New Titanic expedition will create 3D map of wreck
A team of scientists will launch an expedition to the Titanic next month to assess the deteriorating condition of the world's most famous shipwreck and create a detailed…
Laura Ascione is the Editorial Director at eSchool Media. She is a graduate of the University of Maryland's prestigious Philip Merrill College of Journalism.
Latest posts by Laura Ascione (see all)
- Children learn best on paper: We need better technology, not less of it - July 13, 2026
- In districts, reaching readiness, retention, and success - March 5, 2026
- AI use is on the rise, but is guidance keeping pace? - January 2, 2026
Ask.com reverts to its Q&A origins
Ask.com, which has tried with scant success to morph itself into a search engine on par with those of Google and Microsoft, is unveiling a new version of…
Disney to buy social-gaming site Playdom
The Walt Disney Co. is buying online social-gaming company Playdom for $563.2 million, the latest sign the company is becoming a formidable player in the digital gaming industry,…
In ruling on iPhones, Apple loses a bit of its grip
Apple likes to maintain tight control over what programs can appear on the iPhone--a task that just became a little bit harder, reports the New York Times: The…
NCLB: Are the fixes worse than the flaws?
Parents and teachers don't like it. For many students, it has failed to produce the promised benefits. And experts agree it urgently needs to be fixed. But as…
B-schools all a-Twitter over social media
With interest in social media growing, B-schools are adding courses to teach students what it means for business, BusinessWeek reports. Harvard Business School and Columbia University's Graduate School…
Memo details costly perks and gifts for HISD employees
A recently released memo from the Houston Independent School District's outside law firm details for the first time the gift-giving allegations that landed the district in trouble with…
iPad is changing what’s in a campus store
A recent article in Fortune magazine warns that universities should hate the iPad, because it will infringe on profits in the campus store. But students began changing their…
Safe passages
Chicago has had major problems with gangs attacking people throughout the city, including school kids going to and from school each day. I’m sure many of us remember…
Researcher finds Safari reveals personal information
Computerworld.com reports that a feature in Apple's Safari browser designed to make it easier to fill out forms could by abused by hackers to harvest personal information, according…
L.A. Unified superintendent says he’ll depart next spring
Amid persistent budget woes and increasing political pressure, Los Angeles schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines confirmed on July 22, his 78th birthday, that he plans to step down…
Dell to pay $100 million settlement
Dell, several former executives, and its founder, Michael S. Dell, agreed on July 22 to pay more than $100 million in penalties to settle charges of disclosure accounting…
Q&A: Rumors, cyberbullying, and anonymity
Last week in this space, I shared excerpts from an interview with David Mikkelson, half of the husband-and-wife team behind Snopes.com, the online clearinghouse for internet rumors and…
Flipboard’s iPad web-zine flops under weight of its own hype
A nifty new iPad application called Flipboard has gone from fascination to mockery at startup speed, reports the Washington Post. This free program, which lets you read web…
Many states embracing Common Core standards
Less than two months after the nation's governors and state school chiefs released their final recommendations for national education standards, 27 states have adopted them and about a…
Wireless broadband network set to launch next year
U.S. schools, businesses, and consumers might get more options in wireless service starting next year, with the launch of a new wireless broadband network that aims to provide…
‘Wikiracing’ picking up speed among college students
The latest procrastination-tool-of-choice on college campuses is called "Wikiracing," reports the Philadelphia Inquirer--and like the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" game, albeit modified for the internet age, it…
Law allows ads on school web sites, but few districts selling space
Arizona school districts can offer bus and web site space for advertising, but it appears few in the East Valley are seeing a big impact from the state's…
Editorial: Ed-tech funds sit idle as California bickers
California is the home of Silicon Valley and the most sophisticated data systems in the world, yet it continues to rank near the bottom for student and teacher…
Let cops carry the guns
One thing that still surprises me is the number of states willing to allow college and university students to carry concealed weapons on campus. More than 30 years…
What price on student safety?
One of the most important security measures any district can employ is a program in which…
Providing standardized technology for equal student experience
With the school year at a close, university administrators have a new class of arrivals to look forward to in the fall, and with that a new set…
Cameras up North
Although security cameras in schools raise staff and student privacy issues, they can be highly beneficial when it comes to...
Innovation in manufacturing: More than just new technology
The demands on today's workforce are quite different than a decade ago. This is no truer for U.S. manufacturing than other sectors of our economy. However, manufacturing--unlike other…
Practice the plan
Recently police officers moved through a Florida middle school hunting for a gunman that had opened fire on campus. There was blood everywhere. Students were lying on the…
Securing K-12 networks for 1:1 computing
The adoption of 1:1 computing programs and online K-12 learning programs are driving an industry-wide move toward accessible network access. In East Grand Rapids Public Schools, and in…
Survey reveals slow progress in education technology
U.S. schools’ average overall scores on an annual survey designed to measure their progress toward implementing 21st-century classrooms and learning skills increased less than 1 percent from 2009,…
Lock the gates
It seems a first-grade student recently slipped away from a Massachusetts school with the intention of walking home. Apparently, none of the school staff noticed him leaving. Fortunately,…
Kid vandals?
The criminals seem to get younger all the time. A school in Louisiana recently reported...
3,000 new sex offenders each month
As of June, there are now 716,750 registered sex offenders in this country. What alarms me is that number is up nearly 72,000 over the past two years.…
No failure to communicate: School-wide communication systems for the 21st century
For most of us who remember classroom announcements in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, we recall the tinny, muffled "voice of God" summoning an unlucky classmate to the…
Thoughts from the show floor
Which came first...the chicken or the egg? I sometimes wonder about that when I'm in the exhibit hall at educational technology conferences like ISTE. When you look around…
Google Wave for the K-12 classroom
Here I am at a session about Google Wave (presenters: Tim Stack, Utah Education Network, Jared Covili, and Mitchell Jorgensen). I have always been intrigued by this technology,…
Words that inspire
Live ISTE Blog - One of my favorite quotes comes from Uncle Ben of Spider-Man fame... "With great power, comes great responsibility." I'm pretty sure that Stan Lee…
Protect teachers, too
Most often, talk about securing campuses centers around protecting the students. But there are times that we have to remember that we need to...
Turning lives around with technology: The Intel Education Service Corps
"It's Friday night, and six Intel employees, sitting in a row, are sweating buckets," Jason Cheah recalls of his first day in Vietnam. "We're sitting in a wide…
ISTE explores global solutions to education reform
ISTE 2010 opened its third day with a panel discussion featuring global perspectives on how education can best benefit from excellence and innovation.
The Hall Show: Interactive classrooms
Live ISTE Blog - Raise your hand if you know Hall Davidson? Those of you who raised your hand are in the majority (and you've probably freaked out…
Teaching with Moodle: Tips for enhanced course design
Live ISTE Blog - My first ISTE session was Teaching Moodle:Tips for Enhanced Course Design. My goal in attending the session was to get some ideas on how…
Study reveals factors in ed-tech success
Schools with one-to-one computing programs have fewer discipline problems, lower dropout rates, and higher rates of college attendance than schools with a higher ratio of students to computers,…