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Ross faculty LEARN about efficiency from students

2 grads turn junior project into software business

Tyler Cole and Emily Hannon developed a computer program, at the request of Principal Lani Wildow, while they were students at Ross High School. The resulting LEARN program has won several awards and helped the Ross graduates launch their own business.

Staff photo by Greg Lynch Tyler Cole and Emily Hannon developed a computer program, at the request of Principal Lani Wildow, while they were students at Ross High School. The resulting LEARN program has won several awards and helped the Ross graduates launch their own business.

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By Richard O Jones, Staff Writer 9:12 PM Tuesday, February 2, 2010

HAMILTON — There was a time when the three Ross High School counselors had to wade through a sea of paperwork in order to keep track of students who needed special attention.

“Some students might have trouble getting their homework completed and another might just have developed a bad attitude about class,” Principal Lani Wildow said.

“I would get information from teachers by e-mail, by voice-mail, by written notes or they might just stop by my office and tell me something about a student,” said counselor Amanda Schur. “Sometimes, I wouldn’t know a student was having trouble until midterms or report cards came out, and by then it was too late for intervention.”

Wildow thought someone might be able to develop a spreadsheet within a database that could help identify when a student’s grades started to fall. She approached technology instructor Tom O’Neill to see if he had a student who could do that.

What she got in return went beyond anything she could imagine, she said, when Tyler Cole and Emily Hannon, then juniors, took up the project.

“Basically, she wanted us to take a stack of papers and transfer them to Excel,” recalled Cole. “We thought we could do better than that.”

Hence, LEARN: Learner’s, Educator’s and Administrator’s Resource Network, “an entire system to manage student achievement,” Cole called it.

Now, each teacher at Ross High School makes an entry in the program for every student who has a D or an F every week so that the counselors and administrators get a weekly report. If a teacher doesn’t make any entries, the oversight is noted, too.

LEARN is able to track eligibility for athletics and other extracurricular activities, create charts and graphs tracking student progress and attendance and even relay school announcements to each homeroom teacher to eliminate the need for 10 minutes of public address every morning.

“It gives me more information in a more user-friendly format,” Schur said, saying it saves her at least three or four hours a week. “And even knowing that someone is keeping a closer eye on them is a motivating factor to some of our students.”

Cole and Hannon have since graduated. Hannon is a freshman at Miami University studying math education and Cole is a full-time programmer. They formed a company, Digital3Rs Inc., to further develop and market LEARN.

“Our goal is to create one program that can take care of a school’s entire administrative paperwork,” Cole said.

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2188 or rjones@coxohio.com.

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