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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.

National Engineering Week Observances in K-12 Classrooms Get a Boost from Discovery Education and Social Impact Partners

Silver Spring, MD (Thursday, February 17, 2022) — Discovery Education and leading social impact partners are offering engaging, no-cost digital learning resources to students, teachers, and families to support National Engineers Week nationwide. Established in 1951, National Engineers Week immerses students in the future of engineering and helps create pathways to careers. Discovery Education is the worldwide EdTech leader whose state-of-the-art digital platform supports learning wherever it takes place.  

Taking place February 20-26 with theme “Reimagining the Possible” will help show students that innovative technologies and diverse leaders can create brighter futures for all through the power of engineering. To support this theme, Discovery Education is providing educators, students, and families with hundreds of no-cost resources tailored for any learning environment. Among the resources created in collaboration with leading social impact partners are:   

Virtual Field Trips  
The Future is Now Virtual Field Trip from Reach for the Sky – designed with Edge at Hudson Yards – takes students on a virtual adventure into NYC’s newest and most forward-thinking neighborhood and the incredible observation deck where marvels of modern engineering elevate the possibilities of everyday life to meet with various leaders about the STEM, history, and social impact of the new gravity-defying structure. …Read More

One Animation’s Oddbods Partners With Splashlearn’s Digital Learning Program – Reaching Over 40m Kids In The USA

SINGAPORE/USA 10 February 2022 – Award-winning content creation, distribution and licensing studio One Animation has secured a new partnership for Oddbods with SplashLearn. The massively popular digital learning program for reading and math, SplashLearn has benefited over 40 million children internationally. Under the deal, Oddbodsdigitalbooks, including ‘The Pied Piper of Oddsville’, ‘Pogo and the Magic Lamp’ and ‘The Great Bod Bake Off’, will launch exclusively as part of SplashLearn’s reading program on 10th February. 

SplashLearn, one of the fastest-growing learning programs in the USA, has bagged many prestigious edtech awards such as the Stevie Award for best edtech product, Tabby Award for the best business and the Parents Choice Award, is also backed by prominent investors. In 2021 alone it added 7 million new users and is currently accessed in over 150 countries, including the UK, Australia and India. The program is also used by over 750,000 teachers in around 77,000 schools. SplashLearn is free for schools and teachers, ensuring every child gets access to quality, fun education resources in their classroom. 

SpashLearn’s reading program, which will feature the Oddbods books, has been designed to develop core reading skills through a sequential learning path that takes into consideration factors such as sentence predictability, word features, story structure, among several others. It’s a comprehensive and interactive program that caters to children aged 3-11 years and features a rich library of titles. …Read More

8 digital learning tools for 2022

Returning to school after winter break brings with it a variety of emotions–excitement, anticipation, and hesitation prompted by concerns around potential COVID-19 outbreaks. And because schools may move to hybrid or virtual learning despite starting in person, digital learning tools that work in the physical or virtual classroom can prove invaluable.

Recent research from Texthelp shows that teachers believe students were significantly less engaged this past school year, but that digital tools were a bright spot in their classrooms. In fact, 90 percent of teachers say they plan to use edtech tools this upcoming school year.

Through using these tools, teachers say they experienced increased efficiency across the board and that students now have the accessible and engaging tools they need.…Read More

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3 resources for building engaging paperless lessons

As an inner-city U.S. History teacher of 17 years, I often reflect on my instructional practice in an effort to find new ways to improve. As I recently reviewed some of the videos I have of own instructional practice, I was struck by the massive amounts of paper-based assignments being handed out and collected.

While COVID-19 has forced educators to rapidly embrace digital resources, I have taken the opportunity to lean deeply into “green instruction” and attempt to go completely paperless. Thankfully, when the Duval County Public Schools went completely virtual in 2020, our district put into place a host of digital learning applications teachers could use to support blended instruction.  While my district has thankfully gone back to in-person teaching and learning, the resources we used to teach in the remote or hybrid environment are now supporting efforts to move to paperless teaching and learning.

A good example of what paperless lessons can look like in practice can be seen in how I teach my students about the history of D-Day. As the Team Historian for the Round Canopy Parachuting Team USA—an organization dedicated to honoring America’s paratrooper by performing the same types of parachute jumps that occurred on D-Day—I had access to a treasure trove of materials about the Allied landing in Europe.  Using these resources, I created a unique digital lesson on the history of D-Day using content from Discovery Education and the Airborne Special Operations Museum Foundation.…Read More

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Key steps to keep indoor air clean in classrooms

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented education with challenges and opportunities. On one hand, the massive move to digital learning and one-to-one programs has accelerated districts’ plans for edtech adoption. On the other, state and district leaders must ensure safe learning environments as schools strive to remain open—and paying attention to indoor air quality is critical.

Mandatory mask mandates, social distancing, routine handwashing, hybrid learning—schools are juggling a number of safety protocols. And while these steps are important, COVID-19 is airborne, meaning air purification and indoor air quality are of the utmost importance.

Providing healthier air can significantly reduce the anxiety levels of students, faculty, and staff—and students who are less stressed are able to learn better.…Read More

65 predictions about edtech, equity, and learning in 2022

As we wrapped up 2020, we thought for sure that 2021 might bring us a reprieve from pandemic learning. Well, it did–but it also didn’t. Virtual and hybrid learning continued into the spring, but then classrooms welcomed back students for full-time in-person learning in the fall. Many silver linings emerged and digital learning cemented itself as a “must have” in schools. Equity remained front and center, too, raising issues of inequitable technology access, along with racial and socioeconomic disparities and discrimination.

2021 brought with it new COVID-19 variants, the dreaded school COVID quarantine, and renewed calls to support the nation’s educators, who have worked tirelessly (and constantly) to support students’ learning, social and emotional needs, and more.

And now, we head into our third year of learning during a global pandemic. We asked edtech executives, stakeholders, and experts to share some of their thoughts and predictions about where they think edtech is headed in 2022.…Read More

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7 fun digital learning tools to try in the classroom

Each year, we share our 10 most-read stories. Not surprisingly, many of this year’s Top 10 focused on student engagement and online or hybrid learning strategies related to pandemic teaching. This year’s 5th most-read story focuses on under-the-radar digital learning tools.

During pandemic learning, educators have seen a plethora of digital learning tools and resources, and they’re figuring out what does and doesn’t work for their instructional methods.

There are some well-known and much-loved digital learning tools that are part of every educator’s must-try list, but why not throw some new resources into the mix?…Read More

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GoGuardian Appoints Former Google Executive Jenny Zhao as Chief Technology Officer

LOS ANGELES–( BUSINESS WIRE)–GoGuardian, the leading education technology company helping K-12 schools maximize the learning potential of every student, today announced the appointment of former Google executive Jenny Zhao as GoGuardian’s Chief Technology Officer. At GoGuardian, Zhao will lead the teams responsible for building digital learning solutions to help educators create engaging and safe learning environments.

Zhao recently served as Senior Director of Engineering at Google. Her multi-decade rise through globally dominant tech companies started at computer graphics innovator Silicon Graphics, where she led advanced simulation middleware solutions for clients including the U.S. Air Force and Disneyland. At Google, Zhao excelled as an engineering director, managing global teams across cultures and geographies, building innovative solutions in Google Pay, Search, and Maps.

“Jenny believes deeply in the mission of GoGuardian and shares our passion for building effective learning solutions that advance educational outcomes,” said Advait Shinde, co-founder and CEO of GoGuardian. “Jenny’s incredible track record of leading people-centered, high-performing engineering teams and driving change at the world’s most successful companies is a perfect fit for GoGuardian at a transformative time for our company.”…Read More

EdisonLearning Joins with Digital Learning Collaborative to Improve Online Education

FORT LAUDERDALE, FL – December 6, 2021 — EdisonLearning, a longtime innovator in public education and leading provider of digital learning solutions for grades 6-12, is proud to announce that it has joined The Digital Learning Collaborative (DLC), a membership organization dedicated to exploring, producing, and disseminating data, information, news, and best practices in digital learning.

“Online and blended learning have become powerful solutions to improve students’ access to a high-quality education, regardless of their life circumstances, socioeconomic status or zip code,” said Thom Jackson, President and CEO of EdisonLearning.

“As the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the spread of digital learning, we see the need for collaborative thinking around successes and best practices, which is why we are excited to partner with the DLC to transform opportunities and outcomes for schools, educators and students across the country,” Jackson said.…Read More

TEACHERMADE BRINGS CO-TEACHER SUPPORT TO ITS INTERACTIVE ONLINE PLATFORM

Jacksonville, FL — TeacherMade, the online platform for making interactive digital learning activities, has released a software update that allows Teachers to share account access with other Teachers, paraprofessionals, substitutes, administrators, IEP/504 teams, or any other stakeholder. The new Co-Teacher shared access allows Teachers and staff to collaborate on lesson authoring, grading, assigning, and sharing. A video explaining how to use this powerful new feature is available at https://youtu.be/NUKUqm9si5s.

TeacherMade was created during the Covid-19 pandemic to meet the urgent needs of Teachers and students thrust into remote learning. Now TeacherMade is growing into a complete online learning platform that supports every stakeholder. The new Co-Teacher update makes TeacherMade a more complete solution for schools. 

TeacherMade has a library of original, pre-built, engaging online learning experiences for students. But most schools build their own private-use libraries from the PDFs their Teachers already use. TeacherMade’s one-of-a-kind PDF editor is the fastest way to digitally enhance an existing paper lesson. Digitally enhanced activities are part of a resilient curriculum that can adapt to in-person, remote, and asynchronous environments.…Read More