5 tips to build academic integrity

The importance of academic integrity can’t be underestimated, especially when it comes to blended learning. And these aren’t just words. Statistics show there was a 68 percent increase in the number of integrity violations reported in 2019-2020 compared with 2018-2019.

With the rise of digital innovation, distance learning technology has become an integral part of blended learning – an approach that integrates technology and digital media with traditional instructor-led classroom activities. It also made academic integrity a significant point of concern. Students are now expected to possess an increased degree of autonomy – probably the highest in history, which might nudge them toward cheating.

Related content: 4 best practices for remote testing…Read More

4 “musts” when vetting third-party vendors

Cybersecurity continues to be top of mind in new ways that we might not have considered during “normal” times. One area that needed our attention then and now is vendor management. Especially with the mad dash over the summer to get many districts ready for at least some remote learning, there are a lot of new third-party vendors on the scene.

Pre-COVID, third-party vendors for schools and districts meant everything from transportation systems and student information platforms to applications like PowerSchool, Quizlet, and Google Classroom. Post-COVID, the term references all of that–plus things like COVID tracking and tracing programs.

Related content: 3 ways to improve online learning security…Read More

Curriculum Associates’ Ready® Classroom Mathematics Receives Highest Rating

Curriculum Associates’ Ready Classroom Mathematics program for Grades K–5 recently received a Tier 1 rating by the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE). This highest rating from the LDOE, which was given after a comprehensive, educator-led review process, signifies the instructional program “exemplifies quality” and “meets all non-negotiable criteria and scored the best possible on all indicators of superior quality.”

The LDOE leads online reviews of instructional materials to support school districts across the state in making their own local, high-quality purchasing decisions. The tiered reviews describe the instructional materials’ degree of alignment with state content standards, which enables each local school system to determine if the use of the materials is appropriate to meet the educational needs of their students. Ratings are based on elements such as the focus, coherence, rigor, alignment, and quality of the materials.

“This highest rating from the Department signifies the power of Ready Classroom Mathematics in helping students gain conceptual understanding, develop a high degree of procedural skill and fluency, and apply the knowledge learned in and out of the classroom,” said Rob Waldron, CEO of Curriculum Associates. “Regardless of where the teaching and learning is taking place, we look forward to supporting educators throughout the state of Louisiana this year and beyond as they help students make gains in math.”…Read More

With Print Supplies Disrupted, More Schools Adopt Digital Books

With a record number of students going back to school online, educators are urgently turning to digital books in place of print for their established curriculum. In response to this need, OverDrive Education, the leading digital reading platform for K-12 schools worldwide, today announced support for several major curriculum systems. This means that schools can provide instant access to assigned titles as ebooks and audiobooks for in-class and distance learning for all students.

More than 35,000 schools have shifted to OverDrive Education for digital books as the company has significantly expanded its catalog to include grade-leveled class sets aligned to teaching units. To supply both required and recommended ebooks and audiobooks for the classroom, the company is collaborating with a variety of the most popular curriculum developers including EL Education, StudyForge and Schoolwide. With a growing catalog of over one million premium digital titles, students can benefit from anytime, anywhere access with the Sora reading app. In demand curriculum titles include Just Mercy, The Lightning Thief, Hidden Figures, Llama Llama Time to Share, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, Ghost and A Long Walk to Water.

“Though there are many challenges and barriers in education right now, Sora has made it so that student access to worthy texts is not one of them,” said Kim King, Director of Virtual Learning & Media Services of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. “OverDrive worked hard to help us be strategic within our budget to get our students one-to-one access to our anchor texts and a circulating collection of supplemental texts to build our students’ content knowledge and enthusiasm for reading.”…Read More

Savvas Learning Company Launches Culturally Responsive Learning Initiative

Savvas Learning Company, a next-generation learning solutions provider for K-12 education, is proud to announce the launch of its Culturally Responsive Learning (CRL) Initiative that will focus on supporting teachers in making real changes in their classroom practices to foster student voice and improve achievement as well as using curriculum that opens minds and allows students to see themselves reflected in what they learn.

Building on the national movement for social justice, the Savvas CRL Initiative seeks to cultivate a more inclusive culture at Savvas that elevates different perspectives and increases diversity within its workforce, vendors, and editorial content. As part of its effort, Savvas is developing professional learning to support teachers in setting high expectations for all learners and creating classroom environments that welcome individual voices, provide safe spaces for challenging conversations, and promote student agency by empowering students with choices in how they learn.

“Culturally responsive learning is critical for increasing student engagement by encouraging student voice. We want our curriculum to be a tool to inspire that student voice in an authentic way, and to create opportunities for students to share their rich, cultural backgrounds,” said Bethlam Forsa, CEO of Savvas Learning Company. “As an extension of our core values of expanding equity and empathy, culturally responsive learning must be woven into everything we do at Savvas: from the curriculum we build and the professional learning we offer teachers, to the training we provide our employees, who are the heart and soul of our organization.”…Read More

CoderZ Named 2020 Tech Edvocate Award Winner for Best Coding App or Tool

CoderZ, an online learning environment where students learn robotics and STEM by coding virtual robots, has been named a 2020 Tech Edvocate Award winner in the Best Coding App or Tool category.

“The Tech Edvocate Award represents the combined opinion of industry insiders, knowledgeable educators, and interested parents,” said Ido Yerushalmi, CEO of CoderZ. “It’s an honor to have our coding and robotics curriculum and its game-based design and instructional model chosen as a solution that is positively impacting teaching and learning—and this has never been more important than during this unprecedented time of COVID-19.”

This is the fourth year of the Tech Edvocate Awards, which recognizes outstanding edtech products that support students across the Pre-K-20 sector by catering to identified classroom and learning needs. Winners and finalists were selected by a panel of educators and industry experts who reviewed the submissions and judged the products and services based on the extent to which they are transforming education through the development or advocacy of edtech. A complete list of winners of the 2020 Tech Edvocate Awards can be found here.…Read More

Copyright Clearance Center and EL Education Make it Easy for Schools to License Trade Book Content During Pandemic

Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), a leader in advancing copyright, accelerating knowledge, and powering innovation, in coordination with participating publishers, is providing US schools and districts that have adopted the EL Education Language Arts Curriculum the ability to easily obtain permission to use grade level texts for distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Many schools across the country have moved to hybrid or distance learning. Since closing their doors in the spring, students lost access to schoolbooks. Those that have purchased classroom copies of the supporting texts for the EL Education Language Arts Curriculum have asked for a way to provide teachers and students with permission to reuse those texts. Without an easy licensing service, it would be inefficient for school districts to purchase, distribute and recover potentially thousands of additional copies of the required works for those students without access to e-book editions. As a consequence, schools are seeking permission to photocopy or scan the texts in the EL Education Language Arts Curriculum to permit easy access and distribution.

CCC, EL Education and participating publishers have combined permissions into a single-source license covering the reuse of all participating texts as part of EL Education’s K-8 Language Arts Curriculum. Participating publishers include Boyds Mills & Kane, a division of Astra Publishing House; Holiday House Publishing, Inc.; Kids Can Press; Prestwick House, Inc. and more.…Read More

Pocketalk Donates Devices To ELL Teachers Through First-Ever Back To School Program

Pocketalk, the global leader in connecting conversations and removing language barriers, today announced the donation of 100 devices to educators across the U.S. that teach English Language Learner (ELL) students as part of its first-ever Back to School program, an effort to equip teachers with the tools they need and foster inclusive learning environments for all families, at home or in the classroom. During the application process, recipients of devices answered eight survey questions to reveal the evolving language needs of the education community and its communications styles ahead of an unconventional school year due to the ongoing pandemic.

Teachers surveyed in August represented 29 states and Washington, D.C. and averaged 10.7 years of teaching experience, with 98% of teachers responding that they have taught ELL students in the last three years. Highlights from the survey results include:

  • 99% of educators stated that the current virtual environment changed the way they will plan to communicate with ELL students and their families
  • 62% of teachers use translation daily to communicate with parents of students, with 35% and 3% using translation weekly or monthly, respectively
  • Teachers are most likely to primarily use phones (38%) to communicate with parents of students, followed by email (20%) or a messaging platform (17%) like Microsoft Teams
  • Compared to all respondents, teachers who use translation daily to communicate with parents of students are more likely to communicate using phones (43.5%) and less likely to communicate using email (11.3%)

With close to one million units in service around the globe, Pocketalk has been used in a number of industries to build community and break down communication barriers when it matters most. Aligned with recent findings from Pearson’s Global Learners Survey on how government funds should be spent in education in response to COVID-19, Pocketalk saw the need for translation services in education from its own survey findings to provide tech for underserved learners, to ensure teachers are equipped to handle emergency situations with quick, accurate communication and to offer more remote learning solutions.…Read More

Samsung’s Display Solutions Help Reimagine the Classroom for one of the U.S.’s Largest Charter School Support Organizations, Academica

Samsung Electronics America, Inc. announced today its partnership with Academica – one of the largest charter school support organizations in the U.S., serving more than 200 public charter schools and 125,000 students in nine states – to reimagine the classroom for the 21st century.

The partnership arrives during the new learn-from-home era, as traditional classroom settings are being enhanced with virtual setups that are interactive and engaging. Samsung delivers a complete ecosystem of display products and solutions optimized for all variations of back to school, including remote learning and hybrid teaching models. With long standing education programs including Solve for Tomorrow, Samsung understands how technology impacts education, and how now more than ever, it is critical to learning and creating change in grades K-12.

“As we continue to navigate this new normal together, we need to take a practical approach to helping students and educators adapting to a new learning environment,” said Mark Quiroz, Vice President of Marketing for the Samsung Display Division. “We’re offering new solutions and working with education networks like Academica to bring ease to the transition to remote and hybrid learning models. Students’ safety and health are top of mind and we are proud to be able to offer tools that bring the classroom into the home.”…Read More

Los Angeles Unified, Annenberg Learner and Discovery Education Launch New Partnership Bringing Dynamic Digital Resources

Los Angeles Unified School District (Los Angeles Unified), Annenberg Learner and Discovery Education today launched a new partnership providing educators, students and families access to high-quality digital resources.

Through this new partnership, Los Angeles Unified educators, students and families are empowered to interact with more than 300,000 exciting digital resources, standards-aligned activities and vetted, high-quality content carefully curated by grade level. These new digital resources will play a critical role to support continued learning on any device; whether at home or in the classroom.

“We are grateful to Annenberg Learner and Discovery Education for helping us provide students with the tools they need to receive a great education.” said Austin Beutner, Los Angeles Unified Superintendent.…Read More