The Federal funding landscape has changed since the pandemic, placing more emphasis on increasing student achievement by choosing technology that supports the development of the “whole learner.” 

The US Department of Education, Educational Technology Office, suggests four areas to consider when evaluating an EdTech tool for your school or district:

• Active Learning,
• Assessments,
• Supporting Family Involvement, and
• Improving Engagement with Distance Learners.

Wixie can be used to meet the needs of students and educators in all four of these categories to help you support learners with various abilities and close achievement gaps. Here's how.

Active Learning

The diversity of tools and options in Wixie provide a fun way for students to demonstrate their creativity and explore and share their passions, resulting in increased motivation and engagement. Students can use Wixie's tools to:

• draw diagrams and illustrations,
• write and record voice to tell stories and inform others, and/or
• capture video descriptions to raise awareness and persuade.

Digital-age learners want to express their ideas creatively, do things in non-traditional ways, use the computer, and demonstrate their abilities. Wixie supports a range of effective instructional strategies and provides classrooms with evidence-based activities and assignments that are not rote and boring.

Wixie's Standards Matrix makes it easy for teachers to find assignments that engage students and help them practice and meet specific learning goals.

Wixie provides a powerful platform for students to “employ technology thoughtfully to enhance their reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language use.”  

Assessments

Wixie includes a library of rubric- and checklist-style assessments to help students understand expectations for their performance during project work. The checklists and rubrics are connected to pre-made Wixie activities, and can be easily graded by the teacher by clicking on the various criteria in the rubric fields. 

Teachers can edit existing rubrics, create their own from scratch, or use leveled text and criteria in Wixie. They can then attach the rubrics to new assignments or existing student projects and assess student projects from within the Wixie teacher portal.

As students are working, teachers can use the Feedback option in Wixie to provide timely comments and questions on student work. Students see a visual indicator that feedback is available and can click to read the comments and take action accordingly. 

Learn more about Wixie's assessment tools

Supporting Family Involvement

Wixie makes it easy to connect what is happening in the classroom to families at home. 

Wixie makes it easy to share student work

Every Wixie project saves automatically and has a unique URL that can be copied and shared via email. Students or teachers can share a link to an individual project or the students’ Showcase folder which serves as a digital portfolio.

Wixie projects can also be printed to provide tangible learning artifacts to share with family and their communities. 

Wixie works with any connected device

If families have a device at home, even a phone, students can log in to Wixie to show off their efforts, or better yet, create together with family members!

The Wixie Parent Guides provide activity ideas for English, math, science, and social studies in grades K-5 to make it easier for family members to partner in their child's education and learn together.

Wixie's interface is available in multiple languages providing the ability to support families who speak English, Spanish, and French. 

Improving Engagement with Distance Learners

Wixie is an online tool, which means students and teachers can access their account from any location with Internet access. This, combined with Wixie's assignment, review, and assessment tools, makes it an obvious choice for remote learning environments.

Wixie promotes active learning by creating remote learning environments where students are not simply remembering information, but applying it and creating learning artifacts that are academically-oriented, personally meaningfully, and purposeful.

Differentiation and Personalized Learning

Wixie's interface options, feature sets, and customization tools help teachers scaffold instruction to meet the needs of a wide range of learners. If learners love drawing, encourage them to use the paint tools to create diagrams to show what they know; if they love drama, encourage them to record a speech or video.

Wixie includes a curriculum library with over 2000 assignments that combine pictures, text, and audio. Teachers can customize these activities to meet the specific needs of their students. For example, they can record instructions students can listen to in addition to, or instead of, reading them. Teachers can also adjust an assignment's settings to remove tools and options that might distract learners from the goal of the assignment.

The Wixie 101 resource section includes a Remote Learning Guide with ideas and directions for using Wixie to support learners working outside the wall of a traditional classroom.

It's time to give Wixie a try

Wixie makes it easy to support student learning anytime and anywhere. Whether you teach in a remote setting every day or want to continue making progress on sick and snow days, Wixie can help.

Curious about using Wixie with your students? Set up an evaluation account or pilot subscription for your school or district so you too can use Wixie for face-to-face, hybrid, and at-home learning.