Wireless Generation’s mCLASS™ Technology Reaches 1 Million Students

Company Estimates 40,000,000 Minutes of Instructional Time Saved; 60 Million Pieces of Paper

NEW YORK, March 24, 2005 - Wireless Generation, the leading developer of pre K-12 observational assessment software, today announced that one million students nationwide are currently being assessed using the company’s mCLASS™ (for Mobile Classroom Assessment) technology. This achievement highlights the continued support of mCLASS technology as the standard platform for mobile, handheld observational assessment tools. Approximately 75,000 educators in 43 states have used mCLASS technology to assess their students since the software was introduced in April, 2002. Wireless Generation estimates that use of its software has saved 40,000,000 minutes (equal to 667,000 hours) of instructional time, and 60 million pieces of paper.

“This is an incredible milestone for us,” said Larry Berger, co-founder and CEO of Wireless Generation. “From the beginning, we believed that handheld technology, married to effective Web-based analysis and reporting tools, could make a real difference in educators’ workflow and their ability to use data in the instructional process. We look forward to continued success in making classroom-based assessments easier and more useful for educators, and to creating new products that maximize the value of teacher-student interactions.”

Schools have been quick to adopt mCLASS assessments. During the last year, the number of students assessed with mCLASS software increased by more than 250 percent, from 228,100 in December 2003 to 836,516 in December 2004. In the fall of 2003 alone, the number of students assessed with mCLASS software increased by 300 percent, from 56,430 students in September.

mCLASS software was designed to help teachers conduct traditional, paper-based observational assessments common in grades preK-3 for reading and math. Using a handheld computer loaded with mCLASS software, teachers follow along as a student completes a task, scoring his or her performance. When the assessment is complete, teachers press a button and “sync” data to a secure Web site, where they and administrators can instantly view reports on class, student, school or district. mCLASS technology makes traditional paper-based assessments easier to administer and more valuable by eliminating paperwork and manual scoring, automating timing and precise rules for giving the assessment correctly, and delivering results instantly so that instruction can be adjusted to students’ needs.

“Using the PDA to administer DIBELS has greatly reduced the burden of testing. It eliminates all the paperwork, organizes the data, and immediately converts raw, meaningless numbers to workable information that can be used to drive instruction in a district all the way to the classroom level,” said Nancy Williams, a Reading First coach in Idabel, OK. “Before tests were just given, graded, and forgotten, but now test data is being used to do so many things, from deciding which students need intervention to pinpointing the type of intervention needed.”

To date, Wireless Generation has developed six mCLASS products in collaboration with the country’s leading reading researchers:

mCLASS™:TPRI® software provides a research-based, comprehensive snapshot of a child’s literacy development in grades K-3 and helps teachers to source activities to address skill gaps.
mCLASS™:DIBELS^® software (the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) offers research-based, standardized, individually administered measures of early literacy for students in grades K-6 that flag at-risk learners and enable ongoing progress monitoring. Available in English and Spanish
mCLASS™:PALS™ software (the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening) helps identify students at risk for reading difficulties and helps educators match early literacy instruction to specific needs.
mCLASS™:CIRCLE™ software equips preK teachers with a set of tools for building portfolios of young children’s development, conducting appropriate early literacy assessment, and planning classroom activities.
mCLASS™:Tejas LEE® software offers comprehensive, teacher-administered assessment for students whose primary reading instruction is in Spanish.
mCLASS™:Reading software combines three formative assessments – Reading Records, Accuracy/Fluency, and Comprehension that enable teachers to diagnose reading difficulties and track students’ progress using reading levels..

Wireless Generation continues to work with educators to develop new products. An early math inventory is currently in development through a collaboration with Professor Herbert Ginsburg of Teachers College, Columbia University.

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