Accelerated Reader in Australia

2013 – April Release

David Linke — Mon, 06 May 2013 04:35:06 +0000

The quiz team have released 700+ quizzes this month.

Some of the highlights to draw your attention to include -

2 more Captain Underpants
3 more Rick Riordan books
Yet more Robert Muchamore books
The rest of the Phoenix Files series by Chris Morphew
The award winning “A Bus Called Heaven” from Bob Graham
A series of older reader books from Michael Grant – BZRK and Fear as taster
Mike Lancaster’s 0.4 book

Download the Quiz Release as PDF

AU Quiz Release – 2013 April

May 2013 Newsletter

David Linke — Mon, 06 May 2013 04:30:58 +0000

Small Steps Towards a New AR Experience

We released our latest newsletter today. You can view on the online version by clicking the image below

Meet the All New Accelerated Reader

David Linke — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 03:33:05 +0000

Accelerated Reader is about to receive a major facelift. The student and teacher user interface has been completely redesigned to help students find books, see the different quizzes available on that book and ultimately a much clearer way of communicating results to students.

The key points for you

All sites are scheduled for update in late April or Early May 2013
Whilst the look and feel will be new and exciting, the functionality will not change
Students will have no difficulty in actually doing quizzes on the day that it updates
The student and teacher interfaces will change at the same time
Students will see a fantastic new set of screens showing their quiz results

My UK colleagues have just released this 5 minute video showcasing the changes and what the new interface looks like.

2013 – March Release

David Linke — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 02:48:22 +0000

The quiz team have approved 500+ quizzes for release this month.

Some highlights from this release

The latest Diary of a Whimpy Kid quiz
More Dairy Meadows fairy books
More Geronimo Stilton and Thea Stilton books
More Scott Westerfeld books
A few more of the Captain Mack books
More by Marcus Sedgwick
Filling some gaps in the Lemony Snicket series
Lots of Margaret Wild picture books

Download the Quiz Release as PDF

AU Quiz Release – 2013 March

Google Chrome Settings

David Linke — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 05:59:03 +0000

Issue

When taking a quiz in Accelerated Reader, the student clicks on [Yes] to confirm he wants to take the selected quiz but the quiz does not start. Instead, the browser displays, “You are currently taking a quiz. Please switch back to that window”. If the student logs back in and chooses to take a quiz again, a message in the browser tells the student he has previously started the quiz, but answered no questions yet.

When choosing to “Take a Test” in STAR Reading, nothing happens when the student clicks on the [Start] button.

Explanation

Google Chrome’s inbuilt pop-up blocking settings are preventing Accelerated Reader Advantage from successfully displaying the Accelerated Reader Quiz or STAR Reading Test.

Solution:

You must be using Google Chrome v23 or later

Open Chrome.
Click on Settings
Click “Show advanced settings…”.
Click on [Content settings…] under the Privacy section.
Either check the option to “Allow all sites to show pop-ups” or click on [Manage exceptions…] and add your Accelerated Reader Advantage website address as an exception. All Australian hosted site addresses use the following format https://auhosted.renlearn.com.au/
Click [OK].

Download the Instructions for your IT Team

AR – Google Chrome Settings

2013 – January and February Release

David Linke — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 04:05:37 +0000

The quiz writing team have worked away over the summer break producing a huge list of quizzes for release in January and February 2013. The total across January and February is nearing 1000 quizzes. There is specific theme to the release this time round, but some highlights to draw out for you

The last of the Rangers Apprentice Series and the start f the Brotherband Series by John Flanagan
The start of the Alice Miranda series by Jacqueline Harvey
A large collection of picture books, including Eric Carle’s and Maurice Sendak’s backlists
The start of the Justin D’Ath Extreme Adventures
A set of graphic novels that might really appeal to this Middle Years boys
Lots of the Catherine Jinks books – Evil Genius, Genius Squad etc
Secondary Books – like Jelicoe Road, Finnikin the Rock, Graffitti Moon, Kiss & Blog, Faking 19 etc etc

There are really too many for me to try and pull our my highlights, without giving away too much of personal reading bias.

Download the Quiz Release as PDF

AR Quiz Release – 2013 January

AR Quiz Release – 2013 February

Accelerated Reader Desktop Discontinued

David Linke — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 03:19:29 +0000

In April 2012, Renaissance Learning in the USA made some decisions about the future of the Desktop Version of Accelerated Reader, STAR Reading and Accelerated Maths that will impact us here in Australia and New Zealand.

Renaissance Learning announced the end of life on the desktop versions of Accelerated Reader, STAR Reading and Accelerated Maths. This is a common thing that all software companies do from time to time, so that is not out of the ordinary. This decision though means that EdAlliance too must announce alterations to the support and products we can supply to Australian and New Zealand schools across our region.

In simple practical terms this means:

The Australian and New Zealand Quiz stores closed 31 December 2012
There will no new Desktop Versions of any products developed
There will be limited support available for the Desktop Versions

The following versions of the desktop products were sold in Australia and New Zealand between 1999 and 2009 and are now discontinued:

Accelerated Reader – v 5.1 – v 6.30 – v 6.32 – v 6.35x
STAR Reading – v 2.2.1
Accelerated Maths – v 2.11 – v 2.4x

From 1 January 2013, you will not be able

to purchase quizzes or redeem quiz vouchers for the desktop version
to purchase student expansions for any of the desktop version
Renew your support plan

It is now time to move to the Accelerated Reader Advantage version of the product.

Or simply request a quote

2012 – December Release

David Linke — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 02:56:01 +0000

Our final Australian Accelerated Reader quiz release for 2012 sees us cross the 25,000 quiz barrier. That is a huge milestone for our small Australian market, having the team process that many books and write those quizzes is a great achievement across the years.

In this specific month’s release:

Checkout the Freestyle and Freestyle Express series – This series has the same book written at two different Book Levels
The remainder of the Kin Series from a few years ago have been released
Some more of the Moody Judy series
A number of Ann Bryant books
A few books by Jasmine Oliver that might work well for secondary school girls

Download the Quiz Release as PDF

AU Quiz Release – December 2012

2012 – October and November Release

David Linke — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 00:38:59 +0000

Our monthly quiz release was delayed in October and early November.

We were simply tying together the loose ends in the non-fiction releases from early in 2012. So this month we see the final set of non-fiction releases that we started earlier in the year – plus some great fiction too.

Download the Quiz Release as PDF

AR Quiz Release – Nov & Oct 2012

2012 YABBA Award Winners

David Linke — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 08:05:13 +0000

Through out 2012 I’ve been a very proud member of the volunteer committee of the Young Australian’s Best Book Awards (YABBA) that runs the children’s choice book awards in Victoria. This fantastic committee enthusiastically works hard to bring student voice to the Australian Children’s Books Industry. Through EdAlliance I agreed to print and distribute the 2012 Shortlist Poster which 1,000 schools around Australian received for free.

If you requested a poster I hope that it helped bring these Australian books to the attention of your students. As an Accelerated Reader customer you will notice I have some work to do with the Quiz Writers to get a bunch of them quizzed ASAP. I’m addressing that right now.

On 7 November 2012, the YABBA Awards in Victoria announced the 2012 winners at a star-studded gathering attended by 250 students and 60 Authors, Illustrators and industry professionals. This was the very first YABBA Awards Ceremony that I’ve personally attended and I was just blown away by the energy, excitement and most importantly the high quality interactions between students and the people that write and illustrate books just for them.

I’ve produced an A3 poster showing the winners and encouraging students to think about the books they’ve read this year.

Download the A3 Poster Here

REAL AWARD WINNERS POSTER