It would be a great option to be able to modify (take out questions, add in new questions or even change questions) to the online assessments or have the assessments be computer adaptive for our students with special needs or that are ELL.
Hi, Cari-
Thank you for your response & idea! I’ll forward it to the digital department; hopefully, we’ll be able to implement this change in our next software update.
Thank you for this suggestion and we will consider it for a future enhancement. At this time, we do not offer the ability to alter the assessments due to the way it may affect the reliability of the performance data that is provided to the teacher. With that said, we do offer ELD assessments that especially created for the English language learner.
Is it possible to add navigation arrows to the bottom of each of the website pages? It would be great to not have to scroll to the top of each webpage in order to access the next page.
Hi, Barbara-
Thank you for your response & idea! I’ll forward it to the digital department; hopefully, we can add the change to our pages quickly & easily.
Thank you for this suggestion. We are in the process of re-working the Teacher Resource System navigation to make it easier to move from page to page and section to section.
I wish this program would have a supplemental book for vocabulary, spelling, and grammar. I would like to not have to go outside of the program to look for additional resources for my students to practice. I would rather have too much than not enough.
Hi, Beth-
Thank you for your response & ideas! I’ll forward it to the appropriate department, so that we can see whether it’s feasible to implement these changes.
The student online portion needs to be more interactive.
I really would like to see more opportunity for students to engage in the student website besides just accessing their books digitally or taking their weekly assessment. It would be wonderful to have on-line programs where students can practice and reinforce essential skills (such as grammar, spelling, reading comprehension, etc), rather than turning to other websites to supplement. Also, the on-l component is not very kid friendly (in my opinion) and I can forsee many of students getting lost on the site.
Thank you for these suggestions and we will look into providing more opportunity for student engagement with Benchmark Universe. If you have time to write down some of the things you find non-user friendly for students, please feel free to send them directly to techsupport@benchmarkeducation.com and we will work on improving the experience.
I would also love to see a database of online media sets that we can access (videos, pictures, non-fiction articles). The short weekly openers are not sufficient.
We are looking into building a bank such as the one you describe and should have more information about it over the course of the next few months.
Can you add the graphic organizers recommended for each lesson into the student interactive textbooks? It would be easier to have all materials in one, central location for students.
It would be great if there was an app for students to access the online assignments easily. We use ipads during our centers time. If there was an app where students could easily access their account it would work much better. In Kinder having students find webpages is too much.
Hi,
Thank you for your Wish List addition! I have a suggestion from our digital department on the iPad issue: you can use the “Add to Home Screen” button in Safari on the iPad. This will create a shortcut on the iPad home screen that looks like an App. Clicking on it will take your students directly to BU.
Here are directions to set up this shortcut:
• Open Safari
• Navigate to BU
• Click on the icon that looks like a square with an arrow pointing out of it
• Select “Add to Home Screen”
From now on, there will be an app-like link on the home screen directly to BU—your students won’t have to navigate to BU. It should streamline their experience.
If you have any other questions, please feel free to contact us at blog@benchmarkeducation.com.
It would be a great option to be able to modify (take out questions, add in new questions or even change questions) to the online assessments or have the assessments be computer adaptive for our students with special needs or that are ELL.
Hi, Cari-
Thank you for your response & idea! I’ll forward it to the digital department; hopefully, we’ll be able to implement this change in our next software update.
Thank you for this suggestion and we will consider it for a future enhancement. At this time, we do not offer the ability to alter the assessments due to the way it may affect the reliability of the performance data that is provided to the teacher. With that said, we do offer ELD assessments that especially created for the English language learner.
Is it possible to add navigation arrows to the bottom of each of the website pages? It would be great to not have to scroll to the top of each webpage in order to access the next page.
Hi, Barbara-
Thank you for your response & idea! I’ll forward it to the digital department; hopefully, we can add the change to our pages quickly & easily.
Thank you for this suggestion. We are in the process of re-working the Teacher Resource System navigation to make it easier to move from page to page and section to section.
I wish this program would have a supplemental book for vocabulary, spelling, and grammar. I would like to not have to go outside of the program to look for additional resources for my students to practice. I would rather have too much than not enough.
Hi, Beth-
Thank you for your response & ideas! I’ll forward it to the appropriate department, so that we can see whether it’s feasible to implement these changes.
The student online portion needs to be more interactive.
I really would like to see more opportunity for students to engage in the student website besides just accessing their books digitally or taking their weekly assessment. It would be wonderful to have on-line programs where students can practice and reinforce essential skills (such as grammar, spelling, reading comprehension, etc), rather than turning to other websites to supplement. Also, the on-l component is not very kid friendly (in my opinion) and I can forsee many of students getting lost on the site.
Thank you for these suggestions and we will look into providing more opportunity for student engagement with Benchmark Universe. If you have time to write down some of the things you find non-user friendly for students, please feel free to send them directly to techsupport@benchmarkeducation.com and we will work on improving the experience.
I would also love to see a database of online media sets that we can access (videos, pictures, non-fiction articles). The short weekly openers are not sufficient.
We are looking into building a bank such as the one you describe and should have more information about it over the course of the next few months.
Can you add the graphic organizers recommended for each lesson into the student interactive textbooks? It would be easier to have all materials in one, central location for students.