Technology changes at a rapid pace, and educators have to keep up.
Check below for the latest marketplace news to keep you up-to-date on product developments, teaching and learning initiatives, and new trends in education.
College and Career Readiness
To address the challenges of ensuring all students are college ready, career ready and life ready, AASA, The School Superintendents Association, has launched a national initiative designed to create successful pathways for America’s high school students. The Redefining Ready! program introduces new research-based metrics to more appropriately assess that students are ready to pursue their lifelong goals and dreams following post-secondary education.
Digital Curriculum and Tools
Early learning brand Teaching Strategies announced the launch of its new The Creative Curriculum for Kindergarten. Developed in response to educator demand for resources that support hands-on, project-based learning in early elementary classrooms, the new curriculum builds on decades of Teaching Strategies’ research and experience in early childhood education.
(Next page: More digital technologies and STEM resources)
Teaching kids fundamental money management concepts and how to earn, save, spend and donate should start early. That’s why Discovery Education has partnered with the Jackson Charitable Foundation, which provides educational programming to increase the financial knowledge of Americans, to offer elementary school classrooms nationwide a dynamic financial literacy program.
Turnitin has released new content and assignment types for Turnitin Revision Assistant, the company’s product for improving student writing skills through formative feedback. The two new assignments types – Spotlight and Expansion Pack – give instructors new ways to engage students in the writing process, measure student writing skills and differentiate instruction based upon actionable data.
Gaming
If the environment were a game, would we win? EduCycle, a new gaming platform that uses augmented reality (AR), teaches children ages 12 and up about the impact their decisions have on the environment. Designed and built by Neste, the game’s challenge is to reduce the world’s carbon dioxide emissions to the level specified in the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.
Industry News
The Education Research & Development Institute (ERDI) presented its Inspiration Leadership Award to Jeff Patterson, Founder & CEO of Gaggle, during the ERDI III Spring Conference 2017 held earlier this month in Chicago. Patterson helped ERDI launch a conference specifically for school district curriculum leaders. Past award recipients include Dr. John Barry, former superintendent of the Aurora Public Schools in Colorado, and Project SEED for 50 years working to improve the success rate
of all students, particularly those disadvantaged by poverty and racism.
myON has been honored by the Association of American Publishers (AAP) with the 2017 REVERE Award for the Best in Digital and Media Literacies. As one of many in a diverse group of innovative and rich educational resources in the Classroom category, myON’s win showcases the exceptional quality and vision of the personalized literacy environment that promotes literacy growth and students’ ownership of their learning.
LMS
D2L announced a partnership with WSIPC to reach and engage almost three quarters of a million learners. WSIPC is a public non-profit cooperative that provides K-12 public and private schools with technology solutions, services and support. WSIPC members can now choose D2L’s LMS to deliver a modern learning experience that reaches, stimulates and engages every learner.
Google tools are changing the classroom, and teachers and students benefit when these resources mesh with existing technology. Schoology announced major enhancements to its integration with Google Drive. The updates will allow students and educators to more easily use Google Drive while working inside of Schoology to manage grades, assignments and student submissions.
OER
LMS itslearning announced a strategic development in its partnership with Gooru, a nonprofit organization that curates and vets open educational resources (OER). Educators can now access complete online curricula for more than 35 teacher-curated courses in core subject areas, including science, mathematics, English language arts and social studies.
Open Up Resources, a nonprofit that provides openly licensed curriculum for K–12 schools, has partnered with K–12 innovator and curriculum author EL Education to offer its new comprehensive K–5 English Language Arts (ELA) core program.
PD
To provide educators with an online destination for discovering hands-on critical thinking tools, national K-12 publisher Mentoring Minds, today announced the re-launch of its website www.mentoringminds.com as a resource for teachers seeking practical and creative ways to integrate critical thinking into learning and teaching.
Freeing up professional development days outside the classroom is virtually impossible. Best practices suggest that introducing technology with self-paced courses and continuous access to the teacher training materials helps ensure new classroom edtech solutions will deliver on intended student achievement gains. Kyte Learning‘s approach to training ensures there are no more disengaged teachers and administrators left in the dark. Kyte offers a 24/7 mobile/online solution to make all of today’s most indispensable instructional technology applications like the full Google™ Suite, Periscope™, coding applications, Kahoot™ and more easy to learn. Hundreds of titles are currently available.
Personalized Learning
After implementing Lexia Reading Core5® for more than 55,000 students, Utah schools have seen considerable literacy gains. According to a new report released by the Utah State Board of Education for the Early Intervention Software Program grant (EISP) 2015-2016 school year, students with strong performance in Core5 also had increased gains in The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS).
ASCD has launched ASCD Student Growth Center, a joint venture between ASCD and Lee Ann Jung and Rich Ord, the former partners of Student Growth Works. ASCD Student Growth Center, which focuses on innovative and practical supports for students with learning differences, is based on Jung’s highly respected research, recommended practices, and in-school work. The Center will provide professional learning services and products, including software that supports goal setting, intervention design, and progress monitoring.
Edmentum has launched Exact Path, a new K-8 individualized learning program that provides an adaptive, research-based assessment and dynamically assigned quality content and progress monitoring tools to target individual instruction.
STEM Learning
EarthEcho International’s Founder and President Philippe Cousteau, Jr. has spent his life traveling to the far reaches of our planet, just like his father, Philippe Cousteau Sr., and his grandfather, the legendary explorer Jacques Cousteau, did before him. Now, EarthEcho brings modern-day explorers and trailblazers to students and classrooms with STEMExplore: a no-cost online destination featuring dozens of relatable, day-in-the-life interviews with scientists and engineers from science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).
Ed-tech company Learning.com announced a new partnership with Codesters, a platform for K-12 computer science instruction, to develop EasyCode Pillars, an online interactive curriculum that incorporates coding challenges and game design into the classroom to cultivate students’ coding skills. This digital literacy resource offers students a dynamic, hands-on coding experience, while providing teachers with a turnkey instructional solution for use in the computer lab or the classroom.
The National Wildlife Federation announced a new partnership with the publisher of supplementary educational materials, Teacher Created Resources, to deliver the first-ever Ranger Rick reading, writing, and science program to educators, schools, and districts across the U.S. Through the engaging world of wildlife ambassador Ranger Rick raccoon and his friends, teachers and students can utilize both content and photography from the award-winning Ranger Rick magazine to enhance teaching and learning across reading, writing, and science for students in grades 2 through 5. Ranger Rick’s Reading Adventures is now available to classrooms nationwide.
DreamBox Learning announced a partnership with Nelson, Canada’s leading educational publisher, to bring its K-8 math education software platform to more Canadian classrooms. DreamBox’s Intelligent Adaptive Learning technology and curriculum are informed by decades of research about children’s natural development and growth in mathematical reasoning. The software, which is used in all 50 states and across Canada, adapts to each student in real-time as they use it, offering the right lesson at the right time.
Student Progress
To help engage and motivate students who need help staying on track for graduation, Fuel Education® (FuelEd®) is launching a new, credit recovery curriculum for blended and online learning available this fall. The new FuelEd Credit Recovery Curriculum features a modern design with interactive content, adaptive release technology, growth mindset and social emotional exercises to teach grit, and powerful analytic tools—all available in a mobile and accessible learning environment.
Panorama Education, a provider of social-emotional learning and student, family, and teacher feedback surveys, announced the release of a new platform, Panorama Student Success, to help educators bring together academic and non-academic data and act in targeted, timely ways to support students. Panorama Student Success brings academic, attendance, and behavior data together with school climate surveys and social-emotional learning data to paint a full picture of every student’s progress.
Technology Management
ClassLink announced the availability of three single sign-on methods that create fast, easy, secure access for teachers and students around the world. With more than 5,000 single sign-on connectors and comprehensive use of open technology standards, ClassLink aims to be an inclusive single sign-on platform.
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