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.

5 strategies to tackle the homework gap

Despite a brighter spotlight on digital equity, gaps still remain, including the troubling and persistent homework gap–but a newly-relaunched digital equity toolkit aims to highlight the important work districts across the nation are taking to address equity differences.

The 2014 Erate modernization helped a majority of schools meet the FCC’s short-term connectivity goal of 100 Mbps per 1,000 students, according to CoSN’s relaunched Digital Equity Initiative toolkit. But because classroom use of technology and digital resources is growing, a gap has continued to grow between students who have internet access at home and those who do not.

Related content: Tips for closing the homework gap…Read More

CEOs join forces to support eRate modernization

eRate program, broadband upgrades are essential for students, group says

eRate-upgradeA group of 50 executives, innovators, and entrepreneurs joined the nonprofit organization EducationSuperHighway on Jan. 30 to urge the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to modernize the federal eRate program – a move that will help advance President Obama’s ConnectED goal to connect 99 percent of America’s K-12 students to high-speed broadband in five years.

The group includes CEOs from American Express, Adobe, Airbnb, Bloomberg L.P., Dell, Dropbox, eBay, EMC Corporation, Facebook, Foursquare, Google, HP, Intuit, Microsoft, Netflix, Salesforce.com, Tory Burch, Xerox, and Yahoo and represents approximately $785 billion in annual economic activity and two million workers.

The nonprofit got a funding boost in December 2013, when Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates offered support for the organization. Zuckerberg’s Startup: Education and Gates’ foundation have contributed a combined $9 million to the nonprofit.…Read More