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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.

4 ways library media specialists lead digital transformations in districts

During the pandemic era of “emergency teaching,” school systems across my state and around the country made deep investments in edtech resources.  However, as we move into what some call the post-pandemic era, education stakeholders are searching for strategies to ensure that edtech investments continue to pay dividends.

In New Hampshire, library media specialists are playing a key role in driving edtech ROI. The state Department of Education has made excellent investments in edtech resources, and together with iLearn New Hampshire, has rolled out the Canvas LMS by Instructure, the Kaltura platform for media hosting, Zoom video conferencing, and Discovery Education’s digital K-12 platform to schools statewide.

Led by the NH Library Media Specialist Association, the state’s K-12 library professionals have engaged in dialogue around how they can ensure their school system can maximize the state’s edtech investment in their school system. Each participant approached this conversation assuming everyone else in the group had it all figured out or worked in a district that did. However, what we quickly discovered was that we were all grappling with the same issues. So, we worked to identify some common approaches to maximizing edtech ROI in our own district or school setting.…Read More

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Milestone reached as NH takes advantage of free instructional materials

CONCORD, NH (March 3, 2022) — In less than eight months, more than 215,000 digital resources have been used by New Hampshire educators, students and families through Discovery Education’s innovative learning platform.

“These instructional materials have been incredibly valuable to the state’s educational system. Connecting teachers to a vast collection of standards-aligned content that is easily accessible in digital lessons provides them with a unique opportunity to support students,” said Frank Edelblut, commissioner of education.

Last July, the New Hampshire Department of Education launched a partnership with Discovery Education to provide school systems statewide access to high quality, digital instructional materials through the state’s Canvas Learning Management System.…Read More

6 key trends shaping the future of K-12 assessment

Most educators are concerned that summative assessments cause students undue anxiety, adding to growing concerns over the state of K-12 assessments and how they’re created, delivered, and interpreted.

State of Assessment in K-12 Education, a new report from Instructure, the makers of Canvas, explores the current state of K-12 assessments as COVID-19 continues to push schools into crisis

Overall, 81 percent of educators remain concerned that summative assessments are making students anxious, and teachers and administrators want to move to a more balanced assessment approach. …Read More

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InSpace Announces Integration That Will Bring Virtual Communities, Classrooms and Offices to Canvas

BURLINGTON, VERMONT, August 4, 2021 –   InSpace, a leading online communication platform built by educators for educators, is announcing a full integration with Canvas, the industry-leading learning management system (LMS) by   Instructure, which serves 30 million teachers and students worldwide.  

The integration means that the transformative features developed by InSpace, including video-conferencing for learning and socializing, synchronous and asynchronous chat functions, mobile notifications and virtual office hours for professors and administrators, will be available at the click of a button for Canvas users.  

“We have spoken with hundreds of fellow educators who were dissatisfied with the experience of teaching with video-conferencing platforms that were designed for business, not the classroom. They lacked human interactions and social cues necessary for learning,” said Narine Hall, the CEO of InSpace and a professor of data science and machine learning at Champlain College.  …Read More

New Hampshire Department of Education Selects Innovative K-12 Platform to Bring High Quality Instructional Materials to All Students, Families and Teachers

CONCORD, NH (July 14, 2021)—The New Hampshire Department of Education (Department) today announced the selection of  Discovery Education’s award-winning K-12 learning platform to support all New Hampshire learning environments with high quality instructional material.

Created by a team of education experts at Discovery Education— a worldwide edtech leader supporting learning wherever it takes place—this platform is available through the state’s Canvas Learning Management System to students and teachers across the state, including traditional and charter public schools, non-public schools, home education students and now, students enrolled in an Education Freedom Savings account program.

“This is really a win for everyone; students, families and teachers across the state. No matter what school district they live or work in or what education program they choose, they will now have access to high quality instructional materials,” stated Frank Edelblut commissioner of education. “The federal relief funds are targeted to close the gap on any learning loss coming out of the pandemic. With this resource, all of our children will have access to instructional materials to excel.”…Read More

Instructure Launches Canvas for Elementary User Experience for Back to School

SALT LAKE CITY — June 28, 2021 — Today at ISTE Live 2021, Instructure launched the Canvas for Elementary user experience, a combination of features that make Canvas more user-friendly for elementary students. The new features were developed using feedback collected during the pandemic and thoughtfully designed to more closely mimic an elementary school classroom, supporting both in-person and hybrid learning environments. Among the updates is a new dashboard, subject cards and schedule to orient the student when logging in and help them focus on what needs to be accomplished. 

“The most important factor in any educational setting is high-quality teaching,” said Trenton Goble, VP of K-12 Strategy at Instructure. “Since hybrid learning will continue to impact schools, our job is to develop resources that enable that amazing teaching and engagement to shine through in a variety of environments. We know that younger learners have different needs and priorities, and this new bundle of features makes it even easier for elementary age students to use Canvas.”

Last week Instructure released new research that explores how the pandemic has impacted K-12 education. The report found that hybrid teaching and learning will continue. 81% of educators say that technology will become increasingly important in teaching and learning moving forward, and 67% believe remote learning will impact classroom practices in the future. At the same time fostering and maintaining student engagement is critical, with 92% of teachers ranking it as the number one priority. …Read More

Instructure Acquires Certica Solutions to Make Learning Personal for Every Student

Instructure today announced it has signed an agreement to acquire Certica Solutions, an industry leader in K12 assessment and analytics, and longtime partner of Canvas and MasteryConnect. Through this acquisition, Instructure will provide the comprehensive and open set of tools educators need to drive student outcomes by bringing together a learning management system, assessment management system, assessment content, and data analytics into one streamlined K12 learning experience.

“This topsy-turvy year has only underscored just how important it is to know if our students are learning, whether they are being taught in the classroom or online,” said Steve Daly, CEO of Instructure. “Welcoming Certica into the Instructure family will support educators by combining our assessment platform with smarter, standards-based assessments, assessment item banks, and powerful analytics empowering educators to make learning personal for each student.”

Certica has been a pioneer in K12 assessment creating a high-impact program of standards-aligned item bank content, predictive benchmark assessment, rigorous formative assessment, and teacher-ready analytics to provide the most immediate, accessible and actionable data for educators to use in the classroom.…Read More

Copyleaks Inc Partners with Canvas LMS to Offer Plagiarism Detection using AI and Machine Learning.

Copyleaks, an artificial intelligence platform that detects plagiarism, today announced a partnership today with Canvas, the learning management platform from Instructure, that allows educational institutions to seamlessly enable advanced plagiarism detection software directly within a Canvas account. Copyleaks can now be accessed by thousands of K-12 schools and universities around the world that are part of the ever-expanding Canvas community.

Through its artificial intelligence and machine learning technology, Copyleaks is able to understand and learn more about the text that students are writing throughout the school year. While many plagiarism checkers only find identical matches of text, Copyleaks can spot similar words and paraphrased text that are commonly missed by plagiarism software. The platform allows both teachers and students to improve their writing processes.

As more schools adapt to an e-learning environment this fall, teachers are both emphasizing the importance of academic integrity, as well as taking extra precautions to check that students have written original work.…Read More

What’s the one tech tool you can’t give up?

With so many tech tools out there, it’s hard to pick just one, but we convinced a bunch of educators to share their must-haves. Hopefully, their words of praise will help you the next time you’re looking for a new product to check out.

“I’ve been using LanSchool for about four years and I love it. I try not to constantly filter or block my student’s Internet access, but it’s nice to have a program that can keep them focused if they get off task.”—Tom Gilbert, M. Ed., NBCT, business and marketing education/DECA advisor, Apex Friendship High School, N.C.

“Until we found Workbench Programming Canvas, we were struggling with ways to help teachers access lessons that teach coding using Spheros and drones. Now our teachers can easily find these lessons on the Workbench platform, get them out to students, and track student progress.”—Ryan Johnson, former instructional technology coordinator, Enterprise (CA) Elementary School District…Read More

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Blog: Technology Creates Dynamic Insights at Tampa Preparatory School

At the Tampa Preparatory School, the mission is to provide students “a preparation for life with a higher purpose than self.” Each classman must abide by an honor code and resolve to make a positive difference both in the school and outside world by being honest, respectful, trustworthy, and fair.

Conversely, the educators and staff at Tampa Prep promise to create a place where young people can Think, Create, Be Themselves, Aspire to Excellence and Go Beyond. Students are encouraged to reflect and analyze on the path to personal understanding. They are asked to celebrate the imagination in geometric proofs and formal essays, on canvas, the computer, and stage, in poetry readings and morning assemblies. They are taught to respect people’s differences. And, they are guided toward winning attitudes in academics, athletics and arts so that they may meet the challenges that exist beyond their communities and experiences.

The academy offers concentrated studies in the academic areas of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), Global Studies and Art.…Read More