LAUSD launches revolutionary AI tool

Key points:

The Los Angeles Unified School District has launched an innovative AI-fueled learning acceleration platform named Ed, a first-of-its-kind tool designed to provide the district’s 540,000 students and their families with the resources, support, and tools to fast-track student achievement beyond the school day.

The pioneering digital platform creates personalized action plans uniquely tailored to each student. Ed is currently available to students and families at select schools and will be phased into the remainder of the district.…Read More

Reflecting on the Parkland tragedy, its lasting impacts, and work still to be done

Written by Jen Easterly, Director, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency

Last month marks six years since 17 students and faculty senselessly lost their lives and 17 others were injured when a mass murderer entered Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida and started shooting. Since that horrific day, 124 more Americans have been killed and 331 injured on campuses across the country in 189 separate school shootings—almost 3 shootings a month since Parkland. This is simply unacceptable, and it must stop.

Last month, I joined Education Secretary Cardona to not only remember, but also to walk in the shoes of those who lost their lives at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School building 1200. I had the privilege of talking with the parents of Alex Schachter, Gina Montalto, Luke Hoyer, Jaime Guttenberg, and Alyssa Alhadeff, beautiful students with the brightest of futures ahead of them, and Debbi Hixon, the wife of Athletic Director Chris Hixon, who gave his life rushing into the building to save hundreds of students that day.…Read More

How ergonomics impacts student success

Key points:

Students are spending more and more time using digital devices, both in and outside of school. In fact, the amount of time teenagers spend in front of screens per day for entertainment alone is equivalent to that of someone with a full-time job!1 While those numbers might be lower for younger children, when in-school technology use is factored in, the total time adds up quickly.

Almost three-quarters of educators believe that physical comfort while using edtech has an impact on student engagement.2 And, over half of students report discomfort when using laptops3. Ergonomic problems are likely contributing to discomfort and sapping engagement in today’s schools.…Read More

Vivi Expands into a Whole-School Communication Tool, Launches New Features

Today, Vivi, the only wireless screen mirroring and digital signage solution purpose-built for education, announced it has expanded into a communication tool that can connect an entire school. Vivi, which currently helps over 2,000 schools, introduces new Announcements features that extend Vivi’s reach beyond classroom walls. 

“Schools are communities, but too often students and teachers feel disconnected from school leadership and each other. Existing public address systems can be disruptive and in-person assemblies are not always feasible. Text and video announcements give schools effective and scalable tools for communicating with students and staff throughout the school day,” said Natalie Mactier, Chief Executive Officer, Vivi. 

With Vivi Video Announcements, a school leader can deliver morning announcements, ad-hoc messaging in response to incoming news, or any other messaging made more powerful with video. Vivi Text Announcements enable a school’s administrative team to send concise, non-disruptive yet noticeable messages, directly to classrooms, common areas, or groups of displays to relay any message to students and staff, without interrupting the flow of instruction.  …Read More

Edtech tools to beat our state of emergency in reading and math achievement

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Back in early 2020, educators and students nationwide were living in a fast-paced world full of choices, adjustments, and constant changes. But in March of that year, everything changed.  Our district, like so many across the country, was forced to re-imagine what learning looked like. Under the great leadership of Dr. Shawn Foster, the Orangeburg County School District Superintendent, my school district had an active plan of action to ensure continuity of learning for all students. 

While we move further away from day-to-day impacts of the COVID pandemic, in some ways it is still with us. Although all members of the team worked hard to maintain continuity of learning during the pandemic, COVID has left our students’ reading and math skills in a state of emergency. Today, our challenge is to empower, encourage, equip, and support our teachers and students as they recover the learning lost during the pandemic. …Read More

Majority of districts now meet FCC’s school internet connectivity goal

Key points:

Seventy-four percent of districts (9,573) across the country now have school internet connectivity at speeds that are sufficient to support digital learning in their classrooms every day–impacting 27.1 million students, an increase of over 5 million students since 2022.

Do all students have access to the internet?

The latest statistics come from Connected Nation’s (CN) Connect K-12 Program’s 2023 Report on School Connectivity, released in collaboration with Funds For Learning (FFL). …Read More

3 things to consider when designing digital learning experiences

Editor’s note: This story on digital learning originally appeared on CoSN’s blog and is reposted here with permission.

Key points:

Teachers, principals, and district administrators are creating digital content every day for a variety of audiences. From classroom lessons and professional learning resources, to staff guides and announcement graphics, more and more information is being delivered in a visual way. Research shows that we process information presented in visual form more quickly than that presented in writing. However, if digital content is created without consideration of accessibility, visual processing, and basic design principles, the message we are trying to communicate can get lost, or worse, misinterpreted. …Read More

Poptential™ by Certell Offers Free Lessons on the Importance and History of Global Trade

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — According to the World Trade Organization (WTO), growing inflation and tighter monetary policy in the United States and abroad, along with unrest in Ukraine and the Middle East, have led to a broad-based trade slowdown in 2023. Poptential™, a family of free social studies course packages, explores the historical significance of global trade in its World History curriculum, equipping high school educators with media-rich content to help students gain a deeper understanding of the importance of free trade.

“High school students rely on robust global trade for many of the products they use every day, so it’s important for them to understand how free trade impacts our economy,” said Julie Smitherman, a former social studies teacher and director of content at Certell, Inc., the nonprofit behind Poptential. “Poptential’s global trade lessons help teachers engage students in discussions about how events, such as economic swings, geopolitical upheaval, and the Covid-19 pandemic, have disrupted the flow of trade, and the importance of trade in the effort to eradicate poverty and enhance the economies of countries big and small.”

Poptential course packages boost student engagement by using a variety of pop culture media to illustrate concepts, including those taken from sitcoms, movies, animations, cartoons, late-night shows, and other sources. Lessons on the history of global trade in Poptential World History Volumes 1 & 2 e-books, include:…Read More

When embracing the ‘science of reading,’ we can’t leave out older students

Each year, we share our 10 most-read stories. Not surprisingly, many of this year’s Top 10 focused on equity, edtech innovation, immersive learning, and the science of reading. This year’s 6th most-read story focuses on the science of reading for older students.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for our free New York newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

The day before my first day of teaching middle school in 2018, I decorated my Brooklyn public school classroom with quotes from famous people reflecting on the importance of reading. Hanging on cream-colored cardstock were the words of Malcolm X, Toni Morrison, C.S. Lewis, Barack Obama, Maya Angelou, and dozens of other writers and thinkers. I hoped to inspire my students to fall in love with reading. I didn’t think to hope that all my students could do the very thing I was asking them to love. I didn’t know that part of my job as a sixth grade Humanities teacher would be to teach students to read in the first place.…Read More

Can 4 equal 5? The impact of 4-day school weeks

Each year, we share our 10 most-read stories. Not surprisingly, many of this year’s Top 10 focused on equity, edtech innovation, immersive learning, and the science of reading. This year’s 7th most-read story focuses on the possibility of four-day school weeks.

Four-day weeks are becoming more common in school districts, particularly in rural areas of the U.S. Many districts are finding students and families like the shorter school weeks. In fact, in a survey of schools with four-day week policies, 85 percent of parents and 95 percent of students said they would choose to remain on the schedule rather than switch back to a five-day week. While these shorter weeks are popular with stakeholders, might there be unintended consequences of four-day school weeks? Are there certain ways to implement the schedule that lead to better outcomes for students?

Most of what is known about these questions has come from research conducted in the last five years. My colleagues and I have studied the four-day week using quantitative and qualitative data from state departments of education, school districts, and the NWEA MAP Growth research database. These projects and other recent research on four-day weeks have shed some light on questions about the implementation and outcomes of four-day school weeks. The research analyzes qualitative and quantitative data to compare students’ experiences and outcomes on four-day and five-day school weeks. We find that there are both benefits and drawbacks to the shorter school week, and these tradeoffs can vary based on the characteristics of the school district and how they implement the four-day week in practice.…Read More

What a 4-day school week might mean for your district

Key points:

West of the Mississippi, a new approach to seat time is catching on. Roughly 1,000 different schools have transitioned to a four-day school week (researchers abbreviate this as a 4dsw), which amounts to a sixfold increase since 2000. Twenty-five percent of schools in Missouri have implemented a 4dsw in their districts.

Schools in the American West and Southwest have led the way in trying this trend. There are a handful of reasons for this, but many deal with the geography of the school district. Rural schools often see different challenges than their urban counterparts. Transportation, extracurriculars, and family obligations can keep students out of school for half a day for something as quick as an orthodontist appointment once travel time is factored in.

Consolidating required seat time into four days does lengthen the four days spent in school, but the fifth day—which often is a Friday or a Monday, resulting in a three-day weekend—is completely free of school obligations. Some schools still elect to provide a meal for multiple reasons, including funding preservation and food insecurity. Teachers who travel to the district save on commute costs and consider the fifth day a perk of employment. One district switched and saw four times2 as many teacher applications.

Not every school site in a district has to adhere to the 4dsw—one prime example includes pre-kindergarten classes, which meet on different schedules than their older peers. But evidence is mounting that a 4dsw could help attract and retain teachers, manage scheduling for rural districts, and impact students’ sleep. Let’s weigh the pros and cons of a 4dsw.

The cons of 4dsw…Read More

5 top education innovation trends in 2023

Each year, we share our 10 most-read stories. Not surprisingly, many of this year’s Top 10 focused on equity, edtech innovation, immersive learning, and the science of reading. This year’s 10th most-read story focuses on the top edtech innovation predictions for 2023.

2022 marked a confusing year in the world of education innovation. As a friend and school leader said to me a few months ago, “Innovation is dead, right?” 

She was half joking while perfectly summing up something in the air last year in schools: a pandemic hangover mixed with ongoing, day-to-day challenges of running complex systems. Together, these made many “new” approaches to education feel too overwhelming to even entertain. …Read More