ECSES Instructional Technology News

IXL and Newsela Update for 23-24 school year

Written by Lori Blantz | May 17, 2023 11:30:00 AM

IXL and Newsela Update for 23-24 school year

As I have been working with your supervisors and my leadership team to plan out instructional licenses for next year, I wanted to share two updates with you regarding some changes. 

Click on the image below to check out Newsela

 

I wanted to share an update with everyone about Newsela for the next school year. Currently the IU13 has been paying for the Pro license for Newsela for the last 4 years. Each year I review data to make decisions about renewing. The usage of Newsela continues to drop. I have made the decision not to renew our pro account for next year. The free version of Newsela will look very different next year with only access to 4 pre-selected news articles at a time. Giovanna Chamberlain and I will be around to assist you with using the Newsela lite version or finding other online resources for educational articles, but the IU13 will not be renewing Newsela for the 23-24 school year. 

IXL Social Studies and Science

I wanted to share an update with everyone about IXL Social Studies and Science for the next school year. Currently the IU13 has been paying for the licenses in IXL for 4 subjects. These subjects are Math, ELA, Science, and Social Studies.  Each year I review data to make decisions about renewing. The usage of IXL Social Studies and Science continues to drop and this year we have very little usage. I have made the decision not to renew our IXL licenses for Social Studies and Science. We will be renewing Math and ELA and as you can see by the above IU13 dashboard. We have 400 students enrolled that have answered over 684,000 Math and ELA questions collectively within all our programs. Giovanna Chamberlain and I will be around to assist you with using IXL for Math and ELA if you need it, or finding other online resources for Science or Social Studies.

 

If you have any questions please reach out to Lori Blantz or Giovanna Chamberlain.