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“PBworks was the solution that could do what we needed and support all our different use cases.”

Tonya Lee, Project Administrator

 

NWEA provides assessments, professional development courses and reporting so that educators have accurate and comprehensive data to inform each child's optimal learning path.

 

NWEA is a true catalyst, helping to identify which data are most helpful, which programs are most effective for particular students, and which instructional resources and strategies are best suited for each student. This includes not only greater information on reports generated by NWEA assessments, but program evaluation and professional development for teachers, administrators, and parents.

 

1) What business needs were you trying to solve when you brought in PBworks?

We were looking to solve several needs. We wanted a tool for collaboration with non-NWEA partners. We were also looking to centralize on a single sharing solution to reduce the number of individual accounts being used for organizational business (i.e. Dropbox, Google Docs). Finally, we needed an “extranet type solution” to provide staff development materials to Professional Development (PD) personnel, most of whom are remote.

 

2) How were you meeting those needs prior to bringing in PBworks?

People were using email, individual Google Docs documents, DropBox, or they had to log in via the VPN to log into our network.

 

3) What other solutions did you consider?

We reviewed Google Docs, DropBox as well when we were looking to consolidate on a single solution, but chose PBworks.

 

4) What were your reasons for choosing PBworks over the other solutions considered?

We had no external-facing tools at the time, and we had a lot of non-employee partners that we needed to collaborate with. PBworks was the solution that could do what we needed and support all our different use cases.

 

5) How did you roll out PBworks to your team?

We started small, rolling out to 25 users in Professional Development, and then slowly increased.

 

6) How did the PBworks team help you configure PBworks to meet your team's specific needs?

The PBworks team helped us conduct training sessions to bring our users up to speed.

 

7) How has PBworks changed the way your team works?

Using PBworks has helped Professional Development and other teams who have remote and non-NWEA personnel to interact and share documents and files. In a similar external-facing vein, PBworks has allowed our Test Publishing group to receive submissions from contractors for review. We've been able to solve these various needs because it's easy to create specific workspaces and add the appropriate teams.