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.

Digital citizenship, digital literacy, and education

Editor’s note: This article on digital citizenship in schools originally appeared on CoSN’s blog and is reposted here with permission.

Part of a Blog Series from the Emerging Technologies Committee Leveraging Technology for Improving School Wellness and Safety

Sometimes it feels as though social media has taken over the world. We live in an age of competing attention to hold our interest. If you have ever been in a K-12 classroom, you will see that it won’t take long for students to be distracted by the latest YouTube video or TikTok trend. We must find the balance in day to day interactions at school, work, and with family to focus on what is important at the time.…Read More

Lightspeed Systems’ New ‘Digital Equity’ Module Provides Actionable Insight Into Students’ Internet Connectivity And School-Issued Device Health When Learning Outside of School

AUSTIN, TX –  Lightspeed Systems, the leader in safe, secure and equitable education technology, announces  Digital Equity—a module that provides robust and real-time connectivity and device health data on students’ school-issued devices. Digital Equity helps school and district leaders understand the challenges students experience while trying to study outside of school so they can ensure all students stay connected to learning. 

According to the  2022 Student Home Connectivity Study from the Consortium for School Networking (COSN), gaps remain nationwide in network performance and internet speeds at all grade levels for students connecting from outside a school, with approximately one-third of high school students experiencing “Far Below” or “Below Guidelines” for connectivity from home. In addition, large disparities exist among student subgroups, particularly by ethnicity and socioeconomically disadvantaged students.  

Empowering school and district leaders, Digital Equity provides a complete, real-time view of each student’s school-issued devices, including a device’s overall health, operating system, internet speed, service provider and more. Leaders can drill-down into specific data on each individual student and their devices, as well as view overall district-wide usage to help identify local communities that need additional support and resources. Digital Equity is customizable, giving leaders the option to turn on specific data and usage stats.  …Read More

4 ways school leaders can target the homework gap

While the homework gap has existed for some time, the massive virtual learning spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic shed a bright light on the challenge of ensuring all students, no matter their geographic location or socioeconomic status, have access to the right learning devices and to reliable, high-speed internet access.

During a CoSN 2023 session, edtech stakeholders convened to discuss innovative strategies around closing the homework gap and how schools—at the local, district, and state level—can ensure home connectivity for all students.

“During the pandemic, the [homework gap] really gained the awareness of a much wider audience, because all students and families were impacted by the need to be online simply to be in school during the day,” said Michael Flood, SVP and GM, Public Sector at Kajeet.…Read More

7 facts about the state of edtech in schools

School networks are getting faster and more modern, but school IT leaders and IT departments struggle to keep up with the demand for remote access and support, according to an annual CoSN survey.

The State of EdTech District Leadership 2022 survey provides a high-level sense of what school district leaders think of the state of technology in education. The 2022 K-12 IT Leadership Survey is CoSN’s ninth annual survey and was made possible by the Ed-Fi Alliance and CDW-G, conducted in partnership with MCH Data, K12 Insight and AASA.

“There are no lack of challenges facing our nation’s schools today, but the annual CoSN IT survey also shines a light on several areas where we can be encouraged; increased connectivity, more devices, increased awareness of security and the outsized impact that IT leaders are having on their school districts’ planning processes,” said Troy Wheeler, president of the Ed-Fi Alliance. …Read More

Safely embracing digital learning with managed network security

Digital learning surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it isn’t going away with the return to in-person classrooms. After experimenting with new approaches for in-classroom, at-home, or hybrid learning, it’s clear that technology’s use will continue to evolve as a means to improve student engagement and the overall learning experience. However, as K-12 schools increase their reliance on technology and more devices connect to their networks, cybersecurity threats are also rising.

A recent study from the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) found that schools may not be prepared enough for these risks. The CoSN 2021 Ed Tech Leadership Survey found that while cybersecurity was ranked as a top priority for school district IT leaders, 77 percent of districts don’t have a full-time employee dedicated to network security and over half (59 percent) don’t have a cybersecurity plan in place. One potential solution to help resource-lean IT departments is using managed services for network security.

Cybersecurity attacks, such as data breaches and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, may disrupt learning, cost schools significant time and money to repair, and impact the schools’ reputations. …Read More

11 facts about K-12 IT leadership

Broadband access and the ever-growing equity gap are among K-12 IT leaders’ top concerns, according to CoSN’s annual IT Leadership Survey.

The survey, released in collaboration with the Ed-Fi Alliance and other partners, is based on a national survey of nearly 400 school systems and provides a nuanced look at the challenges K-12 IT leadership has faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We were proud to once again work alongside the CoSN team in developing this report,” said Sean Casey, manager of strategic partnerships at the Ed-Fi Alliance, a nonprofit devoted to helping school districts and states achieve data interoperability. “At Ed-Fi, our goal is to define data standards to solve problems shared by all educators and to arm the learning community with useful information, as found in this report, for conscientious decision-making that leads to better outcomes for learners everywhere.”…Read More

4 things we need to realize about digital equity

As COVID made quite painfully clear, student access to reliable high-speed internet and engaging digital tools is essential. But many students don’t have access to these resources at school, at home, or both, leading to larger questions about the role of digital equity and student success during–and after–the pandemic.

A new CoSN study, supported by a grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, gives educators and policymakers a detailed view of students’ at-home learning experiences during the pandemic.

“Digital equity is not a new topic for CoSN. Since our founding, we have focused on addressing the digital divide and ensuring that fast connectivity, devices and equitable use happen in all classrooms. But since March 2020, the imperative of this outside-of-school challenge has become readily apparent to all. The Homework Gap was a chasm for millions of students and educators as the shift to remote learning occurred,” write Keith Krueger, CoSN’s CEO, and Steve Langford, chair of CoSN’s Board of Directors and the CIO of Oregon’s Beaverton School District, in the report’s introduction.…Read More

11 facts about today’s K-12 IT leadership

Broadband access and the ever-growing equity gap are among K-12 IT leaders’ top concerns, according to CoSN’s annual IT Leadership Survey.

The survey, released in collaboration with the Ed-Fi Alliance and other partners, is based on a national survey of nearly 400 school systems and provides a nuanced look at the challenges K-12 IT leadership has faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We were proud to once again work alongside the CoSN team in developing this report,” said Sean Casey, manager of strategic partnerships at the Ed-Fi Alliance, a nonprofit devoted to helping school districts and states achieve data interoperability. “At Ed-Fi, our goal is to define data standards to solve problems shared by all educators and to arm the learning community with useful information, as found in this report, for conscientious decision-making that leads to better outcomes for learners everywhere.”…Read More

Here’s what helps–and hinders–K-12 innovation

A personalized, learner-centered educational experience is one of the main drivers of K-12 innovation and extraordinary student outcomes, according to CoSN’s annual innovation survey.

The survey includes three categories: accelerators that pave the way for teaching and learning innovation in schools, hurdles that hinder it, and tech enablers are tools that districts can leverage to surmount hurdles and embrace accelerators.

Accelerators of K-12 innovation include:
1. Personalization: As the consumer sector has exploded with new ways to customize user experiences and products, schools are also finding ways to provide customized learning and support at the individual level.
2. Social and emotional learning: A core function of education is building skills and understanding mental, social, and emotional well-being, including empathy, grit, persistence, flexibility, and adaptability.
3. Learner autonomy: Learner autonomy is all about student agency, encompassing anything from letting students choose how they access content, to how they organize their learning, to how they exhibit their learning.…Read More