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.

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

14 classroom management strategies to increase student learning

When the right classroom management tools are in place, students are able to learn more as their engagement increases.

Focusing on physical classroom management, behavioral management, resources for effective instruction, attendance and gradebook tools, and tools for a school-home connection can help students master classroom lessons.

During an edWeb webinar, Eileen Lennon, a technology teacher at Nathaniel Hawthorne Middle School 74 in Queens, New York led an exploration of tools to help teachers establish an engaging and productive classroom environment.…Read More

New book illustrates the 5 most important leadership skills

Leaders aren’t just principals, CEOs, and presidents, a new book asserts, but rather people from all walks of life benefit from leadership skills and training. That’s especially true in education where everyone from parents to teachers to students are often called upon to serve in leadership roles. But what does that entail?

The book, Life Lessons in Leadership: The Way of the Wallaby, uses a literary style similar to Spenser Johnson’s Who Moved My Cheese? to illustrate real-world lessons through the stories of engaging fictional characters. Co-authored by ed-tech pro Ann McMullan — formerly the executive director for educational technology at Klein ISD in Texas — and journalist Michael Barrett, the educational and entertaining self-help book teaches essential personal leadership skills through a clever combination of literary text targeted to adult leaders, combined with captivating, childlike stories.

Each of the book’s five short chapters focuses on an essential leadership skill and begins with McMullan’s lessons, written in prose, describing the importance of that skill. As the book flows from one chapter to another, McMullan demonstrates how each leadership skill builds on the others and how all are critical to the success of any leader.…Read More

CodeCombat adds game, web development to coding platform

CodeCombat, which offers an engaging platform for helping kids learn computer science (CS), has significantly enhanced its platform in time for back to school.

CodeCombat has added major new capabilities including Game Development and Web Development, and quadrupled the number of levels available to users of its original Learn to Code module, giving students plenty of runway to keep enhancing their coding skills.

CodeCombat’s classroom product, which launched just four months ago, is now in use by 45,000 students in grades 4-12 across 1,600 schools in all 50 states – making it one of the fastest-growing companies in the ed tech space.…Read More

Kids Discover Online unveils custom assessments feature

Kids Discover, a provider of engaging science and social studies curriculum, announced that its interactive digital library, Kids Discover Online, now includes custom assessment capabilities. Kids Discover Online enables educators to mix and match material from science and social studies to facilitate students’ exploration of big ideas through cross-curricular learning. The newly added Assessments tool gives educators full control to create, distribute, and assess custom quizzes, tests, and homework assignments directly within the platform.

The Assessments feature includes more than 5,000 pre-built questions covering more than 1,200 science and social studies topics. Question types vary to include discussion prompts, short answer, multiple choice, and true/false. Educators can save content to their Classroom and have questions specifically corresponding to a given article automatically populate the question bank.

“It is so important that our users know we listen to their feedback and requests. They are our best source of information on how to continue making our solution the absolute best for them and their students,” said Ted Levine, the president and CEO of Kids Discover. “With pre-built questions, customization features, automated grading, and Gradebook tracking, teachers will now be able to use our science and social studies content to accurately assess their students’ knowledge and understanding within those subjects.”…Read More

Washington district partners with Discovery on college, career readiness

Washington’s Highline Public Schools announced the launch of a new partnership supporting college and career readiness with Discovery Education, provider of digital content and professional development for K-12 classrooms.

Through this collaboration, all K-12 classrooms districtwide will have access to engaging digital content through Discovery Education Streaming Plus, an award-winning, comprehensive digital service supplementing instruction across all K-12 curricular areas.

In addition, 35 teacher leaders and their principals, representing five elementary schools, two middle schools and one high school, will participate in Discovery Education’s Digital Leader Corps. A comprehensive professional development system, Digital Leader Corps develops teacher-leaders to propel the district’s transition to modern digital learning environments.…Read More

Stanford course prepares educators for the new school year

The ability to communicate effectively is increasingly recognized as an important skill for students entering the workforce. Two new initiatives that guide educators – the College and Career Readiness Standards and the Framework for 21st Century Learning – identify communication and collaboration as key elements of student learning. The standards particularly describe the importance of students understanding the reasoning of others and engaging in meaningful conversations using critical thinking.

Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education has launched a short online course designed specifically to help educators create rich and meaningful opportunities for communication within the classroom. The course, Effective Conversation in the Classroom, launches this August with three online sessions. K-12 classroom instructors, instructional coaches, and educational administrators are invited to enroll.

Each session includes expert video screencasts, classroom video clips, readings and resources, and assignments that will help participants create a strong foundation of communication within the classroom. The course has been developed by Understanding Language/SCALE, a Stanford research and practice center focused on K-12 language and performance assessment. The teaching team consists of Stanford Professor Emeritus Kenji Hakuta, Senior Researcher Dr. Jeff Zwiers and Lecturer Dr. Sara Rutherford-Quach.…Read More

Vernier app offers hands-on learning about thermal energy

Accompanying physics, chemistry and biology investigations have students analyze images and videos captured with the FLIR ONE Thermal Camera

Vernier Software & Technology developed a new free app to allow students to study thermal energy concepts by analyzing images and video captured with the FLIR ONE Thermal Camera for iOS.

Using the Thermal Analysis for FLIR ONE app, which is available for download in the App Store, as well as new investigations created by Vernier, students can measure temperature changes on the skin, illustrate convection, track heating due to friction, compare heat conduction in different materials, analyze the transparency of materials in infrared versus visible light, and more.

“The new app provides students with an engaging way to study and to visualize thermal energy,” said John Wheeler, CEO of Vernier Software & Technology. “Ideal for BYOD and mobile learning environments, the app matched with our innovative investigations lets students easily collect and analyze thermal data, make scientific connections, and participate in hands-on learning.”…Read More

App of the Week: One-stop shop for research and writing

Ed. note: App of the Week picks are now being curated with help from the editors of Graphite.org, a free service from Common Sense Education. Click here to read the full app review.

Citelighter Education

What’s It Like? Citelighter is an engaging online platform designed to support students and teachers as they tackle the intricacies of the writing process. Students simply sign up and download the Citelighter toolbar or work on the Citelighter website. Students can work on Citelighter’s platform to research topics and construct their own written work or use the Citelighter toolbar to search and cite from the open Web. On the platform, students follow a series of scaffolded steps predetermined by their teacher; they’ll explore leveled articles and various multimedia content (videos and images) before they begin writing a paper. As students find useful excerpts, capturing and organizing is as simple as highlighting, clicking, and dragging. Citations are automatically saved and referenced in a bibliography.

Price: Free/subscription

Grades: 3-12…Read More

Panasonic showcases new laser projectors, digital displays

Variety of laser projectors and multi-touch displays recently showcased

Panasonic has launched a wide range of visual systems technologies. The booth showcases the latest professional visual systems and professional video technologies through engaging demonstrations, including a new flagship 4K+ SOLID SHINE Laser 3-Chip DLP projector, high-impact projection mapping solutions, an ultra-narrow video-wall display featuring virtually invisible bezels, along with other new professional display and  professional video products.

Product highlights at InfoComm 2016 include:

Projectors

PT-RQ32KU 3-Chip DLP SOLID SHINE 4K+ Laser Projector…Read More