Savvas Learning Company Acquires Rubicon Publishing, Canada’s Leading Digital Learning Provider for Math

PARAMUS, NEW JERSEY — March 3, 2022 — Savvas Learning Company, a leading provider of next-generation learning solutions across all K-12 grade levels and disciplines, announced today its acquisition of Rubicon Publishing, Inc., the developer of Canada’s most widely used all-digital math program.

Headquartered near Toronto, Rubicon is the provider of MathUP, an inquiry-based math program for students in grades K-8 that has become the best-selling online math product in Canada.

“With its hugely popular online math program, MathUP, Rubicon has evolved into a cutting-edge digital learning company that has transformed math education in Canada,” said Bethlam Forsa, CEO of Savvas Learning Company. “I look forward to building upon Rubicon’s successes and becoming the solutions provider of choice for educators on both sides of the border.”…Read More

The best ways to monitor your school’s indoor air quality

COVID-19 ushered forth a plethora of new safety guidelines and strategies intended to bring students and teachers back to the classroom as safely as possible. Indoor air quality has topped the list of school leaders’ concerns.

With students back in physical classrooms, air quality must take priority regardless of a district’s mask policy.

Join this eSchool News webinar to learn about:…Read More

New ParentSquare Guide Provides Best Practices to Help K-12 Educators Engage With the Hardest-to-Reach Families

Santa Barbara, CA — Feb. 18, 2021 — The role of effective communication has never been more critical, but districts and schools are facing a gamut of challenges in engaging all parents and guardians — especially the hardest-to-reach families. To help educators bridge the communications gap between school and home, ParentSquare, the award-winning unified school-home communications platform for K-12, has created a free best practice guide.

Titled “ Reaching the Last 10%: Engaging the Hardest-to Reach Families,” the 13-page guide provides practical recommendations to address five common barriers to effective communication. Additionally, readers can also access a companion infographic, “5 Barriers to Engagement Through Communications,” which provides supporting data points behind the five situations that can have a significant impact on family engagement.

“Our collective years of experience with schools and districts across the country helped us identify the challenges that we discuss throughout the guide,” said Anupama Vaid, Founder & President of ParentSquare. “It’s through that experience that we were able to observe and devise strategies to help educators overcome some of those obstacles.”…Read More

Pikmykid and Central Access Announce Partnership to Advance School Safety and Efficiency

TAMPA, Fla., Feb. 18, 2022 –  Pikmykid, the premier school safety and dismissal platform, today announces its partnership with  Central Access, the leading provider of K-12 education technology tools for the state of Mississippi.

Through this partnership, Pikmykid and Central Access will bring the best Student Information System (SIS) and dismissal technology to the educators and parents of Mississippi, starting with a fully integrated solution with Application Programming Interface (API) integrations. As the two companies continue to grow together, customers can expect to see deeper, more extensive integrations and capabilities.

“Central Access and Pikmykid have shared several customers over the years, and we’re excited to bring an even better experience to those users,” said Saravana Pat Bhava, CEO and Co-Founder of Pikmykid. “This partnership was one of the easiest decisions we’ve made going into 2022, and we’re truly honored to be the exclusive provider of safety and dismissal technology for Central Access clients.”…Read More

Why e-learning requires Wi-Fi optimization

Schools are officially in the age of technological learning. There are 1:1 programs, hybrid classrooms, free online learning platforms, eLearning applications and assessments, video collaborations, and the expectation of more to come with developments in augmented and virtual reality technologies.

While useful, these technologies can come with challenges. This includes:

  • A need for reliable internet connectivity,
  • Ongoing maintenance, and
  • Ongoing optimization

The good news is that schools have access to free funds that will address all of these challenges thanks to the E-rate program. Here’s how to use it to best support student and teacher success.…Read More

One Animation’s Oddbods Partners With Splashlearn’s Digital Learning Program – Reaching Over 40m Kids In The USA

SINGAPORE/USA 10 February 2022 – Award-winning content creation, distribution and licensing studio One Animation has secured a new partnership for Oddbods with SplashLearn. The massively popular digital learning program for reading and math, SplashLearn has benefited over 40 million children internationally. Under the deal, Oddbodsdigitalbooks, including ‘The Pied Piper of Oddsville’, ‘Pogo and the Magic Lamp’ and ‘The Great Bod Bake Off’, will launch exclusively as part of SplashLearn’s reading program on 10th February. 

SplashLearn, one of the fastest-growing learning programs in the USA, has bagged many prestigious edtech awards such as the Stevie Award for best edtech product, Tabby Award for the best business and the Parents Choice Award, is also backed by prominent investors. In 2021 alone it added 7 million new users and is currently accessed in over 150 countries, including the UK, Australia and India. The program is also used by over 750,000 teachers in around 77,000 schools. SplashLearn is free for schools and teachers, ensuring every child gets access to quality, fun education resources in their classroom. 

SpashLearn’s reading program, which will feature the Oddbods books, has been designed to develop core reading skills through a sequential learning path that takes into consideration factors such as sentence predictability, word features, story structure, among several others. It’s a comprehensive and interactive program that caters to children aged 3-11 years and features a rich library of titles. …Read More

Osmo From BYJU’s Names Kar-Han Tan, Ph.D., Head of Computer Vision and Machine Learning

Palo Alto, CA–Feb 10, 2022–Award-winning STEAM brand, Osmo from BYJU’S, announces Kar-Han Tan’s appointment as Head of Computer Vision and Machine Learning, effective immediately. With three decades leading teams in robotics and AI research and development, Tan will further thedevelopment of a world-class computer vision and AI platform that aids in the creation of new products, games, and devices incorporating gains made in deep learning technology. In addition, he will lead a growing global team to research, develop, and optimize new algorithms for computer vision and AI-enabled features such as object detection, object recognition, hand tracking, pattern matching, and hand-drawing analysis, among others, all in an effort to create the best learning tools and outcomes.

“We were impressed by Kar-Han’s extensive experience leading R&D teams in robotics, AI, and deep learning,” says Mark Solomon, Senior Vice President of Products and Platform at BYJU’S. “His background will help Osmo expand the usage of computer vision technology across BYJU’S various products and platforms, further meeting the needs of learners of all ages everywhere.”

Tan, who was born and educated in Singapore, most recently founded Helpful Robotics LLC, which designed and built an AI-enabled autonomous assistive robot from the ground up, and fostered a collaboration between scientists and engineers located in the San Francisco Bay Area, including the University of California San Francisco, and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.…Read More

Louisiana Department of Education Rates Lexia Reading Core5 as Highest Tier of Efficacy

BOSTON (Feb. 10, 2022) – The personalized literacy solution Lexia® Core5® Reading (Core5) from Lexia® Learning, a Cambium Learning® Group company, has received the highest rating of Tier 1 from the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE). The Tier 1 rating means that the LDOE has designated Core5 as “exemplifying quality.” The LDOE website now lists the evidence-based, educational technology program among the most intensive intervention tools for grades three through five.

“Core5 met all the LDOE’s non-negotiable criteria and received the best possible score on all indicators of superior quality,” said Lexia Learning President, Nick Gaehde. “LDOE is committed to helping educators find interventions that are data-driven, individualized for students, and systematic. It’s wonderful to see Core5 added to such a prestigious list.”

To support local school districts’ decisions on purchasing instructional materials, the LDOE evaluates products on program design, instructional design, usability and support, and other criteria for high quality. A committee of Louisiana educators reviews the materials.…Read More

TeachingBooks Resources Available to 24 Million Readers with New Statewide Library Systems Added in 2021

CLEVELAND – February 3, 2022TeachingBooks, an online database of supplemental resources that enrich children’s and young adult books, had a busy year in 2021. In addition to being acquired by OverDrive in October, TeachingBooks announced the signing of four new statewide licenses and one territory license in 2021. TeachingBooks also was awarded the “Common Sense Selection for Learning” as a best-in-class resource for both students and educators.

With the addition of the new licenses, more than 24 million readers at over 55,000 schools, public libraries and higher education institutions can now access TeachingBooks’ curated educational materials. TeachingBooks deepens the learning experience by “bringing books to life” through their database of over 270,000 digital resources, including author interviews, video book trailers, discussion questions and literary games.

The five new licenses signed in 2021 represent more than 7,300 institutions and 2.6 million students. These library systems include:…Read More

Schools in All 50 States and Two U.S. Territories Offer Students Access to Quality Online Courses from VHS Learning

Boston – Feb. 3, 2022 – In 2021, 44 new schools partnered with VHS Learning, a nonprofit empowering schools with the industry’s best teacher-led online learning programs. Located across the United States and around the world, these school partners are now offering their students access to the nonprofit’s more than 300 core and elective courses online. With the addition of these schools, VHS Learning is now partnered with schools in all 50 states, two U.S. territories, and 63 countries.

“Having partners in all 50 states is a first for us, and it’s extremely fitting that this milestone marks our 25th anniversary” said Carol DeFuria, President & CEO of VHS Learning. “Our students have maintained a high level of academic performance even during the pandemic, by continuing to surpass national averages for Advanced Placement® pass rates. Our history of excellence helps schools feel confident about choosing VHS Learning to meet their online education needs.”

The new U.S. school partners are in twelve states – Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. New international school partners are in China, Taiwan, Korea, Portugal, Sierra Leone, and the United Arab Emirates.…Read More

When it comes to learning loss, don’t reinvent the wheel

As we head towards the last half of our second school year in a pandemic, there is no doubt that the impact of learning loss has exceeded all predictions. As reported by McKinsey,  students are behind an average of four months in reading and five months in math. Unfortunately, the pandemic widened preexisting opportunity and achievement gaps, hitting historically disadvantaged students hardest. In math, students in majority black schools ended the year with six months of unfinished learning; students in low-income schools with seven.  

Helping students catch up and keep up is a challenge many schools are just starting to tackle now that they’ve navigated the logistics of teaching and learning in a (hopefully) waning pandemic.  

Unfortunately, we are already seeing the best intentions and worst habits of problem-solving work their way into resolving student learning loss. Everyone wants to do something big and sweeping to ‘fix’ the issue.  …Read More

Making the most of your return to school

Even though schools are back to in-person learning, the pandemic taught us something about how automating processes can save time–and if educators need more of anything, it’s time.

Students, parents, and staff can work smarter and more effectively with self-service forms, electronic signatures, pre-populated agreements, and automated approval processes.

You can transform your agreement process by eliminating paper, automating workflows, and connecting the systems within your organization as you learn best practices for human resources, special education/student services, and procurement.…Read More