Discovery Education and Social Impact Partners Offer All Educators New, No-Cost Professional Learning Resources

Silver Spring, MD (Thursday, December 16, 2021) — As school systems nationwide begin to look towards Winter Break, Discovery Education and select social impact partners present curated professional learning resources at no cost to support educators’ continued professional learning. Spanning critical topics such as social-emotional learning (SEL), computational thinking, and STEM, this new professional learning content inspires educators to reimagine teaching and more deeply engage students. Discovery Education is the worldwide edtech leader whose state-of-the-art digital platform supports learning wherever it takes place.

Designed to support educators’ work to create immersive learning experiences every day, the curated content strengthens teacher effectiveness, empowers school leaders, and increases student engagement. Among the SEL and STEM professional learning resources from Discovery Education and educational initiatives created in collaboration with leading social impact partners are: 

Social-Emotional Professional Learning Resources…Read More

When it comes to edtech, it’s not about the tools, but how you use them

In this week’s Getting There: Innovations in Education, Editor at Large Kevin Hogan explores how to get the most impact out of the edtech tools in your district.

Also in this podcast:

  • New cyber security standards attempt to help secure district networks through awareness.
  • Dr. Matthew X. Joseph, Executive Director of Learning, Providence Public Schools on the power of human networks.
  • How video creation tools can improve parental relations.
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How to ensure your district networks are safe and secure

COVID closed in-person classrooms and also gave a boost to cyberthreats to school district networks. As data security breaches–including ransomware attacks, phishing, and unauthorized disclosures–show no sign of slowing, K-12 IT leaders need to be ready.

IT teams understand how important cybersecurity measures are, but many struggle to pinpoint where to begin when their resources are limited.

Threats to K-12 education networks will never be eliminated, but there are strategies to successfully defend sensitive school district information. Want to learn more? Join a conversation with fellow edtech leaders and experts as they share best practices on both the technical aspects–software and services–and the human aspects–professional development and community education–of keeping your district networks safe and sound.…Read More

YaizY Lands $2.1M Seed Investment To Transform The Traditional Learning System By Turning Kids’ Passions Into Professions

New York, NY (December 6, 2021)  – EdTech startup YaizY, an online platform with a wide range of curated courses in advanced digital subjects for kids, announced today a $2.1M seed round with total funding nearing $3 million. The live online education platform allows 8-to-17-year-olds to develop and refine future-proof skills in areas such as innovation, leadership, design, and multimedia arts will use the funds to expedite YaizY’s expansion in the US, further grow the customer base in UK and Israel, increase development of the live education platform and support the launch of fun, yet rigorous courses for students to learn from for years to come. 

The investment is coming from LearnStart, Flyer One Ventures, YellowRockets.vc, Angelsdeck, A.Partners, Vesdar Capital, and ALFIN. This is YaizY’s second investment round after the initial $800,000 equity round closed in January 2021. 

Founded by a global team of entrepreneurs, industry experts, and professionally trained, award-winning educators with decades of international experience, YaizY rapidly expanded to the US late last year. As YaizY bridges the gap between today’s traditional educational system and what’s needed to succeed in the job market of tomorrow, the platform has experienced 500% growth in the number of active paying students from May 2020 to May 2021, earning the trust of the 4,000+ families who trust the Yaizy philosophy and are continuing to invest in their child’s future. To date, more than 15,000 students have attended YaizY’s seminars and workshops with year-over-year revenue growth up 450%.…Read More

Head into the Holiday Season with New Dynamic Digital Experiences from Discovery Education and Social Impact Partners

Silver Spring, MD (Wednesday, December 1, 2021) — To support continued student engagement anywhere during the winter holiday breaks, Discovery Education and leading social impact partners are introducing new flexible and engaging learning resources. Designed to connect students to their innate curiosity and unite communities around learning, the dynamic array of no-cost content spans all K-12 disciplines. Discovery Education is the worldwide edtech leader whose state-of-the-art digital platform supports learning wherever it takes place.

Aligned to applicable learning standards, the new curated content supports educators’ work to bring the world to life while also connecting the classroom to careers and uniting families around learning. Among the resources from Discovery Education and educational initiatives created in collaboration with leading social impact partners are:

Virtual Field Trip
Premiere: December 9th at 1 PM EST…Read More

Making Lemonade—Finding Edtech Best Practices From Pandemic Pivots

In this week’s Getting There: Innovations in Education, Editor at Large Kevin Hogan explores how education leaders are identifying the best practices that emerged from their COVID learning plans.

Best practices from pandemic pivots include:

  • Six pillars of online PD
  • New opportunities for special education students
  • How one district is coming out ahead of COVID

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3 steps to better edtech integration

The pandemic forced a significant shift from traditional classrooms to virtual and hybrid teaching environments–often before schools and districts were ready. It quickly became apparent that reliable virtual learning tools were a must-have for teachers to be productive.

However, classroom technology is only valuable if it builds a positive learning environment. Solutions must also be scalable for successful reiteration on the technology itself, based on research, data, and analysis. If a school has software that can analyze the effectiveness of academic content based on the average grades of the schools that adopt it, for instance, the statistical data will show the content schools should use to improve student performance.

With integrated technology and software, schools improve student performance and teacher productivity through more accessible application and learning of edtech systems.…Read More

Edge at Hudson Yards and Discovery Education Launch New Partnership Empowering Students to Engineer STEM Dreams

Silver Spring, Md. (Monday, November 1, 2021) – Edge at Hudson Yards and Discovery Education today announced a new educational initiative – Reach for the Sky – that shows students nationwide the transformative power of STEM during a virtual trip to the tallest outdoor sky deck in the Western Hemisphere. Discovery Education is the worldwide edtech leader whose state-of-the-art digital platform supports learning wherever it takes place.

This new initiative – Reach for the Sky – features engaging digital educational resources and a Virtual Field Trip for students in grades 4-12. With an array of no-cost content, students discover how big ideas and cutting-edge technology can be combined to improve lives and revolutionize communities. Premiering November 4th  at 1 PM ET, The Future is Now Virtual Field Trip 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 extraordinary heights. Students will explore new horizons in community-building as they journey 1,131 ft into the air to Edge, the highest outdoor skydeck in the Western hemisphere, for an unparalleled 360° view of the city and a behind-the-scenes look at amazing innovations of architecture and engineering. Throughout the Virtual Field Trip, students will hear from various leaders about the STEM, history, and social impact of the new gravity-defying structure. Learn more about this event and register here.

“Hudson Yards was always envisioned as an innovative center for engaging sustainable neighborhoods of the future and a place for discovery and adventure,” said Haley Ward, Vice President of Sales at Hudson Yards Experiences. “We are proud to partner with Discovery Education to inspire the next generation of inventors and visionaries through this one-of-a-kind STEM learning experience at Edge.”…Read More

7 strategies to get teacher buy-in for new technology tools

Parent engagement is a driving factor behind any child’s success in school—but a nationwide survey of more than 1,000 teachers found that parents are often disengaged in their child’s learning journey. To harness edtech tools that can help school-home communication, it’s essential to first secure teacher buy-in.

More than half of the teachers surveyed believe parents do not understand the importance of their involvement in their child’s school experience, and they assume education is a teacher’s job–not a collaborative effort between parents and teachers.

As the district technology integrationist in a rural Title 1 district, I continually look for affordable and/or free edtech resources that will bridge the communication gap between teachers and parents. But those resources also require teacher buy-in.…Read More

5 ways for school leaders to promote equity, student agency

Students continue to struggle against persistent educational inequities, and while they report worrisome levels of disengagement, a move toward student-directed learning could help students and educators alike find a better path toward impactful learning experiences.

The report, Empowering and Engaging Student Voice to Create Equity in Education, comes from Project Tomorrow, a national education nonprofit supporting the implementation of research-based learning experiences, and Blackboard Inc., a global edtech software and solutions company. It leverages key insights from a survey of 50,000 K-12 students, parents, and educators during the 2020-21 school year.

“The disruptive events of the past 18 months with the pandemic and shifts in learning modalities have opened our collective eyes to several new truths including about the interrelationship between equity and student empowerment as documented in this new report,” said Dr. Julie A. Evans, chief researcher and CEO of Project Tomorrow. “With the research in front of us, we cannot look away now but must take this opportunity in time to re-think the ways we are approaching learning and especially how technology can be better used to support student engagement in learning.” …Read More

Measuring Some Sort of Pandemic Progress

The COVID-19 pandemic is still very much with us and continues to affect millions of teachers and students who wrestle with the challenges of hybrid, virtual, and full in-person learning scenarios. But if you step back and look at the positive side of things, you’ll find that teachers and students have become incredibly adept at using new technology tools–and it looks as if these tools and techniques will stick around.

This latest episode of Innovations in Education includes a smorgasboard of interesting content, including a conversation about what edtech industry events will look like in 2022, along with a chat with a district IT leader who worked to protect his district from a ransomware attack last year.

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