Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

First-ever Israel EdTech Summit brings a global reach

Debut event featured ed-tech entrepreneurs, educators, and more

The first-ever Istrael EdTech Summit has just wrapped, bringing together a decidedly global group of educators, startup founders, and other critical stakeholders to discuss innovations in the future of ed-tech. The event, held June 8-9, took place at the Tel Aviv Cultural Center.

Throughout the two days, more than 500 attendees from around the world — including China, Brazil, Germany, and the United States — listened to panel discussions on topics such as personalized learning and big data, improving STEM education, and the role of capital in ed-tech investment success. Other sessions focused on closing the skill gap, bridging tech inequality among students, and building out a successful company.

The keynote was delivered by former president of Intel Israel Mooly Eden.…Read More

When using data, remember monkey sex

Freakonomics co-author explains why using data to predict future trends is trickier than you may think.

When you talk about big data these days, as well as its potential to help predict future trends and, therefore, courses of action, stories about turkey breasts, hand washing and monkey sex don’t also make the rounds; but according to the Freakonomics author, they should.

“What people say they feel or say they do versus what they actually do are often two completely different things,” explained Stephen J. Dubner, journalist, author and this year’s Infocomm 2016 Las Vegas keynoter. “And this is what makes the use of data tricky whenever industry looks to it for answers in behavior.”

infocommvegas…Read More

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3 major ways to boost basic data literacy in K-16

A new report outlines the need for K-16 students to develop key data literacy skills

Focusing on three specific areas could be key to boosting K-16 students’ data literacy in a world where big data’s importance grows daily, according to a new report.

EDC’s Oceans of Data Institute (ODI) convened an expert panel of data analysts and educators for a workshop on data literacy, and panelists focused on what it means to be data literate in today’s world of big data, as well as what to teach students to prepare them to be part of today’s workforce and society.

The panelists’ recommendations are included in a new report, Building Global Interest in Data Literacy: A Dialogue.…Read More

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How safe is my student data?

Ed tech companies are not immune to hackers and vulnerabilities. But schools can protect themselves

data-safetyA few years ago I was attending a meeting at my county office, where a vendor who runs a popular education site was making a presentation. If I’m being honest, I’ll admit I wasn’t paying close attention. It was a product our district was already using, and I was our top level administrator for my district’s domain on the site. Stifling a yawn or two, I started to do what any bored student would do—see if I could break stuff.

Eventually, I happened upon an exploit by chance. I was working both in my district’s instance (the domain and accounts registered for our schools) as well as the one the county office set up for this presentation. Sometimes when I signed out of one, it signed me out of the other as well.

I signed into my district as the top-level admin, and then redirected to the county site by simply changing the URL. In doing so I gained top level privileges to the county’s instance, too, which should have been reserved exclusively for the vendor reps making the presentation. I raised my hand and asked, “Do you know someone can gain higher privileges than they should have?”…Read More

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6 questions to ask about data

Data–including big data and learning analytics–has incredible potential for teaching and learning

data-analyticsThe term “big data” is everywhere and, in a nutshell, is the term used today to describe large collections of data that companies use to personalize their products and services.

But what does this concept mean for K-12 education? Well, for starters, increased knowledge of individual students can lead to personalized teaching and learning. This is called learning analytics, which involves using big data for educational purposes, as defined by the New Media Consortium K-12 Horizon Report. The report is produced in collaboration with the Consortium for School Newtworking (CoSN), which recently released a report that examines, in-depth, learning analytics’ potential.

School districts already use data, but learning analytics would enable educators to use this data to a greater extent, examining what the report calls “student-level data” and using that information to determine how students are learning, what might help them learn better, and what teacher practices are or are not having an impact on this learning.…Read More

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Big Data’s revolutionary potential

Big data is mentioned in everything from business to privacy. But what is big data and how could it create radical change in education?

big-data-revolutionary-potentialA recent eSchool News story about five revolutionary new ed-tech trends suggests that big data is one of the technological developments that “will have a near-immediate impact on teaching and learning.”

The term “big data” is often mentioned in relation to everything from business to privacy. But just what is big data, and how, exactly, could it create radical change in education?

According to the company SAS, “Big Data is a popular term used to describe the exponential growth and availability of data, both structured and unstructured.” In the modern age, it comes as no surprise that data has – and continues to – become more widely available, and for a variety of purposes. SAS also explains that big data could become as important to our society as the internet, simply because having more data may lead to more accurate analysis – of everything.…Read More

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Top 10 ed-tech stories of 2013, No. 4: Big Data

eSchool News counts down the ten most significant developments in educational technology during the past year. No. 4 tracks Big Data’s movements.

dataIn school systems from coast to coast, tech-savvy educators experimented with augmented reality, educational gaming, and other techniques designed to enhance teaching and learning.

These are only some of the key ed-tech developments affecting K-12 schools in the past year—and we’ve got a full recap for you.

Here, the editors of eSchool News highlight what we think are the 10 most significant ed-tech stories of 2013.…Read More

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Three potential big data pitfalls

Big data is likely to quickly become big business, ZDNet reports. The ability to isolate the nuggets of insight inside the huge volumes of structured and unstructured data hoarded by most businesses could improve customer service, make processes more efficient and cut costs. According to analysts Gartner, adoption of big data is still at a very early stage: just eight percent of companies have initiatives up and running, 20 percent are piloting and experimenting, 18 percent are ‘developing a strategy’, 19 percent are ‘knowledge gathering’, while the remainder have no plans or don’t know. But that could change rapidly: the analyst firm is predicting 4.4 million people will be working on such projects within two years, while a recent survey by Harvey Nash found that four out of ten CIOs planned to increase their investments in the next year. However, because big data uses untested technologies and skills that are in short supply inside most organisations, there are number of hurdles for organisations seeking to exploit it…

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