Our History

About Us:

In 1997, the New York State Department of Education implemented the New York State Learning Standards. A group of K-12 educators, working within the Office of Public Service and Urban Affairs at the University at Buffalo, recognized the value in giving teachers the ability to search and access these new standards. As a result, our team began working on the development of an online, standards-based system: NYLearns.

Today we continue to assist educators in understanding and applying a standards-based approach to curriculum and instruction. At NYLearns, instructional materials and resources are organized and delivered to teachers in ways that make the learning standards both meaningful and manageable.

As a result, district leaders and teachers are empowered by our system. During times of significant educational change, the district leaders and classroom teachers have easy access to critical information and web-based tools that offer valuable support to further enhance their effectiveness as teachers and administrators.

About PLS 3rd Learning:

The NYLearns project is powered and supported by PLS 3rd Learning - an innovative organization dedicated to improving teaching and learning in K-12 schools both nationally and internationally. Our unique blend of educators, software developers, and web and instructional designers are dedicated to our organization’s core mission in education. To learn more about our team’s various initiatives and projects, please visit PLS3rdLearning.com.

State-of-the-art tools for teachers
Services Included in the Annual Subscription

My Profile

Manage your account information.

My ePortfolio

Store all your digital files, media, and resources by uploading them into your personal electronic filing cabinet.

My Website

Build your own professional classroom website and empower parents and students with access to important information.

My Curriculum

View your district curriculum and build your own customized maps.

Publish your best!

Become an instructional leader by creating and publishing your best work in NYLearns.

Featured Content

New instructional content and educational resources are featured every week to our community of users.

Assessment Builder

Produce customized assessments using questions from past New York State exams.

My Communities

Communicate and collaborate with colleagues in learning communities that are school-based, district-wide, or open to others across NYS.

ePlanner

Organize day-to-day instruction while integrating with the district's curricula.

NYLearns Accounts

Every teacher and administrator within the partnering district will receive a NYLearns account with a unique username and password to the registered environment. Within their accounts, teachers will have full access to all of the tools in the registered environment.

Help Desk

It is essential that classroom teachers be supported in their time of need. The Help Desk provides support via a toll-free phone number as well as online support. Activities include, but are not limited to: helping to create accounts, account support such as forgot password, or answering “How do I…” type questions. Most importantly, the help desk personnel track issues and report errors to the technical team. The help desk personnel serve as a liaison between users and the NYLearns team, by organizing and disseminating comments and feedback.

Content Management – Curriculum and Instruction Specialists

Content Management is a critical component of the NYLearns project. Although the project empowers each user as a potential “content provider,” there is, nevertheless, the need for full-time curriculum and instructional specialists on this project. These qualified individuals are responsible for “content management” including quality control, peer review, as well as playing a role as a liaison to publishing initiatives within participating school districts, cultural and government agencies, and/or institutions of higher education. Support staff within content management includes low-level, yet critical, duties such as fixing broken hyperlinks both internally and externally within NYLearns.

Centralized Web Hosting

Centralized Web Hosting allows participating educators to have access to NYLearns, their individual ePortfolios and websites from any computer with an Internet connection. In addition, each user is provided up to 40 MB of storage for the portfolio and website. Additional storage capacity is available upon request at no additional charge to the partnering district.

Technical Maintenance

The NYLearns technical team consists of application developers, graphic designers, and database managers. They are involved in ongoing maintenance, development, enhancements, and modifications to NYLearns so that the project continues to thrive and grow. Much of this work is based on user feedback and direction given by the project manager and the NYLearns team.