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.

LogMeIn extends free phone and unified communication services

LogMeIn, Inc. has expanded its Emergency Remote Work Kit offerings to include GoToConnect, the company’s cloud phone and Unified Communications & Collaboration (UCC) platform, to help K-12 schools make the shift to remote learning. Aimed at both customers and critical service providers like schools, hospitals and health care companies, municipalities and non-profit organizations, LogMeIn launched the complimentary Emergency Remote Work Kit program earlier in March, including software for video conferencing, running virtual events, remote access to PCs and servers, as well as remote IT support.

Under the expanded offering, K-12 schools will be eligible for free cloud phone and UCC services through the end of the school year via LogMeIn’s GoToConnect platform. The new offering is designed for schools to keep students, teachers, parents, administrators and staff connected with free soft phones, voice and video calling, and messaging that can be used on PCs, Macs, Chromebooks and mobile phones (iOS and Android). And unlike traditional phone systems, no hardware, networking or number porting is required.

“These last few weeks have meant a monumental change for everyone, and while some organizations had experience empowering a remote workforce, others like schools, health care providers and local municipalities are dealing with a remote work reality that they never planned for and were ill equipped to enable,” said Bill Wagner, CEO of LogMeIn. “For some organizations, it’s about access to audio and video conferencing and virtual events to stay connected. While for others, it’s as basic as giving people remote access that allows them to connect to their work computers or giving the tools to IT teams to support their people during this rapid shift towards remote working. We’re seeing these needs play out across the organizations we rely on in our communities, and it’s something we believe our people and our technology are uniquely positioned to help with during this uncertain time.”…Read More

Test Grading Cloud available to all teachers for free

Remark Test Grading Cloud available to all teachers for free, including electronic bubble sheets for distributing and grading assessments.

In an effort to assist K-12 teachers during the COVID-19 crisis with the transition from onsite to remote education, Gravic, Inc. is offering instructors a free 60-day subscription to its popular Remark Test Grading Cloud application.

Remark Test Grading Cloud is a hosted application for grading tests, quizzes and assessments. The application is typically used to create and print bubble sheets, which can be scanned and graded with any image scanner. As many educators are now working remotely, the application can still be used to assist with your grading tasks using our Electronic Bubble Sheet technology.…Read More

10 priorities for K-12 IT leaders

School districts are moving to highly digital ecosystems, and K-12 IT leaders have more and more to manage to ensure that teaching and learning can go on uninterrupted by failing or clunky technology.

CoSN’s annual IT Leadership Survey offers critical insight into what’s expected of today’s K-12 IT leaders. The survey’s findings help to identify areas where IT leaders might need more support and assistance as they work tirelessly to meet the IT needs of administrators, teachers, and students.

Related content: How school IT leaders can avoid a cyberattack…Read More

Here’s how to put coding and robotics programs in K-8 classrooms

Coding and robotics programs in classrooms reflect how integral technology is in our lives.

Educators like Angie Kalthoff, a technology integrationist in St. Cloud, MN, and Ann Bartel, an instructional technology specialist in Chilton, WI, teach K-8 students about technology through coding and computer science programs that incorporate the 4Cs of learning: collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, and communication.

Related content: 3 things to consider when introducing a K-12 coding or robotics program…Read More

5 key network steps for supporting educational technology

Today’s K-12 students are coming to the classrooms toting three or more mobile devices, from smartphones and laptops to tablets and smart watches. Teachers are putting more of their educational content online and streaming it to their students, administrators are storing more student information in the cloud, and district officials are automating more of the schools’ operations. There is the Internet of Things, digital signage, and video being used to monitor cafeterias. Technology continues to shape the future of how we educate our children and operate our schools, from flipped classrooms to the use of augmented and virtual reality.

At the center of all this is the network, and more and more the wireless network. Where connectivity was once a nice luxury, it is now a must-have, and increasingly the focus of many school district CTOs is making sure that those networks are up 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and that they’re secure.

Here are five network issues that tech directors must focus on.…Read More

Benefits & advice for transitioning edtech to the cloud

At the beginning of the edtech wave, superintendents saw many benefits from using digital resources in the classroom. But, they also saw a large number of resources being recommitted to just this one aspect of education: space for server farms, money for hardware and software upgrades, overworked personnel, etc. District IT offices were taking on the same tasks as Fortune 500 companies without the ability to implement them as effectively.

For administrators looking to take the focus of edtech away from upkeep and back to learning, moving to the cloud could be the answer. Presenters of the edWebinar, “Cloud Computing: Taking Advantage of the Latest Technologies,” which is part of the Empowered Superintendents edWebinar series, shared their reasons for switching to the cloud, how it has helped their schools, and their advice when making the transition.

While the presenters named several reasons they chose to move to the cloud, their top reason was equitable access to edtech. First, all programs are accessible to all students and teachers. Before, for instance, it was possible that each third grade classroom would have a science app of varying quality. With the cloud, teachers select the most effective program, and it’s available to all. In addition, students don’t need specific devices or operating systems to use the digital resources. If they can get to the web, they can do homework, see teacher comments, and do anything else they might in the classroom. Other reasons for migrating to the cloud include potential cost-savings, the simplicity of having all resources in one place, and increased reliability and decreased outages.…Read More

5 new developments in physical and network safety

As technology improves, so do solutions to keep students and teachers safe in school buildings and on school networks. This is the main reason why school safety, including cybersecurity and physical safety, retains its place as a top concern for education leaders.

Balancing access to educational resources with security needs remains a top challenge for school district IT leaders, according to new findings from the Speak Up Research Project for Digital Learning.

Seventy-one percent of district administrators and IT leaders are concerned about the security of their network against malicious attacks or misbehavior, as outlined in the data, which comes from a collaboration between the nonprofit Project Tomorrow and cloud security provider iboss.…Read More

IT leaders, admins still fear network attacks

Balancing access to educational resources with security needs remains a top challenge for school district IT leaders, according to new findings from the Speak Up Research Project for Digital Learning.

Seventy-one percent of district administrators and IT leaders are concerned about the security of their network against malicious attacks or misbehavior, as outlined in the data, which comes from a collaboration between the nonprofit Project Tomorrow and cloud security provider iboss.

The top concern with cloud applications among technology leaders is ensuring data privacy (58 percent).…Read More

Mapping the universe of edtech that connects

I’m excited to share a tool that my colleagues and I have been working on for the past few years: a market map of what we’re calling Edtech that Connects. We’ve captured a wide range of edtech tools that are bringing new relationships within reach for students. The tool lives—and will be regularly updated—at whoyouknow.org.

When I first joined the Christensen Institute over five years ago we were knee-deep in studying the fast-growing market of tools designed to support blended learning environments. Many consisted of adaptive learning content tools that could support students at different levels in a manner that traditional textbook and lecture-style teaching struggles to do. At the same time, cloud-based productivity tools to help schools organize their staff and streamline their data collection processes were becoming more and more mainstream.

But I had a lurking suspicion that something was missing from that booming edtech market. Beyond our education systems, communications technologies have advanced in ways that radically improved our ability to connect across time and space. Why weren’t there more edtech tools designed to connect students—to new people, supports, and opportunities?…Read More