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.

Codecademy Expands Online Coding Education

Codecademy, the online education platform empowering millions of people to learn code, announced two new initiatives for students and teachers, including its first-ever student membership and a new partnership with Clever, the most widely used single sign-on (SSO) portal in K-12 schools nationwide

With many schools going fully or partially remote this fall, Codecademy is making its learning platform more accessible for students and teachers. For college students, Codecademy is launching a new Pro Student membership, which includes complete access to Codecademy’s catalog for a more affordable price.

Codecademy is also providing free access to its online coding courses for high school teachers and their classes via a new partnership with Clever. Codecademy Pro courses will be available in Clever Library, a catalog of high-quality digital resources that teachers can deploy to their classroom within seconds. High school teachers can access Codecademy’s interactive curriculums for free, empowering their students to learn how to code in a fun and engaging way online.…Read More

McGraw Hill Offers Learners Two-Month Free Trial of ALEKS MathReady to Help Combat ‘COVID Slide’

In an effort to help ensure that students are prepared for fall classes, McGraw Hill is offering new customers a free two-month trial of its ALEKS MathReady program, allowing current and rising college-age students and others to refresh their math skills efficiently and effectively. First launched in June, ALEKS MathReady is a new, direct-to-consumer version of McGraw Hill’s personalized ALEKS program, which helps support millions of K-12 and college students each year. The special free-access offer for ALEKS MathReady is available now through October 18, 2020 and subscriptions will automatically renew on a monthly basis at a rate of $19.95/month.*

“Now more than ever, students need access to the tools and resources that can help them succeed in their college courses – and for many current and rising college students, ALEKS MathReady is precisely the tool that they need,” said Kathleen McMahon, VP of Portfolio Management for Science, Engineering & Mathematics at McGraw Hill. “Faculty and school administrators face significant instructional challenges this fall, as the learning disruptions due to COVID-19 leave students at varied levels of preparation when they start the fall term. Because MathReady can target each individual’s knowledge and put them on a personalized path to success, we can help level the playing field in math for all students – and not just those that can afford it – through this free offer.”

For more information about ALEKS MathReady or to sign up for free trial access and $19.95/month after, visit: https://bit.ly/ALEKSMathReady…Read More

Online STEM Summer Camps for High School and College Students

Numerade—an online education platform founded with a mission to provide equitable access to high-quality STEM instruction—today announced the launch of free, virtual STEM summer camps open to students at the middle, high school, and college levels. Course offerings include SAT Test Prep, Calculus, Chemistry, and Physics, all taught by top-ranked STEM PhDs, college professors, and high school teachers. Students can enroll now for this free program and begin taking their courses as soon as June 1 with ongoing enrollment available thereafter.

Students can participate in Numerade’s free summer STEM camps to get a head start on the courses they’ll be taking in the fall or as an enrichment opportunity in which they can take courses not offered at their school. Students may also use these courses to catch up on any material missed due to school closures caused by Covid-19. Each course follows the common core curriculum and covers an entire semester’s worth of material.

“We’re excited to launch Numerade’s STEM summer camps at a time when it’s more important than ever for students to have access to world-class content to maintain and enhance their learning despite ongoing school closures,” said Nhon Ma, CEO and Co-Founder of Numerade. “By taking our engaging STEM courses this summer, students will not only acquire foundational knowledge but also be positioned to excel next school year. The summer camps are completely free and available asynchronously on any device, making them a great option for any student interested in getting ahead in their learning.”…Read More

What education inspiration looks like on a global basis

Recently, some of my colleagues went to the Imagine Cup, an annual technology and Innovation competition sponsored by Microsoft and held at their mammoth Redmond, Washington headquarters. The campus is so large that when one of my colleagues quietly called me during his initial tour, he told me that they were just now passing building #99.

This year’s competition featured 54 teams of college students from all over the world. The teams were a geographically diverse bunch, hailing from Russia, Nepal, Australia, Jordon, Romania, Sri Lanka and even a few countries that were probably geographically smaller than Microsoft’s 99+ building campus.

The Imagine Cup competition, and competitions like it, are so inspiring. This year’s competition, though large and very well done, is only a small representation of the vast amount of innovative talent out there who use technology to work together to solve many of the world’s future challenges.…Read More

Blackboard Hackboard Hackathon

This contest challenges developers and college students in the United States to create a unique, user-friendly and impactful application that will integrate with the Blackboard Learn learning management system to improve the teaching and learning experience.

 

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What are college students talking about on Facebook?

87 percent of comments were recorded in Facebook groups, not pages.

General confusion might be the key ingredient to an engaged crop of incoming freshmen on a college or university’s Facebook page.

An analysis published May 16 on the blog .eduGuru breaks down what college students are discussing on their school’s official Facebook pages and third-party groups, and the most consistently engaged posts were written by “confused students trying to find more information about orientation, registration, and housing.”

An “engaged post” was a comment or question that received five or more responses, according to the analysis of how college freshmen were using their Class of 2016 Facebook pages.…Read More

College students sound off on social networking likes and dislikes

Google is talking to several top online game developers about creating a broader social networking site that would offer social games and could compete with Facebook—and in interviews with ABC News, several college students offered their suggestions for what Google could do to make them abandon Facebook. When Ryan Khuri, 21, a junior majoring in English/philosophy at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, joined Facebook, he saw it as “the simple alternative to MySpace.” But now, Khuri said, Facebook “seems to be building more and more clutter.” Northwestern medical student Jack Dougherty, 22, agreed. Although he deleted his Facebook account a few years ago to help prevent his spending too much time on his computer, he said, one thing that would make the site more appealing to him is to simplify it. Many college students cite third-party applications as the main cause of Facebook clutter. “The constant invites to join them are annoying,” said Lauren Walters, 21, a graduate student at Clemson University in South Carolina, who said she uses Facebook for “social networking, and not for playing games.” While Facebook users can send video messages to each other and post videos to each other’s “walls,” many students point to the absence of a Skype-like video chat feature. Walters said she would be open to trying Google’s new social networking site but isn’t sure she’d leave Facebook for it, although the ability to chat with other users on the site via webcam could possibly win her over…

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