Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

Investing in classroom collaboration tools? 3 things to know

Key points:

  • Flexibility and ease of use should be important parts of decision making
  • Meet today’s needs, but keep tomorrow’s needs in mind

Modern technological advancements affect virtually every area of daily life, and today’s educational institutions are looking to new digital tools to help improve student achievement and engagement while fostering collaborative learning environments for both in-person and remote learners.

To maximize a system’s effectiveness and ensure investments pay dividends for students and instructors, decision makers and school technology managers must maintain a strong understanding of all the available solutions, devices, and platforms that can meet their needs. While differences in location, age range, and budget naturally affect technology decisions and opportunities, there are several key factors central to any successful implementation.

Keep It Simple, Schools…Read More

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Why connected laptops are a pathway to digital liberation

Key points:

  • Digital classrooms–and their remote students–are here to stay
  • School facilities face unprecedented demand for broadband across education sites

The introduction of always-connected PCs and Chromebooks continues to be the catalyst for digitally liberating many students. Now is an especially exciting time to turn to this idea as PC and Chromebook battery life innovation, as well as performance, speed, audio, and video enhancement, is finally getting to the level needed to handle the digital criteria and learning throughout a school day and beyond.

Hotspots were heralded as the rescue, but often without weighing the pros and cons, especially in relevance to long-term solutions. What’s been overlooked is the substantial amount of learning time wasted just to leverage hotspots for learning. Connected laptops are a streamlined solution as the connection is built in, flexible and fitting into the ever-changing education system without the disruption of time.…Read More

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Dexter Community Schools in Michigan Uses Rise Vision to Encourage Student Creativity and Increase Student Engagement

Dexter, Michigan — Dexter Community School, a mid-size school district located in Dexter, Michigan, has implemented Rise Vision’s digital signage solution to encourage student expression and creativity.

Rise Vision, the #1 digital signage solution for K12 schools, has helped schools across the country enhance communication and foster a positive school culture.

With a high school population of approximately 1,200 students and a total district enrollment of over 3,500 students, Dexter Community School is committed to supporting the new generation of digital natives. The district has found a creative way to provide students with a platform to showcase their work and ideas through the use of digital displays.…Read More

How to make secure K-12 digital transformation a reality

Key points:

  • More students and educators are connecting personal devices to school networks
  • This makes network security–an already underfunded area–even more critical

The pandemic was a massive shift for school districts across the country, and even as we move out of it, we’re still feeling the impact. On the technical side, it prompted quick transformation to enable virtual schooling–and these changes were made as districts were already challenged by legacy technology, reduced budgets and understaffing. Existing problems were exacerbated.

In parallel, we’ve seen a rise in ransomware and other cyberattacks in the education sector. What’s needed is a digital transformation strategy that also prioritizes security.…Read More

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Can GPT-4 and TikTok usher in a new learning frontier?

Key points:

  • Combining AI and video platforms could spur engaging and interactive content
  • Still, considerations around access and equity, along with misinformation, should be taken seriously

In recent years, the digital landscape has witnessed significant changes, and as an AI language model, I have been observing these transformations closely. One of the most prominent developments is the rise of TikTok, a short-form video-sharing platform that has become a cultural phenomenon. This rapid growth has led me to consider the potential of combining my capabilities as a language understanding and generation model with the appeal of TikTok to create a unique, engaging learning experience for students.

TikTok’s short video format makes it an ideal platform for this approach, allowing educators to deliver focused lessons that students can easily consume and remember. By integrating my AI-generated content, these lessons can be customized to each student’s learning preferences, ensuring a personalized learning experience.…Read More

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ClassIn Launches its World-Class Teaching and Learning Platform in the United States

SAN DIEGO (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — ClassIn, a world leader in hybrid, blended, and remote learning solutions, today announced the launch of its globally recognized platform in the United States. The ClassIn platform has been purpose-built for education and based on nearly a decade of research, development, and in-market experience. Through its software and hardware solutions, ClassIn provides the digital infrastructure for the hybrid future of education by building classrooms in both the virtual and physical worlds. ClassIn is the only end-to-end education platform with a full suite of innovative tools and features, all designed with hybrid-first pedagogy at its core. It supports active learning, student flexibility, and various teaching and learning methods.

While schools have worked to embrace technology for decades, innovation has been slow and fragmented, and most new technologies have been designed to solve a singular problem. Today, the average US teacher uses 148 different EdTech products and the average US school district uses over 1,400 EdTech solutions. The pandemic exacerbated this issue, as most schools implemented “emergency remote teaching” instead of pedagogically aligned instruction, cobbling together many disparate technologies that were not built or designed for education.

“Remote and hybrid teaching brought long-touted but previously out-of-reach, student-centric instruction to life, making room for self-guided learning, flexible schedules, and additional time to explore volunteer, hobby, and work opportunities,” said Sara Gu, Co-Founder, and COO at ClassIn. “We’re at an inflection point. The classroom of the future will be networked, digitized, and intelligent, which means our learning solutions must be built on a solid foundation: based on hybrid-first pedagogy and backed by learning science. With over 50 million students using our solution in 160+ countries, our hardware and software solutions reduce districts’ need for the patchwork of over 1,400 different technologies by combining many of those capabilities seamlessly.”…Read More

Lightspeed Systems’ New ‘Digital Equity’ Module Provides Actionable Insight Into Students’ Internet Connectivity And School-Issued Device Health When Learning Outside of School

AUSTIN, TX –  Lightspeed Systems, the leader in safe, secure and equitable education technology, announces  Digital Equity—a module that provides robust and real-time connectivity and device health data on students’ school-issued devices. Digital Equity helps school and district leaders understand the challenges students experience while trying to study outside of school so they can ensure all students stay connected to learning. 

According to the  2022 Student Home Connectivity Study from the Consortium for School Networking (COSN), gaps remain nationwide in network performance and internet speeds at all grade levels for students connecting from outside a school, with approximately one-third of high school students experiencing “Far Below” or “Below Guidelines” for connectivity from home. In addition, large disparities exist among student subgroups, particularly by ethnicity and socioeconomically disadvantaged students.  

Empowering school and district leaders, Digital Equity provides a complete, real-time view of each student’s school-issued devices, including a device’s overall health, operating system, internet speed, service provider and more. Leaders can drill-down into specific data on each individual student and their devices, as well as view overall district-wide usage to help identify local communities that need additional support and resources. Digital Equity is customizable, giving leaders the option to turn on specific data and usage stats.  …Read More

Free Resources for Mental Health Month from Discovery Education 

Charlotte, NC — To help educators nationwide observe Mental Health Month, Discovery Education is presenting a curated collection of free standards-aligned resources empowering educators to support student mental health. Discovery Education is the worldwide edtech leader whose state-of-the-art digital platform supports learning wherever it takes place.  

Established in 1949 by Mental Health America and observed each May, Mental Health Month raises awareness and educates the public about mental illnesses and strategies for attaining mental health and wellness. This year’s theme, “Look Around, Look Within,” encourages communities to explore and understand how factors like education and the environment impact mental health. In recognition of Mental Health Month and the 2023 theme, Discovery Education presents the following collection of resources in collaboration with partners: 

Virtual Field Trip 
Grades 3-5 …Read More

3 ways MDM helps fight school cyberattacks

Last September, the Los Angeles Unified School District was hit by a ransomware attack at the start of the new school year. The second-largest educational district in the country, with more than 600,000 students and 25,000 employees, had its email taken offline and other internal systems affected by the cyberattack. When the district chose not to pay the ransom, sensitive employee data was posted online. While this attack may seem extraordinary because of its size and scope, digital security breaches like this are happening at educational institutions across the country. And school districts need to take defensive action against cyberattacks now before it’s too late.

With school districts across the U.S. being targeted by cyberattacks, the need for robust, cost-effective cybersecurity support is not just important–it’s now considered essential. But many local governments and educational institutions remain unprepared for this type of active threat. A recent report by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on the K-12 school cybersecurity landscape found that close to 50 percent of the school districts in the country have neither the staff nor the budget to adequately protect their IT infrastructure.  

As schools look for solutions to bridge this security gap, one easy and cost-effective method they should consider is the adoption of mobile device management (MDM) platforms. A small number of schools are currently using this solution to their advantage. This includes public schools like the Interboro School District in Prospect Park, PA, which employs MDM to manage a fleet of iPads used to supplement classroom instruction. Interboro uses MDM to ensure the tablets are secure and functioning properly, the students using them are staying safe online, and the costs associated with maintaining the devices are minimized.…Read More

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