Online Reporter and the Electronic Management of Learning (EML)
WHAT IS GALILEO ONLINE REPORTER?
Galileo Online Reporter is a web-based application containing reports valuable to those who have the responsibility of managing the learning of others. Users of the information in the reports are administrators, specialists, teachers, policy-makers, and researchers. Galileo Online Reporter provides rapid electronic access to management information; it is part of the Galileo System for the Electronic Management of Learning.
WHAT IS THE ELECTRONIC MANAGEMENT OF LEARNING?
The Electronic Management of Learning (EML) is a problem-solving endeavor. The fundamental problem to be solved is how to achieve valued learning goals. EML benefits all stakeholders in a learning community including children, teachers, parents, administrators, specialists, policy-makers, and researchers. The EML process begins by establishing purposeful educational goals for children; goals are the driving force underlying management decisions. Once goals are established, plans are made to achieve those goals. The plans are then carried out and monitored. Finally, the EML process looks at the extent to which goals have been achieved. The EML process can occur as often as needed throughout the program year to help ensure successful outcomes for all the various stakeholders.
MORE ABOUT GALILEO ONLINE REPORTER
Galileo Online Reporter enables administrators and supervisors to generate a variety of multi-level reports that reflect child outcomes including patterns of progress. Multi-level capability means that reports can be produced at class, center, agency, and multi-agency levels. With these reports, programs can look at child outcomes for the entire agency as well as for various groupings of children (e.g., children at a specific center or at specific delegate agencies). Likewise, Online Reporter allows agencies with broad oversight, such as State Departments of Education, to look collectively and separately at all programs within their jurisdiction. The overall goal of Online Reporter is to provide those in administrative and policy-making roles with the advantage of rapid access to information for use in setting educational goals, making and implementing plans to achieve those goals, and evaluating goal attainment.
| Administrative Tasks Accomplished with Galileo Online and EML |
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FILTERS IN GALILEO ONLINE REPORTER
Galileo Online Reporter includes filters that make it possible to create reports for specific groups of children. For example, an administrator might wish to run a Development Profile in Early Math for children who will be five by September 30th of the current year. Creating this profile is possible simply by activating the age filter provided in Online Reporter. Other filters of interest might include ethnicity, gender, special needs, financial need, program type, and primary language. Examining the accomplishments of different groups of children sometimes may lead to the establishment of different sets of goals for different groups.
THE DEVELOPMENTAL LEVEL SCORE USED IN ONLINE REPORTER
The Galileo Path-Referenced Approach - Measuring Ability
The Galileo system is unique among developmental assessment tools for young children in that it is built on a path-referenced approach to assessment. The path-referenced approach makes it possible for early childhood programs to assess children's abilities in a variety of developmental areas (e.g., Language & Literacy) and to electronically link ability information to goal setting and the planning of learning opportunities that promote development. In Galileo, the Developmental Level Score (DL) provides information about ability in terms of an individual's position along a path of development. The path is comprised of a series of empirically ordered capabilities. The ordering of these capabilities reflects a validated progression of the construction of knowledge for a given developmental area. In Galileo, the DL score is used along with other information to compute the probability that a child will be able to perform each of the capabilities on a developmental path. For ease of interpretation, these probability estimates are converted to readiness levels that can be used to guide the planning of learning opportunities for children. When we know a child's ability as summarized by the developmental level score, we know the kinds of things that the child has already learned and the things that the child is ready to learn now and in the future. This information provides the basis for planning learning opportunities that are appropriate to the child's needs and interests.
Benefits of the Path Referenced Score for EML
- The developmental level score is highly beneficial
in documenting program outcomes because it does not measure growth
against a changing standard such as a norm group as is the case
when traditional norm-referenced techniques are used. Rather,
progress is measured directly in terms of change in position on
a continuous developmental ability scale.
- A second benefit of the developmental level
score is it makes it possible to link measures across age levels
and program years to assess growth over an extended time span.
- A third benefit is that the developmental
level score makes it possible to document children's accomplishments
in a direct and easily understood fashion. In doing so, it provides
information that can be used by administrators, teachers and parents
to plan learning opportunities to promote development.
