In a recent meeting and unveiling of two of our newest products (read our future blogs to find out more), one of our developers described the OnCourse product line as a “Ferrari sitting in the garage waiting to be driven.” For those of you who are unfamiliar with OnCourse’s start or vision, let me give you a brief synopsis. In late 2001, a teacher was looking for a way to streamline and create more efficient lesson plans, but was at a loss. Her husband thought, “Hmmm...I think I know a way to do this, and teachers will really like it.” In his oh so visionary way, he brought the idea to his two programming developer friends and co-workers who thought that he was definitely on to something - and that was when the beginnings of the “Ferrari” Lesson Planner became a glimpse in OnCourse’s eyes.
Fast forward eight years later; what started as a web-based solution to teacher planning has grown into teacher websites, grade books, student information systems, parent portals, and the list goes on. But, the OnCourse company owners and developers had become so focused on creating such an amazing product line that all of a sudden they realized - gosh, we need to get some people out there driving these shiny new, phenomenally developed products. So, OnCourse executives called on one of their colleagues to pull out all the stops to assemble a fantastic group of people who could promote the company’s vision of strategic thinking, integrity, professionalism, and passion for technology and products that promote creativity and inspire excellence in teamwork and customer service.
The OnCourse sales team consists of a group of people who bring to the table a wide variety of expertise from Jackie, James, and Andrea who worked in the business world before joining the team, to Donna who has a background in English and coordinating services in higher education, to Jill and Kelly who bring nearly 45 years of combined experience in education and instructional technology expertise with them. In the few short weeks the team has been collaborating, they have already shared a wealth of knowledge amongst each other and cannot wait to get the Ferrari out of the garage and provide opportunities for our customers to take it out for a test drive - best of all, it’s a Ferrari without the $$$$!
Last, but not least, OnCourse’s amazing support team works closely with the sales and development teams to ensure 100% satisfaction. So, OnCourse customers, we want you to know that you are our #1 priority, and we cannot wait to put the 2010-2011 school year into overdrive!
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The OnCourse Suite of web-based educator tools has helped schools to improve accountability and collaboration in more than 30 states, and this year I have had the pleasure of visiting a handful of our partner schools in Louisiana, Texas, New Jersey, and most recently, Georgia.
Our team is always grateful for the opportunity to visit the front-lines of education to discuss how the OnCourse tools are being best utilized, and also to collect information about how we can continue to innovate and make improvements. On a personal note, it’s extremely gratifying for me to meet with teachers who have found that they were able to make broad improvements to their classroom environment by utilizing OnCourse, and it’s this energy that drives us to continue to provide the most user-friendly tools on the web.
Our school trips this year have carried a common theme; almost everyone is trying to find ways of surmounting their budgetary challenges while also trying to keep a technology infrastructure in place.
During our visits, we noticed that a few of the schools we visited had purchased tools from several vendors to accomplish a litany of goals, like capturing student data for the purpose of empowering teachers with information, or creating a collaborative resource-oriented online workplace. Then, they've heaped another system on top to communicate out to students and parents. These piecemeal systems will certainly work to some degree, but the downside is that teachers are expected to learn and manage four, sometimes even five different logins and keep abreast of changes made to each of their different systems.
Many folks were pleasantly surprised to learn that the OnCourse Lesson Planner can be upgraded to include a variety of different integrated tools, like a team-oriented resource-sharing system, an student statistics reporting tool, and a power standards module, to list a few. Often, we found that schools were paying handsomely to procure software solutions that might have been more cost effective, more tightly integrated, and easier to learn by simply upgrading their OnCourse Suite. From what I’ve heard on the road, the OnCourse tools are either the leader or amongst the leaders in intuitive use, and we strive daily to keep our position at the top.
This isn't to say that there aren't great tools out there, but there are lots of hidden benefits to consolidation as well. For example, keeping resources in the OnCourse Curriculum Portal also allows linking to state standards, which directly informs any teacher who is using the Lesson Planner. A school that uses our Gradebook would find the implementation of the Student Statistics Data Analysis tool to be a snap, because OnCourse already houses information about the classes and students, making information dissemination extremely easy.
If your school or district is looking to consolidate software systems to help save money in a tough budget year, or if you have an OnCourse tool already and are looking to add some powerful upgrades, let us know and we can help to design a package that will fit the needs of your school.
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