65 predictions about edtech trends in 2024

As we wave farewell to 2023, we’re looking ahead to edtech trends in 2024 with optimism for education as a whole.

Moving away from the pandemic, educators still grapple with learning loss and academic disparities and inequities.

In 2023, a new popular kid in town, better known as AI, dominated headlines and prompted debates around how students could abuse–and should use–the generative tool for learning. …Read More

Utah Nonprofit Awarded U.S. Department of Education EIR Grant for Youth Mental Health Program

SALT LAKE CITY – The Cook Center for Human Connection has been awarded a $3.99 million Education Innovation and Research (EIR) grant from the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) for its program, “Helping Helpers Help: An Integrated Model for Empowering Educators and Parents as Partners in Supporting Student Wellness and Learning.” The Cook Center is among the first awardees to receive EIR funds for a project with an exclusive focus on mental health and suicide prevention as keys to improving school climate and learning. The program will serve 83 middle schools in New Mexico and Arizona by bridging systemic access inequalities to mental health supports, reducing barriers to learning, and helping educators, parents, and caregivers better support young people’s social-emotional well-being.

The DOE announced $277 million in new grant awards to advance educational equity and innovation, earmarking $87.2 million for programs that support social-emotional well-being, an increase of nearly 20 percent over the previous year. “The Department of Education has recognized that youth mental health is a crisis that threatens the education and well-being of millions of students,” said Anne Brown, CEO and president of the Cook Center. “In a historic move, they have awarded the largest amount of EIR funding to social-emotional learning initiatives, and recognized that our program can provide critical support to underserved communities in addressing mental health challenges that hinder students’ ability to engage and learn.”

The Cook Center’s model focuses on the protective factors for youth mental health and suicide prevention in which schools and parents play a critical role. Through the grant, the schools will participate in ParentGuidance.org, which includes one-on-one parent coaching for all parents of schoolchildren, interactive mental health series webinars hosted by trained professionals, and a library of on-demand online courses taught by licensed therapists. School faculty and staff will also participate in professional development sessions to complement the resources available to parents. …Read More

Controversy on whether growth mindset works will strengthen the theory

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This article originally appeared on the Christensen Institute’s blog and is reposted here with permission.

All too often, education research falls short of giving educators on-the-ground actionable advice. However, a recent controversy around Carol Dweck’s well-known growth mindset gives me hope that we can move forward with research that can better inform and support practitioners and students.…Read More

Have digital portfolios come of age?

It’s one of the longest-running promises of edtech: Have students provide proof of work online. Get better assessment results. Provide students agency and enable them to express themselves creatively. Take teaching and learning to the next level.

For the most part, we’re still waiting. But not Gary Heidt, who leads the Innovation Lab at Perkiomen Valley HS in Pennsylvania and is a champion of a tool called Unrulr. In this conversation, we discuss the implementation and impact of Unrulr in his classroom, where he tries to focus on creating a more human and reflective learning experience. Joining us was Aaron Schorn, Head of Growth and Community at Unrulr to detail how students can document their learning moments, create exit ticket reflections, engage in discussion boards, and build larger learning journeys.

Here’s a link to a blog post that dives deep into Gary’s experiences when it comes to documentation and Unrulr. And here’s a link to the portfolio that Uses Unrulr public links throughout to tell the story of one student’s project journey.…Read More

The power of AI in education: Enhancing instructional coaching for student success

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Last fall, ChatGPT, an AI-powered language model, became the subject of widespread discussion, from lighthearted memes about robots taking over to genuine confusion about the capabilities and implications of AI. While we have come to understand this technology better, there still remains hesitancy and caution surrounding AI and its integration into education. A prime example was the New York City School System, which had prohibited students and teachers from accessing ChatGPT’s website on school computers.

This hesitation is understandable, as any new technology brings about both excitement and trepidation. However, it is essential for educators and instructional coaches to embrace emerging technologies like AI, as doing otherwise would mean doing our students a disservice. By integrating AI into the classroom, we have the opportunity to enhance teaching practices, coaching conversations, and ultimately support student success in innovative and meaningful ways.…Read More

For school leaders, routine decisions aren’t so routine

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In the tapestry of leadership, decisions are often viewed through a lens of routine or regularity. It’s easy to fall into the belief that some choices are mundane, merely navigating the day-to-day operations of an organization. However, beneath this seemingly commonplace surface lies a profound truth: no leadership decision is truly routine. Each choice, whether seemingly minor or monumental, has the potential to send ripples through the fabric of an organization or impact an individual in ways that may extend beyond the leaders’ view.

Understanding the potential consequences of seemingly routine decisions is not just an important leadership skill; it’s a necessity. Every leadership decision, regardless of its apparent simplicity, possesses the potential to have a far greater impact than it appears viewed on the surface. A few examples illustrate this premise:  …Read More

Gen Z youth on nondegree paths feel workforce ready

Key points:

  • Three in four high school grads say they feel ready to enter the workforce thanks to a nondegree pathway
  • High school graduates need more information about these pathways to better make decisions about their futures
  • See related article: Companies go to high schools for career training
  • For more news on college and career readiness, see eSN’s Innovative Teaching page

A new survey commissioned by American Student Assistance (ASA) and Jobs for the Future (JFF) found that while young people who pursue nondegree pathways report having confidence in their future, there is a pervasive lack of awareness about these diverse pathways to success and how to judge their quality. In fact, two in three youth who did not pursue a nondegree education pathway indicated they would have considered this option if they had known more about it.

As college enrollment remains below pre-pandemic levels and survey after survey captures growing public skepticism about the value of college, ASA and JFF commissioned a survey – conducted by Morning Consult – of more than 1,100 high school graduates who have opted not to go to college directly after high school to better understand their decisions. …Read More

Poptential™ by Certell Revolutionizes Social Studies Education with Integration of American Principles and Launch of Engauge™ Teacher Dashboard

INDIANAPOLIS — Certell, the creator behind the Poptential™ family of free social studies course packages, announced a significant update to its digital curriculum and platform designed to help students better understand the principles that have shaped American history while giving teachers tools to better manage their classroom and improve learning.

Poptential course packages have been updated to incorporate “American Principles” designed to foster a greater understanding of American civic life and sharpen critical thinking skills among students. Additionally, Certell introduced a powerful new dashboard for teachers called Engauge™, which helps instructors understand student engagement with Poptential e-books in real time.

The integration of American Principles into Poptential social studies courses is a significant milestone. These principles are fundamental ideas that have shaped U.S. history, culture, and identity, serving as the bedrock of American civic life. The goal is to ensure that students not only grasp these principles but also understand why they were deemed essential by the nation’s founders.…Read More

The pandemic is over–but American schools still aren’t the same

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

On a recent Friday at Gary Comer Middle School in Chicago, you had to squint to see signs of the pandemic that upended American education just a few years ago.

Only a handful of students wore face masks, and even then, some put them on to cover up pimples, staff said. The hand sanitizer stations outside every classroom mostly went unused, and some were empty. Students stopped to hug in the hallway and ate lunch side by side in the cafeteria. …Read More

1EdTech and Common Good Learning Tools Launch Major Upgrade to Database of State Learning Standards

LAKE MARY, Fla. – 1EdTech® Consortium and Common Good Learning Tools announce a partnership to launch CASE® Network 2. CASE Network 2 is a significant upgrade to the current CASE Network that provides access to K-12 learning standards in a digital format. 

The ultimate objective of CASE (1EdTech’s Competencies and Academic Standards Exchange® specification) is to make it easier, more accurate, and less expensive for edtech suppliers to align resources and tools with state and district academic standards, therefore allowing educators to find resources that better support their needs. Before CASE, academic standards were usually officially published in PDF format, forcing institutions and edtech suppliers that needed machine-readable standards to perform time-consuming manual work or use proprietary formats. This increased costs and made it difficult to ensure fidelity (especially when standards were updated). 

Now, every issuing agency can author machine-readable CASE versions of their standards using their own CASE publishing tool, allowing each agency to retain complete control over the source of truth for their standards and make this source of truth freely and openly available. The CASE Network serves a key function in the CASE ecosystem, providing a single access point for edtech suppliers to pull standards issued by agencies anywhere in the U.S. and access revision histories of those standards.  …Read More

With better data, these 12 things would improve, supes say

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Data access is critical when educators need to make informed decisions about curriculum, assessments, academic and social-emotional interventions, and more. So how are superintendents using data–and can they access it quickly and effectively in order to use it?

A national poll from the Data Quality Campaign and AASA, The School Superintendents Association surveyed district superintendents to find out they use data to support their students and schools.…Read More