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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.

The New Librarian: How to set up a Global Citizens program

At Tudor Elementary School in Anchorage, Alaska, “show and tell” has an inspiring twist.

Instead of sharing an interesting rock or a favorite toy, they are sharing messages of peace and personal commitment to making the world a better place. And, through live video conferencing, they’re sharing their messages with students in Argentina, Pakistan, Brazil, Canada, and the United States, as well as locations throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Tudor’s 346 K-6 students are part of the school’s “Young Global Citizens” project spearheaded by school librarian Michelle Carton, a long-time educator and founder of Global Education Alaska. Carton runs the program, which was recently named the Grand Prize winner in the 2018 Follett Challenge, earning $60,000 in products and services from Follett School Solutions for the way it showcases what it means for her students to be global citizens, how it impacts their learning, their perspectives on the world, and the impacts they can have on it.…Read More

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The must-have for a SIS? It’s not what you think!

Earning buy-in from stakeholders is one of the most important factors when moving to a new SIS.

At Mooresville Consolidated School Corporation, where I work as a data management coordinator, our former SIS was unreliable, inaccessible, and had limited functionality. With frustration building among staff, we selected a new SIS that would allow us to become more efficient, engaged, and empowered.

It was at this time that we realized we needed to not only change our procedures for implementing a new solution, but also ensure the buy-in from staff, teachers, students, and parents. Change can be difficult, especially when you’re transitioning to a new SIS, and we wanted to make sure all stakeholders were on board throughout the entire process.…Read More

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Infographic: Why mobile technology is hurting some students

[Editor’s Note: Read “Infographic: The edtech challenges faced by immigrant students” here.]

Although most children in families earning below the median U.S. household income have internet access and devices that connect to it, they struggle with being “under-connected.”

Ninety-four percent of families surveyed by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, have some kind of internet access and most have at least one device connecting to the internet, but the quality or consistency of their internet access is lower than they would like it to be.…Read More

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College- and career-ready expectations for students with disabilities

Achieve and the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) released “Diplomas that Matter: Ensuring Equity of Opportunity for Students with Disabilities,” a new report analyzing the diplomas available to students with disabilities in each state for the graduating class of 2015. The report also compares the course and assessment requirements for earning a regular diploma in each state for students with disabilities and their peers without disabilities.

Although an estimated 85 to 90 percent of students with disabilities can, with the proper instruction, supports, and accommodations, meet the same graduation standards as all other students, the national graduation rate for students with disabilities has risen from 56.9 percent in 2006 only to 66.3 percent in 2014. In addition to these low graduation rates, questions persist as to whether students with disabilities are being given access to a rigorous course of study that will prepare them for college and career. States do a disservice to students with disabilities when they are not given the opportunity to earn a regular diploma with adequate supports or when they are held to lower expectations.

Achieve and NCEO’s analysis suggests that expecting less of students with disabilities, through a less rigorous diploma offering, does them a disservice because they leave school thinking that they are ready for college or career when they are likely not prepared.…Read More

Is education about increasing earning power?

The Washington Post reports: In “The Smartest Kids In The World,” journalist Amanda Ripley’s new book about effective educational systems around the globe, there’s a scene in which Kim, an American high school student spending a year in Finland, asks her classmates a searching question. “Why do you guys care so much?” Kim inquires of two Finnish girls. “I mean, what makes you work hard in school?” The students give her a puzzled look. “It’s school,” one of them says. “How else will I graduate and go to university and get a good job?” When I reviewed Ripley’s book in The New York Times last month, I highlighted this exchange, writing, “It’s the only sensible answer, of course, but its irrefutable logic still eludes many American students, a quarter of whom fail to graduate from high school.”

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