated Reader
- Accelerated Reader Student Accessibility Updates
- The student view is WCAG 2.1 AA compliant with new and improved accessibility features including:
- Improved color contrast
- Support for zooming in up to 400%
- Optimized for keyboard navigation and screen readers
- Ordered from top to bottom, left to right
- All elements are accessible with the tab key
- It will be visibly clear what element the focus is on
- The carousels that showcase books and articles are replaced with a new model that better supports accessibility
- Displays 5 book/article ideas per row
- To see more ideas for any row, students select See more > to go to a full page of ideas
- The ability to browse articles by category has been removed
- The shape of book level and point filters were updated from square to round to better reflect their functionality that only one filter may be selected at a time.
- Other minor updates include:
- An accessible class picker using radio buttons
- An updated search field with better visibility when in focus
- Accessible pagination functionality (arrowing through pages of results)
- The student view is WCAG 2.1 AA compliant with new and improved accessibility features including:
Renaissance Growth Platform
- Clever Self-Serve – Review Data Button Removed
- Prevents customers from making matching changes after initial sync which was leading to additional sync issues
myON
- myON Enroll Release 3.8.4 on 10/28/22
- Resolves issue in manual refresh where users without unique IDs were not being removed from the import process
- Resolves issue for the password generator on manual import where passwords were not saving if the generator did not cover at once all users without passwords
- v4.11.1 released on 10/21/22
- Fixed issue where user’s last login was showing in UTC time instead of user’s timezone
- Arabic and Mandarin languages added to myON News
- Overflow scrolling added to tab list for faculty
- All tabs updated to use new tab design across the product in places like project tasks, admin dashboards, and assign dialogue for roster/groups
- Improvements to Safari recording issues at the start and end of recordings
- Fixed issues with benchmark exemption and audio settings not saving when changed
- Added a mobile apps button to the myON Home page
September 2022
Star Assessments
- Braille Assessments Coming to Star CBM!
- Support for Braille assessments in Star CBM Reading and Math (English) released on 9/30/22 for only LAUSD at this time. Turn-on date for remaining customers was 11/16/22.
- Braille enabled via the Accommodations preference
- Braille measures will be transcribed and available for in-product download and sent to a braille embosser
- Supported measures have up to 20 forms available
- Reading forms available in Uncontracted and Contracted formats
- Math forms available in Unified English Braille (UEB) and Nemeth formats
- Braille not available for Rapid Color Naming, Rapid Picture Naming, Phoneme Segmentation, Receptive Nonsense Words, and Field Test assessments
- New Accessibility Indicators Added to Reports (for Florida and LAUSD only right now)
- Star Test Activity report based on what the assessment used. Indicators show if:
- Audio enabled for this test
- Assistive Technology enabled for this test
- Accommodations enabled for this test
- Unlimited Time enabled for this test
- Star Test Record report based on what the assessment used. Indicators show if:
- Audio enabled for this test
- Assistive Technology enabled for this test
- Accommodations enabled for this test
- Unlimited Time enabled for this test. Unlimited time icon to be used for Unlimited Time and Extended time
- Star Diagnostic Report
- Displays if any Accommodation was set during a Star Math or Star Reading Enterprise test. If Accommodations were not set, this section will be hidden.
- Indicators show if:
- Audio enabled for this test
- Assistive Technology enabled for this test
- Accommodations enabled for this test
- Unlimited Time enabled for this test
- Star Test Activity report based on what the assessment used. Indicators show if:
- NEW Star Student Report
- Report can be generated in English or Spanish
- Report will include both Enterprise and Progress Monitoring tests
- Star Math Algebra and Star Math Geometry tests will not be included
- The Star Student Report provides information on student benchmarks, domain scores, reading levels, and tests taken:
- A graph and list of student tests within the selected date range and selected product
- Star Reading, Star Early Literacy, Star Math, or Star Spanish
- Scaled Score
- Star Unified Scale or Lexile Scale. NOTE: Mississippi customers will have Star Enterprise Scale as an option
- Benchmark category the test falls under (At/Above, On Watch, Intervention, Urgent Intervention)
- Benchmark (State, School, or District )
- Percentile Rank
- Report options that can be included:
- Domain Scores
- Reading Range & Instruction Level (based on latest test). Note: This only applies to Reading or Reading Spanish; if Math is selected, this option will not be shown.
- Student ID
- SGP
- Hide Students Without Data
- Encoding added to Star CBM Reading Field Test
- These assessments measure a student’s ability to translate spoken words into written words, similar to a spelling test
- Runs from September 2022 to May 2023 for Grades K-6
- All customers with Star CBM Reading subscription can access the Field Test
- Individual student and group administration options
- Data presented in Percent Correct as opposed to Correct Per Minute
- Star Parent Report – Signature Line
- Users have the option to include/exclude the parent and teacher signature lines. By default, it will be unchecked/off
Renaissance Growth Platform
- Updated User Permissions – Deactivate/Reactivate Star Assessments
- New permission was added allowing other user roles to deactivate/reactivate Star Adaptive Assessments (Deactivate Star Adaptive Assessments)
- Manage Students’ Assignments was renamed to Manage Other Star Assessments and will control viewing/rescoring of Star Custom Assessments, deactivate/reactivate Star CBM Assessments
- Deactivate Star Adaptive Assessments is a default permission for District Admins, District Staff, and School Level Admins
- Can be added to other roles: Teachers, School Staff, and District Dashboard Owner
- Manage Other Star Assessments will be a default permission for all user groups except District Dashboard Owner, which can be added
- Provider Content Availability - Turn Off Nearpod Resources
- Admins now have the option to turn off Nearpod resources
- When Nearpod resources are turned off, users will no longer see Plan Instruction with Nearpod but will instead see Plan Instruction in the Star Record Book
- Nearpod resources are not available through Planner even when the Nearpod resource is turned on
- Admins now have the option to turn off Nearpod resources
myON
- More Titles Added
- An additional 15 titles released at end of month
- Brings myON core collection count to 7,516 titles (available to all US customers)
- Spanish translated count is now 373 (total of 757 Spanish titles)
- myON v4.11.0 Released on 9/15/22
- A/B testing will begin for faculty that have never dismissed the current banner and for new users
- Overview Banner vs Faculty Onboarding Journey
- Updates the District and Building Admin "Account" tab formatting
- Fixes issue where deleted news questions and answers were still displaying
- Cleans up view of the student activity page
- Fixes issue where "Turn In" button was unresponsive
- Introduces "Next Student" and "Previous Student" to view of student activity pages
- A/B testing will begin for faculty that have never dismissed the current banner and for new users
- myON Enroll v3.8.2 Released on 9/12/22
- Fixes issue where “Skip User” button was not working for migrations
- More Titles Added
- An additional 103 titles released on 9/2/22
- Brings myON core collection count to 7,501 titles (available to all US customers)
- Spanish translated count is now 368 (total of 742 Spanish titles)
- myON Enroll v3.8.2
- Fixes issue where “Skip user” button was not working for migrations
August 2022
Accelerated Reader
- Goals: Introducing Reading Ranges
- Teachers now have a new Reading Range goal option that can be used in place of Average Book Level goals.
- Using Reading Ranges instead of Average Book Level goals allows educators to easily track which students are reading within, below, or above their reading range.
- Teachers can also edit students' recommended reading ranges, which get set based on Star test scores, or grade level for students without Star test scores.
- Turning off the Show Quiz Answers Preference
- The preference setting will now be turned off (unchecked) by default.
- Upon passing a quiz, students will not have the option to Review Questions unless/until an educator turns the preference on.
Star Assessments
- Sight and High-Frequency Words added to Star CBM Reading Field Test
- Sight and High-Frequency Words measure available to all Star CBM Reading customers August 2022 to May 2023 for Grades K-3
- Can view raw data (no benchmarks until BTS 2023)
- Assessments are available when selecting Rapid Naming, Sight Words in the Star CBM Reading Record Book
- Test Administrator selects Word/Grade level for the words and students read these words aloud
- Star Accommodations Preference (currently, only available to a limited number of customers in Florida)
- An Accommodations preference will be added giving students access to assistive tools and technologies which can assist them when taking English Star Reading or Star Math assessments.
- Accommodations Toolbar
- Response Masking: The student can eliminate answers shown on the screen
- Calculator: The student can use an on-screen calculator
- Color Contrast: The student can change the contrast levels of the text and images on the screen to improve visibility
- Font Size/Zoom: The student can "zoom in" or magnify the text and images on the screen to improve visibility
- Highlighter: The student can use a virtual highlighter to highlight parts of the text in an item.
- Line Reader: The student can drag a line reader on the screen which will visually isolate one or more lines of text
- Assistive Technologies
- Screen Reader: The text on the screen can be read by screen-reading programs. Renaissance Learning uses and recommends the Jaws screen reader on Windows in Chrome
- Other: Select this option for students who use speech-to-text (speech recognition), switch devices, other assistive technology, and those who use a keyboard without a mouse
- Allotted Time
- Unlimited Time: removes the time limit for both practice and test questions
- Audio (Star Math)
- Audio & Auto-play: The question and answers will be read out loud to the student; this will happen automatically when the question is first presented, and the student can choose to replay the audio if they wish
- Audio with Auto-play turned off: The question and answers can be read out loud to the student if and when they choose
- Audio Off: There will be no audio provided for the question or the answers
- Accommodations Toolbar
- An Accommodations preference will be added giving students access to assistive tools and technologies which can assist them when taking English Star Reading or Star Math assessments.
Renaissance Growth Platform
- Improvements to the Student Home Page Reliability & Availability
- If unrelated areas of the software experience problems, the Student Home page will still launch and allow students to access any apps that are not impacted by the performance problem.
- During planned maintenance, the student home page will remain available to allow students continual access to their SSO on Renaissance products (Freckle/myON/Lalilo).
myON
- Version 4.10.1 went live on 8/25/22
- Added missing translations to recording and bundles pages
- Accessibility updates
- Updated book bundles sharing from maximum of 3 months to a maximum of 1 year
- Version 4.10.0
- Fixed issue where teacher view "Exempt from Benchmarks" checkbox was not staying checked
- myON Recorded Read Aloud: adds the ability for students to record themselves reading. Students can record themselves reading any book in myON, listen back, and turn in to their teacher. Administrators and faculty can listen to student recordings that are both turned in (complete) and in progress.
July 2022
Star Assessments
- Introducing Star CBM Lectura!
- Will assess K-6 students’ literacy development in Spanish
- Assessments should be administered by a fluent Spanish speaker
- Added value product, so not available for individual purchase at this time. Included with the following subscriptions:
- Star 360, Star Elementary, Star CBM Suite, Star CBM Reading
- Nearpod & Star Integration
- Nearpod lessons integrated into Star that may be used for lesson planning
- Star Reading, Star Early Literacy, Star Math, and Star Spanish
- Most skills will have Nearpod resources associated with them
- Four ways to view recommended skills for students
- Instructional groups
- Individual students
- Grade and domain
- Skill search
- Customers will need to create a free Nearpod account to save Library Lessons and must have a paid Nearpod account to preview and save Premium Resources. Visit https://nearpod.com/signup/ for more information
- Nearpod lessons integrated into Star that may be used for lesson planning
- Data Insights - Screening Rate Dashboard
- Star Data Insights let you see how many students are being screened using Star assessments during a specific district screening window. For each assessment type, you can explore the data further, breaking it down by school and also seeing how many students are not participating (based on the setting of their Non-Participation status).
- Star Scale Transition Preference Removal
- All RGP customers (except those in Mississippi) will be set to use the Unified Scale
- The Star Scale Transition preference has been removed from all sites (except those in Mississippi)
- Star CBM Data Insights
- Screening Rate Participation Rate tiles
- Updated to only show the current school year’s Screening Periods in the dropdown menu
- % Moving Up tile
- Updated to show a student’s grade level at the time each assessment was taken, instead of their current grade level only
- A student’s name is also no longer clickable from this table
- Screening Rate Participation Rate tiles
- Norm/Benchmark Updates for back to school 2022-2023
- Versioning will be implemented allowing norms/benchmarks to update based on the customer’s first day of school
- New norms
- Star Math for Kindergarten
- Star Early Literacy for Pre-K
- Benchmarks
- Star Reading for Kindergarten
Renaissance Growth Platform
- Student Home Page Updates
- The student home page is WCAG (Web Content Accessability Guidelines) 2.1 AA compliant with new and improved features including:
- Color contrast
- Support for screen readers
- Support for tab/arrow key navigation
- Support for zooming in up to 400%
- The tiles have been reorganized to bring the practice products to the top of the page, as those are traditionally the most frequently used products. The Assignments list also has a fresh, new look.
- When IP/product restrictions are set, users have an improved experience and see clearer messaging:
- Students will see the restricted product tile(s) on their home page.
- When a restricted product tile is selected (or an activity from the Assignments list that's for a restricted product), the user is presented with a more meaningful message.
- The student home page is WCAG (Web Content Accessability Guidelines) 2.1 AA compliant with new and improved features including:
June 2022
Accelerated Reader
-
New Biliteracy Report on the Record Book, which includes the following information for each student:
- Average book level (English vs. Spanish)
- Percent correct on AR quizzes (English vs. Spanish)
- Portion of reading done in each language
Star Assessments
- Star CBM: Data Insights - NEW Participation Rate Dashboard
- See how many students were tested on at least one CBM measure (Reading or Math)
- Dive deeper into the dashboard to view:
- % Of students assessed
- Number of students assessed
- Number of students eligible to take the test
- Students not assessed
- Save, Print, or Download the data
- Updated Star CBM Connection Issues Messaging
- Messaging was updated for users attempting to administer an online Star CBM assessment.
- If a school network is not allowing WebSocket traffic, launching an online assessment will now display a modal explaining why online assessments are not available.
- When clicking the ‘Learn More’ button shown in the modal, users will be taken to the Allowing access to Renaissance resources for your Renaissance web-based software Knowledge Base article.
- Messaging was updated for users attempting to administer an online Star CBM assessment.
Renaissance Growth Platform
- Clever Self-Serve Improvements
- Sync terminology improved to provide better clarity and consistency in messaging.
- User with unmatched schools will receive a message in the Clever sync log letting them know they have unmatched schools
- Certain minor issues will not prevent a sync from completing successfully:
- Existing RGP users who have the same email
- Incoming teachers who have duplicate emails
- Term missing a date (term excluded)
- Incoming teacher with no school assignment
- Transfer Student Data
- These key pieces of Star data will transfer along with a transferred student:
- Star CBM data and audio recordings
- Star CAT benchmark data
- Star CAT mastery data
- These key pieces of Star data will transfer along with a transferred student:
myON
- More titles added
- An additional 15 books were released in myON at the end of June, to the core collection (available to all US customers)
- This release brings the myON core collection count to 7,336 and the myON Spanish translated title count to 338 (for a total of 711 Spanish titles)
May 2022
Star CBM
- Benchmark Transitions drop-down added to choose Measure
- Choose whether to see the grade-level screening measures for the selected grades (measures that have benchmarks available) or to see results for a specific measure.
April 2022
Accelerated Reader
- Article Quiz Availability Preference
- New, school-level preference allows admins to set whether students at a school can see, read, and take quizzes on articles.
- Student Progress Page Update
- Replaced the reading range with a link to “Find More Books in Your Range” that takes the student to their book discovery page
- Page now displays a graphic for percent of fiction/non-fiction reading and percent of Spanish/English reading
- percent of fiction/non-fiction is based on points earned
- percent of Spanish/English is only shown for students who have taken a Star Reading Spanish test and/or have passed an Accelerated Reader quiz in Spanish
- Now includes Star (Math/Reading) Spanish scores, when available for a selected marking period, in addition to English scores
- Star scores now reflect the Unified scale
- Student Discovery Page Update
- All students will now see their reading range for their English book recommendations
- Based on Star Reading (English) assessment or student’s grade level
- Students who have taken a Star Reading Spanish test and those who have taken an AR Spanish quiz will see Spanish book recommendations
- Based on Star Reading (Spanish) assessment
- Reading range is only surfaced if Star Reading Lexile Range Preference has been set to Lexile instead of ZPD
- The “Help me find a book” search now includes language filters
- All students will now see their reading range for their English book recommendations
Star Assessments
- Star CBM
- User can choose which products appear on the Data Insights page
- The Assignment grid popover was reorganized and now shows if notes have been added or if student audio recording is available
- The Student Detail page will also show if a student's assessment has notes or an audio recording
Renaissance Growth Platform
- Clever Self-Serve
- Fly-out messaging added to alert District Admin user when there are issues with the last sync that need attention
- New tabs added to Sync Logs for Blockers, Warnings, and Updates (messaging on those tabs won’t be flowing through until a later date)
- Up to 15 previous syncs (failures and successes) are available from the Sync Date drop-down menu
- Preferences
- Update to how users select school, classes, and students when viewing/setting preferences
- Now uses drop-down menus
- Applies to classroom and individual student preferences
March 2022
Star Assessments
- Star Home Connect Email update: parents will now receive the Star Family Report in place of the current Home Connect email.
Renaissance Growth Platform
- Added CSV to State Standards Mastery – District/School Report: now customers have the option to generate a CSV file to this report on once the data has been generated.
- The Home Connect letter for Clever Self-Serve customers has been updated to contain detailed instructions on how parents/students should log in to Home Connect using the Clever Log In button.
February 2022
Star Assessments
- The Star Test Activity Report CSV was updated to include if Star Math was enabled for each student’s most recent test.
- The Star Record Book CSV files (accessed via the Download Data buttons) have been updated to include students without test activity at the end of the file.
- The Star Record Book: Changes to Tab Names
Renaissance Growth Platform
- Clever Self-Service Disconnect: A district admin user for Renaissance can now disconnect Clever from within Renaissance.
myON
- V4.6.0 Released
- More titles added to myON – 17 new books were released to the core collection, bringing the core collection count to 7,232 titles
January 2022
Accelerated Reader
- Goal Record Book improvements:
- Percent of marking period completed visibility
- Goal model selected visibility
- Percent of goal achieved visibility
- Teachers now see students’ actual scores when editing goals
- Teachers now see the amount of daily reading time the goal is based on
Star Assessments
- CSV and Student ID added to several Star reports:
- Star State Standards Mastery – Class Report
- Star Growth Report
- Star Test Activity Report
- Star Screening Report
- Star Summary Report
- Star Diagnostic Report (CSV only; already included Student ID)
- Star Math audio indicator added to Star Math reports:
- Star Diagnostic Report
- Star Test Activity Report
- Star Test Record Report
Renaissance Growth Platform
- Growth Proficiency Chart has been added, which is a dynamic scatterplot chart that provides a customizable comparison of how specific schools, classes, and students are performing based on Student Growth Percentiles (SGP) and either % Proficient (for districts and schools) or Scaled Score (for students).
myON
- Added 27 new Spanish books