Odyssey

Last year, Mrs. Juntunen in second grade, and Ms. Leom in fourth grade had the opportunity to pilot the Odyssey on-line computer program with our students. We were so pleased with the opportunity it offered, we advocated for our school to invest and adopt the Compass Odyssey learning program for all elementary students.

This week, Ms. Leom's class started their Compass-Odyssey learning odyssey. Mr. Greninger's class will be starting soon (we are working out the bugs in our system).

To start, we took our student MAP test data for Reading and Math. The Reading is broke into three areas: Literature, Nonfiction Text, and Vocabulary. The Math is divided into four areas: Operations, Algebra, Data and Measurement, and Geometry. We looked at students' scores, areas of strengths, and areas to improve. We are in the process of conferencing with each student to make individual goals for each student. For example, a student who had lower scores in Literature and Vocabulary, were able to choose the area they wanted to focus on for his/her individual goal. Even students who scored "high" or "high average" are working on individual goals to improve.

Students received a label, to be placed on the inside of his/her planner with their log in code, their Fall Map Reading and Math Test Scores, their goal scores, and we will be writing in the subject area as we conference with students.

Today, Ms. Leom's class were able to use the "purple laptops" (the color was a topic of excitement) to practice logging on and try out an area.

Now that students have their log-on stickers, they are able to log-on and access at home. To access:
* Visit Milaca Schools Website

* Choose "Resources" on the top, right menu
* Select "Kurth Media Center" on the left-side menu

* Click on "Odyssey" (toward the bottom of the left-side menu)

To Log-in:

User Name:     first name last name (no spaces and all lower case letters)
Password:        four digit number on label inside your student planner
School:            milaca es (a space between the "milaca" and "es" - for "elementary school")

This is an AMAZING learning opportunity for ALL of our students!! We know EVERY student is unique and smart in a variety of ways. The Compass-Odyssey program allows us to target individual needs for each student.

Although there are Social Studies, Science, and other learning areas, Mr. Greninger and Ms. Leom would like students to focus on the Reading and Math goals printed on their individual label. This program will be one of the tools used in After-School Tutoring and Summer School. We hope to use it at least once a week IN school during the year (exceptions are January and the end of the year when the computers need to be used for testing). Please consider this opportunity for your student at home! Ms. Leom hopes to share more of the Odyssey features in a future post.