By Kyle Melnick ‘14

Montgomery County schools have decided to abandon Edline and change their service to MyMCPS. Like Edline, MyMCPS is an online portal that is used as a classroom-to-home online communication system. Kara Trenkamp, the director of the Department of Instructional Technology for MCPS, is currently working with students, parents, teachers, administrators and education partners to develop and implement MyMCPS.

“We are still working on building core functionality to the new application for parents and students. Once we have fully tested this development work, we will partner with schools on piloting the new systems. The pilot will inform enhancements that need to be made and will inform the timeline for implementing the MyMCPS parent and student portal in all schools,” said Trenkamp.

Edline originally piloted in Montgomery County in 2006, but was soon seen as a costly program when better alternatives were available. MyMCPS, which is used by Montgomery County staff today, was created in 2009 and will contribute to eliminating unnecessary external sources in MCPS. Instead of using Edline only for students and MyMCPS only for teachers, the updated version of MyMCPS will let teachers and students share information on the same program. It is most ideal for the county to just use one online system between teachers and students to simply access grades, data, news, assignments, information and resources.

“The expansion of myMCPS to include parents and students will provide a community forum for document sharing, accessing curriculum and resources, video conferencing, sending messages about key learning experiences, and monitoring progress on students’ work,” said Trenkamp. “The enhanced myMCPS forum provides increased access from anywhere and at any time to communication and collaboration with classmates and MCPS staff.”

In addition to Edline’s features, MyMCPS will allow students to interact with each other and could even feature video chatting and instant messaging. Despite the additions, the transition to MyMCPS is supposed to be easy for current Edline users.

“The functionality in Edline is being incorporated into myMCPS. However, the myMCPS portal expands far beyond the Edline system. The myMCPS portal integrates multiple data systems, thereby allowing for dynamic reporting on student progress, integrating curriculum resources, implementing Web 2.0 communication and collaboration tools, and incorporating digital planners for teachers,” said Trenkamp.