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.

Virtual learning will become more permanent post-COVID

About two in 10 U.S. school districts have already adopted, plan to adopt or are considering adopting virtual learning after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a RAND Corporation study published earlier this year.

The survey of district leaders indicates that virtual learning was the innovative practice that most district leaders anticipated would continue, citing both student and parent demand for continuing various forms of online instruction.

District leaders who mentioned plans to continue offer virtual learning and instruction after the COVID-19 pandemic has abated said they want to do so to offer students more flexibility, meet parent or student demand, meet the diversity of students’ needs, and maintain student enrollment.…Read More

Teachers want larger role in ed-tech decisions

A new survey reveals that more teachers want a say in which products are purchased for their classrooms

More teachers want to play an increased role in ed-tech decision-making, according to a survey of more than 4,300 teachers by TES Global in partnership with the Jefferson Education Accelerator.

In fact, the majority of surveyed teachers (63 percent) said they believe they should be the primary decision-makers when it comes to technology in their classrooms.

But despite that majority, only 38 percent of those surveyed said they are consulted during the ed-tech decision-making process, citing a feeling that teacher buy-in does not play a major role in such purchasing decisions.…Read More

Finding copyright-friendly photos for the Google Images generation

Searching and citing usable images is easy once students learn the basics

images-ccssTeaching students to respect the intellectual property of others is important in this digital “cut and paste” world we live in. One great project to share with students that can better help them understand how and when they may use images created by others is the Creative Commons project.

Creative Commons is designed to span the gap between full copyright and the public domain. The Creative Commons project provides content creators the opportunity to state ahead of time how their images may (or may not) be used.

When an image creator posts an image online and applies a Creative Commons license to it, there are four conditions/restrictions they can apply to the image:…Read More