Navajo Prep prioritizes internet access for all students

Never before have educators been challenged and tested as they were, beginning in March 2020 and up until today, and never before has their resilience been more apparent. Administrators, technology leaders, classroom teachers, and educators in all roles have persevered as they taught each and every one of their students during a global pandemic.

The eSchool Media K-12 Hero Awards program, sponsored by Trox, recognizes the determined efforts of these educators and highlights their exemplary efforts and dedication to teaching and learning.

Discover more about Navajo Preparatory School, one of the eSchool Media K-12 Hero Awards winners:…Read More

AEPA Awards National Security Solution Bid to Deledao

On December 1st, 2020, the Association of Educational Purchasing Agencies (AEPA) awarded Deledao a national bid in their Security Solutions category. This allows the 29 member states to offer Deledao through a nationally bid contract designed to meet state bid law requirements.

“We’re excited to partner with AEPA to expand our reach to school districts across the United States,” says Shuang Ji, CEO at Deledao. “This partnership aligns with our company goal of providing education solutions that are easy and effective. Member ESAs can now focus on solving the web security needs of their districts instead of wading through complicated purchasing processes.”

“Student mental health crises are increasing at an alarming rate, with internet access and social media exacerbating this issue. The internet is always there, it doesn’t rest,” says Kevin Benson, the Security Solutions Committee Chair at AEPA.…Read More

E-rate report reveals dire need for off-campus internet

While E-rate remains a crucial program for schools and libraries to ensure connectivity, the COVID-19 pandemic brought attention to the need for increased flexibility and funds for off-campus learning.

In the 10th annual E-rate Trends Report, based on with a record-breaking 2,138 responses submitted by E-rate applicants, Funds For Learning offers an inside look at the efficacy and value of the federal E-rate program.

Related content: How school librarians are getting creative in a pandemic…Read More

Texas Education Agency and Verizon enable distance learning for 18.9M students in 16 states

For students across Texas and around the country, bridging the digital divide and providing reliable Internet connectivity that enables distance learning for students without Internet access are among the top priorities for state governments, school districts, teachers and parents alike. Many students across the U.S. will start the 2020-2021 school year this month. 

 

Verizon has partnered with the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Connectivity initiative to provide up to 18.9 million students in Texas and 15 neighboring states with a simple and quick way to access critical distance learning technologies. Kindergarten through 12th grade (K-12) public school students in Texas, Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin will benefit from Verizon’s sponsor-state agreement with the TEA to provide schools in Texas and the 15 other states with discounted service plans for unlimited 4G LTE Internet access, mobile device management (MDM) and other security solutions required for student use. …Read More

Free access to English and Spanish eBook libraries

Benchmark Education is are now offering free access to their extensive collection of eBooks to families and educators. The library includes books both in English and Spanish for grades K-6 and is accessible to users using nearly any device with internet access.

The books are organized by subject and reading level making it easy to find the books that will interest your students while they are reading at home.

This library is available through July 31, 2020.…Read More

How two districts tackle the digital equity gap

Students expect easy and immediate access to technology tools and high-speed internet in schools, and recent research shows that 99 percent of school districts are offering enough bandwidth to support digital and mobile learning in classrooms. But the digital equity gap isn’t so easily solved.

While many schools have reliable high-speed internet access, many students leave school and go home to unreliable internet access, or no internet access at all. This means that even if students have a school-issued take-home device, or a device of their own at home, they have no internet.

Some districts are hoping to close this digital equity gap by giving students take-home Wi-Fi hotspots with filtered, district-provided internet access. Kajeet‘s SmartSpot is one such example. Kajeet’s SmartSpots are filtered mobile hotspot devices designed to give students safe wireless internet connections. Kajeet partners with five major U.S. wireless networks to offer coverage.…Read More

5 strategies to tackle the homework gap

Despite a brighter spotlight on digital equity, gaps still remain, including the troubling and persistent homework gap–but a newly-relaunched digital equity toolkit aims to highlight the important work districts across the nation are taking to address equity differences.

The 2014 Erate modernization helped a majority of schools meet the FCC’s short-term connectivity goal of 100 Mbps per 1,000 students, according to CoSN’s relaunched Digital Equity Initiative toolkit. But because classroom use of technology and digital resources is growing, a gap has continued to grow between students who have internet access at home and those who do not.

Related content: Tips for closing the homework gap…Read More

4 ways to improve digital equity in your classroom

As a former middle school teacher who taught in a lower-income, majority-minority school equipped with lots of “high tech” tools, I often wondered about digital equity. For me, students’ access to tech at school wasn’t the issue. However, I knew that things were a lot different once students left my classroom. Because the majority of my students lacked internet access at home, I never assigned homework that required technology.

But that was over 10 years ago, and a lot has changed since then. Today, using tech for teaching and learning–both in class and for homework–is a lot more common than it was. Nevertheless, many teachers and students are struggling to adapt to a world where it seems like everyone is connected, yet not everyone has the same access.

A number of key findings in Common Sense’s recently released research report, The Common Sense Census: Inside the 21st-Century Classroom, speak to this disconnect. According to the report, nearly a third of teachers said it would limit their students’ learning “a great deal” or “quite a bit” if their students didn’t have access to a computer or the internet. Yet, nearly a third of teachers also shared that they assigned homework online at least once a week–although those teachers who said they did assign digital homework were more likely to teach in affluent, non-Title I schools. Together these findings highlight the importance of understanding that, while access to technology may be nearly universal today, using those same technologies for learning isn’t always equitable.…Read More

Spotty internet access for rural students limits achievement

Technology and internet access for rural students in some parts of the U.S. is unreliable at best, and this limited access could adversely affect their learning.

Rural students are less likely than non-rural students to claim that their home internet access is “great” (36 percent versus 46 percent).

Home internet access for rural students is vital for learning, as report after report consistently identify the growing homework gap as detrimental to student achievement.…Read More

3 must-haves for a mobile learning environment

Gary Lambert: Wi-fi at home and on the bus

Beekmantown (NY) Central School District, a rural district of 2,070 students, was on a mission to be the most progressive educational institution in the area. When funds were earmarked for school wi-fi, we wanted to harness the Internet to provide a world-class education for every student in this district.

Our initiative to address digital equity issues began with the rollout of Kajeet SmartSpots for students who needed home Internet access. In the four years since we had started our 1:1 program, the number of students without Internet has dropped from 30 percent to 10 percent because parents saw the benefit for their kids and made it a priority to get connected. For that 10 percent who still don’t have Internet, we had an easy-to-use solution.…Read More

What’s the one tech tool you can’t give up?

With so many tech tools out there, it’s hard to pick just one, but we convinced a bunch of educators to share their must-haves. Hopefully, their words of praise will help you the next time you’re looking for a new product to check out.

“I’ve been using LanSchool for about four years and I love it. I try not to constantly filter or block my student’s Internet access, but it’s nice to have a program that can keep them focused if they get off task.”—Tom Gilbert, M. Ed., NBCT, business and marketing education/DECA advisor, Apex Friendship High School, N.C.

“Until we found Workbench Programming Canvas, we were struggling with ways to help teachers access lessons that teach coding using Spheros and drones. Now our teachers can easily find these lessons on the Workbench platform, get them out to students, and track student progress.”—Ryan Johnson, former instructional technology coordinator, Enterprise (CA) Elementary School District…Read More

Groups urge IES to release months-late report on student internet access

A federal report on students’ home access to digital learning resources is months late, and ed-tech groups say the delay is impeding efforts to close the homework gap.

In a letter to the Institute of Education Sciences, a number of ed-tech and advocacy organizations point out that many students lack home access to the internet connectivity they need to complete homework and use online learning resources.

The groups also point out that the study, which the Every Student Succeeds Act mandated be sent to Congress by June 2017, “will help policy makers identify the best ways to ensure all students can connect with broadband services and be on a path for success after graduation.”…Read More