Acquired by Riverside Company
Self-described as: “The award-winning Unique Learning System is a one-of-a-kind program designed specifically to give students with complex learning needs meaningful access to the general education curriculum. From one convenient, cloud-based platform, educators deliver differentiated, standards-aligned content enhanced by powerful assessments, data tools and evidence-based instructional support. Students from pre-K through transition have the advantage of consistent high-quality instruction, a motivating interactive learning environment, engaging symbol support and a path to independence.”
N2Y is indeed unique in the adaptive learning space. Their vision: “To be the trusted provider of solutions that empower individuals with unique needs.” And their mission: “n2y provides technology-forward, age-appropriate solutions that enrich the lives of individuals with unique learning needs and those who support them.”
Their target market is k-12 special needs.
In July of 2016, N2Y was acquired by the Riverside Company. The purchase price was not disclosed, but Riverside specializes in acquiring growing business that are valued at up to $400 million.
Goals, Preferences and Skills (GPS) appears to be the key technology that supports the adaptive aspects of Unique Learning System. GPS is introduced on their website via pages such as Guided by Goals, Preferences, and Skills and also in Track Identified Goals and Show Growth with GPS. Notably, discussions of algorithms, knowledge spaces, AI and Machine Learning do not show up on the site.
Their brochure does a great job of highlighting key capabilities of the product.
N2Y has won awards and has testimonials on their website. One of the awards is for best adaptive learning solution. However, research papers covering Unique Learning System are not available. In many of the papers that discuss N2Y, the focus is on the curriculum and content that N2Y provides. The papers do not cover the adaptive learning capabilities of the Unique Learning System. For instance, in a study titled Cognitively accessible academic lessons for students with intellectual disabilities using the iPad, they used N2Y’s Unique Learning System. However, N2Y’s content was used in both sides of the experiment. One group used the N2Y content via traditional interactions with the teacher. The other group used iPads to interact with the content.
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