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.

ParentSquare Partners with MyVRSpot to Enhance Video Messaging to K-12 School-Home Engagement Platform

SANTA BARBARA, CALIF. Aug. 10, 2022—In a 2022 national survey about the future of school-home communications, school and district leaders said they would like to add more videos to improve communication with families. To meet this need, ParentSquare has partnered with MyVRSpot, a video and digital media management service, to extend its video messaging capabilities to the ParentSquare school-home engagement platform for K-12.

With this new partnership, K-12 educators from the district office to the classroom teacher can seamlessly record and share video messages using ParentSquare and MyVRSpot to engage families with their communications. Teachers can also easily create and share lessons using the built-in recorder tools in MyVRSpot and then add the videos to the posts they create in ParentSquare – giving teachers and students the tools they need to teach and be future-ready citizens.

“Video provides a powerful tool to help districts and schools deepen their relationships with students’ families,” ParentSquare Chief Strategy Officer Dr. Chad A. Stevens said. “The partnership between ParentSquare and MyVRSpot is a direct response to feedback from our customers who expressed a desire to add video to their future communications plans. This new integration provides flexibility for schools to create and share video messages with families and shows ParentSquare’s ongoing commitment of creating the most robust parent relationship platform through customer-centric partnerships.”…Read More

Nova Launches National Youth Science Communication Initiative: Nova Science Studio

Today, the award-winning science series NOVA, produced for PBS by GBH Boston, announced the launch of NOVA Science Studio, a new national program to teach and engage young people through an interdisciplinary curriculum focused on science communication, digital media literacy, and video production. With a goal to empower youth with the skills to tell engaging stories about science through short-form videos and create a platform to amplify the voices of young people who have been traditionally underrepresented in science communication, NOVA Science Studio will give students exposure to a wide range of careers in journalism, media production, and STEM. The program will run now through June 2021. A video trailer for the new initiative can be found  here.

The program will include 30 middle- and high-school students representing five regions around the country: Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, and West Coast. The program, NOVA’s first focused effort to create educational resources to teach science communication to teens, grew out of a pilot program during the 2018-2019 academic year in the Boston area that worked with nearly 30 students. Each new region will be led by a NOVA Science Studio Site Coordinator who brings an expertise in science communication and video production; the group includes science communicators, producers, and teachers who have a strong track record of covering science through multi-platform storytelling. Names and bios for the site coordinators can be found here.

NOVA Science Studio will also draw on NOVA’s own talent, with participation by members of the editorial, broadcast, and digital teams.…Read More

5 tips to build academic integrity

The importance of academic integrity can’t be underestimated, especially when it comes to blended learning. And these aren’t just words. Statistics show there was a 68 percent increase in the number of integrity violations reported in 2019-2020 compared with 2018-2019.

With the rise of digital innovation, distance learning technology has become an integral part of blended learning – an approach that integrates technology and digital media with traditional instructor-led classroom activities. It also made academic integrity a significant point of concern. Students are now expected to possess an increased degree of autonomy – probably the highest in history, which might nudge them toward cheating.

Related content: 4 best practices for remote testing…Read More

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How we got the edtech resource we wanted

As classroom teachers, we are always on the lookout for new resources and services that will benefit every student in our school. One day we encountered an edtech resource that would deliver curated, safe, and vetted digital media to teachers that would empower them to create dynamic digital learning environments for their students.

While we knew the addition of this resource–Discovery Education Experience–would drastically shift the work and culture of our staff, thanks to incredibly supportive peers and administrators at both the school and district level, we felt inspired and empowered to create a path that would bring this service to our school while drastically shifting the work and culture of our staff. Together, we worked for change while delivering this valued instructional resource.

Related content: 6 ways to get teachers on board with edtech…Read More

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4 tools that take blended learning to the next level

In any rush of new technology there comes fresh opportunities for learning and growth that were never possible before. We’ve seen this in the past two decades with blended learning, which combines digital media with traditional classroom methods to engage students like never before.

In all of the excitement to use technology, however, the real purpose of blended learning is often lost. Collaborating on a Google Doc is fun and convenient, but blended learning should be more than that.

Effective blended-learning tools should share a few key characteristics that distinguish them from tools that are simply digital in nature. Before implementing a tool, ask yourself these three questions:…Read More

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#8: 10 TED-Ed videos your students can use today

[Editor’s note: This story, originally published on November 1st of this year, was our #8 most popular story of the year. The countdown continues tomorrow with #7, so be sure to check back!]

More often than not, students pick up a mobile device or use a computer to access videos and digital media online. With a wealth of resources online, educators can find content that meets students where they’re comfortable learning, with interactive and engaging presentation.

TED Talks have grown in popularity in part for their inspiring and frank perspectives on any number of world issues, and educators can leverage these resources for learning.…Read More

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10 TED-Ed videos your students can use today

More often than not, students pick up a mobile device or use a computer to access videos and digital media online. With a wealth of resources online, educators can find content that meets students where they’re comfortable learning, with interactive and engaging presentation.

TED Talks have grown in popularity in part for their inspiring and frank perspectives on any number of world issues, and educators can leverage these resources for learning.

Educators can build lessons around any TED-Ed Original, TED Talk or YouTube video through Ted-Ed. Once they locate the video they wish to use, they next use the TED-Ed Lesson editor to add questions, discussion prompts and additional resources. When the lesson is published, educators can monitor their progress and submitted work.…Read More

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Free learning platform targets improved media literacy

KQED Teach, which launched on July 11, provides a series of free, self-paced courses to help K-12 educators develop the media skills necessary to bring media production and communication to their learning environments.

These courses will take place in an online platform developed by KQED Education that tracks user progress and encourages sharing and feedback through an integrated social community.

KQED Teach participants will have access to a wide range of social media and digital media tools allowing them to construct and remix media in multiple formats and across a variety of platforms while addressing many writing, reading, speaking and listening skills required by both the Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards.…Read More

Groups partner to leverage open tech standards

ClassLink, Mackin partnership aims to help students, teachers enjoy single sign-on to an industry provider of print and digital media

ClassLink announced a new single sign-on connection to Mackin Educational Resources, an adaptive learning platform for grades K-8. This new partnership will provide users with secure, OneClick access to MackinVIA, a free and complete digital resource management system providing easy access to eBooks, audiobooks, educational databases, and video.

ClassLink OneClick delivers single sign-on to web resources, like MackinVia, and to files, whether they are stored in the cloud, on a device, or on the school network. With more than 3,000 single sign-on connectors, ClassLink has brought together more resources than all other single sign-on platforms combined.

For 33 years, Mackin has provided library and classroom materials for pre-K- 12 teachers and students. Working with over 18,000 publishers and a database of more than 2.5 million printed titles and more than 350,000 digital titles,Mackin supplies print books, eBooks, online educational databases, audiobooks, video resources and more, along with digital content management and custom collection analysis services.…Read More

New professional development focuses on engagement through gaming

New online professional development course focuses on increasing student achievement through engagement with game-based learning

The ever-increasing omnipresence of digital media in student’s lives can be challenging for teachers as they compete for kid’s attention in and out of the classroom. With this in mind, Teach n’ Kids Learn (TKL) and DimensionU have teamed up to create a robust Online Professional Development course that supports teachers’ instruction in mathematics and language arts through gamification, quickly and easily.

Included for K-12 educators who enroll in the course by February 15, 2016, is a free DimensionU Class License (for up to 30 students), through the remainder of this school year.

The online professional development course focuses on helping teachers incorporate educational video games and applying game-based learning techniques in the classroom. The DimensionU portfolio of educational games creates high student engagement and offers a solid foundation with demonstrated improvement in students’ achievement results. In regards to the online course, TKL’s instructional methodology, guarantees teachers immediate implementation in the classroom, individualized support and well structured, easy-to-use examples for applying the newly acquired techniques.…Read More