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…
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)
- 10 reasons to upgrade to Windows 11 ASAP - November 11, 2025
- How AI is streamlining special education - November 3, 2025
- How Windows 11 is powering the next generation of K-12 innovation - October 23, 2025
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,…
Participating in the ISTE 2010 Tweet-Up at Marlowe’s
Live ISTE Blog – Last night I arrived in Denver, and met my roommate in the airport for ISTE 2010 ... Read more
Making the most of ISTE sessions
Live ISTE Blog: Denver…where the air is clean and the atmosphere has us panting after walking a short flight of steps. It's a great place to host ISTE…
ISTE focuses on excellence, global education
The 31st annual International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE, formerly NECC) conference kicked off in Denver with inspiring and thought-provoking comments from ISTE President Helen Padgett and…
Why does something always have to go wrong?
Moved by the disappearance of a 7-year-old boy in Portland, Ore., a mother of two in southwest Washington has started a petition to…
Superstition Springs Elementary leverages teacher’s vision to design high-tech classrooms
When Scottsdale, Ariz.-based CCS Presentation Systems offered a $20,000 technology grant for teachers to design their ideal classroom, first grade teacher Valerie Gresser of Superstition Springs Elementary School…
New system combines classroom audio, emergency alert
A new classroom product that combines sound amplification, lecture capture, and emergency alert capabilities in a single system could have a big impact on the safety of K-12…
More on preparing for a potential campus lockdown
In my last higher-education blog, I wrote about planning for how and when to lockdown a campus. Once the task force is in place and working, it’s time…