Kids lose their school IDs but they don’t often lose their eyeballs. That’s one of the reasons why a growing number of schools are replacing traditional identification cards with iris scanners, CNN Money reports. By the fall, several schools — ranging from elementary schools to colleges — will be rolling out various iris scanning security methods. Winthrop University in South Carolina is testing out iris scanning technology during freshman orientation this summer. Students had their eyes scanned as they received their ID cards in June…
…Read MorePodcast 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.
Microsoft wants you to pay $100 a year for Office
Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) is offering Office as a subscription service for consumers, CNN Money reports. For $100 a year, “Office 365 Home Premium” customers can put Office on up to five computers (including Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) Macintoshes and Windows 8 tablets) and store up to 27 gigabytes of data on Microsoft’s SkyDrive cloud storage service. The subscription includes frequent software updates and allows users to automatically load their customized Microsoft Office settings on each different device. Office 365 users will also be able to get “Office on Demand,” a feature that allows them to temporarily access the latest version of Office on any computer through a Web browser — whether or not that device has the program installed. One caveat: Once you stop paying, you lose the software…
…Read MoreWealthy parents increasingly seeking financial aid for K-12 education
Move over college students–you’re not the only ones seeking financial aid to pay for tuition. More parents are applying for loans and other help to pay their kid’sprivate elementary and high school tuition, reports CNN Money. And it’s not just the poorest families looking for help. The number of families earning more than $150,000 that requested financial assistance for the 2010-2011 school year increased 6 percent since the 2002-2003, according to CNN Money, which reports that 20 percent of families seeking financial aid to pay for K-12 education are in that income bracket. The average cost of a year of private school is $21,995, a figure that’s ballooned 35 percent since the 2001-02 school year when adjusted for inflation, according to the New York Times…
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