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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.

Incident IQ Releases Integration With ClassLink Single Sign-on

ATLANTA (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Incident IQ, the workflow management platform built for school districts, released an integration with ClassLink—a global education provider of access and analytics products that create more time for learning and help schools better understand digital engagement.

As school districts continue to rely on more technology in today’s classrooms, Incident IQ offers advanced integrations that provide data-rich help requests to K-12 IT teams, while being easy to use for end-users. ClassLink’s single sign-on platform gives teachers and students access to classroom resources with a single login. Using this integration, tech support is only a click away, providing users with immediate access to support workflows. 

“Keeping classroom time dedicated to teaching and learning is essential for Incident IQ and ClassLink,” said Matthew Krivanek, Vice President of Marketing. “Incident IQ and ClassLink work together to eliminate the unnecessary back-and-forth that can come with classroom technology support. This integration allows teachers and students instant access to the Incident IQ platform and relevant support workflows using their ClassLink credentials, returning more time to teaching and learning, instead of troubleshooting tech issues. We are dedicated to providing a supportive, streamlined support environment for K-12 districts through our continued partnership with ClassLink.”…Read More

Promethean Works With Merlyn Mind To Increase Classroom Productivity and Support Innovative Teaching

SEATTLE /PRNewswire/ —  Promethean®, a leading global education technology company, today announced it has entered into a US-based exclusive distribution agreement with  Merlyn Mind, Inc. With the new agreement, Promethean will distribute Symphony Classroom™, the artificial intelligence (AI) solution that brings the Merlyn digital assistant to teachers powered by voice-activated AI. With the alliance, customers will be able to purchase Symphony Classroom directly through Promethean’s network of resellers.  

Symphony Classroom delivers the Merlyn digital assistant custom-built for the unique needs of education — enabling teachers to use voice commands or a remote to control their laptops, interactive displays, internet browsers, apps, and more. Powered by Symphony Classroom’s EdgeAI® technology that provides lightning-fast responsiveness, Merlyn frees teachers to move around the classroom so they can interact with students, simplifies everyday classroom tasks, and improves overall efficiency and productivity.

“Promethean’s  ActivPanel is the interactive display of choice for millions of teachers who rely on technology to drive student engagement and spark their imagination,” said Vin Riera, chief executive officer at Promethean. “By adding Symphony Classroom to our portfolio, we will make it easier for educators to teach untethered, supporting a student-centered environment that increases participation.”…Read More

Texthelp Names Industry Veteran Gus Schmedlen as Chief Revenue Officer

WOBURN, Mass. /PRNewswire/ — Texthelp, a global leader in literacy and assistive technology, announced it has appointed Gus Schmedlen, Ed.D., as its Chief Revenue Officer (CRO). In this new role, Dr. Schmedlen will help Texthelp meet its goal of advancing the literacy of 1 billion people by 2030.

Dr. Schmedlen brings over two decades of experience in the education technology sector to Texthelp. Before joining the company, he served as President & CRO at Merlyn Mind, a venture-backed AI technology company focused on the global education market. Gus also served as VP and Head of Worldwide Education at HP, a multinational technology company. There he oversaw a period of rapid expansion that led to the creation of a multi-billion-dollar global education technology business. During his time at HP, he also led international efforts to improve access to quality education for marginalized students.

“Gus has an impressive background in education technology. He is deeply passionate and committed to improving outcomes for everyone — in education right through into the workplace,” said Martin McKay, CEO and founder of Texthelp. “As Texthelp’s new Chief Revenue Officer, Gus’ background and expertise will allow us to expand our sales capabilities further than ever before. He comes to us with extensive experience in scaling revenues and accelerating growth for global organizations. His role will play a substantial part in our mission. We want to help create inclusive classrooms and inclusive workplaces around the world. We are very excited to have Gus as a part of the Texthelp team and I look forward to working with him.”…Read More

Promethean Announces the All-New ActivPanel with ActivSync, Delivering a Transformational and Intuitive User Experience

SEATTLE, WA and NEW ORLEANS, LA–June 27, 2022– Promethean, a leading global education technology company, has announced the all-new ActivPanel with ActivSync that delivers the most robust, seamless, and secure user experience yet. With the new interactive panel, Promethean meets the needs of teachers and IT administrators with intuitive, cutting-edge technology that enables a seamless classroom experience. With its easy, secure sign-in options, streamlined connection to content, flexible lesson delivery software, and personalized user experience, ActivPanel 9 offers the tools needed to transform how teachers use technology.

After listening to more than 1,300 customers across the globe, Promethean designed the interactive panel to facilitate navigating a changing environment. The only interactive panel with ActivSync, Promethean’s patented technology, eliminates digital barriers between devices and enables increased connectivity, customizable settings, and enhanced mobility so that teachers can move around the classroom freely. Furthermore, Promethean redesigned the user experience, providing a solution for instructional models, such as hybrid, synchronous, and asynchronous learning that integrate hardware and software in all scenarios.  

“With our commitment to providing educators the ability to transform learning and collaboration, ActivPanel 9 is our most innovative release to date,” said Lance Solomon, chief product officer at Promethean. “We addressed the challenges teachers, IT administrators, and district officials face by creating an interactive panel that is more secure, easier to use, and works better with other technology in their classrooms.”…Read More

Kajeet Appoints Industry Veteran Chris Felix as Vice President of Education Sales

MCLEAN, VA. — Jan. 8, 2022 — Kajeet®, a leading provider of IoT connectivity, software and hardware solutions that deliver safe, reliable and controlled internet connectivity to nearly 3,000 customers, today announced the appointment of Chris Felix to the newly created role of vice president of sales within its education business. In this role, Felix will spearhead business development and account management for Kajeet’s global education customers, further bolstering its mission of closing the digital divide in education and beyond.

“While significant progress has been made to eradicate digital inequities, over a billion school-age students worldwide are still without adequate internet access at home. We at Kajeet feel that this is unacceptable,” said Daniel J.W. Neal, Chairman, CEO and founder of Kajeet. “The addition of Chris to our mission-focused team will support our strategic growth in the global education market and reinforce our position as a leading provider of safe, reliable and secure IoT connectivity solutions for students and educators alike.”

Felix is a seasoned and strategic leader who brings more than 30 years of telecommunications experience to his new role. Before joining Kajeet, he served four years as vice president and general manager of government solutions at Sprint, where he successfully revitalized its federal government sector and aligned two sales organizations into a single, unified team on the heels of its merger with T-Mobile. Felix started his career in telecommunications at Verizon Wireless, where he quickly worked his way into management roles. Throughout his 27-year tenure at Verizon, Felix held several executive-level leadership positions, including a three-year stint as regional president of Verizon’s Upstate New York region and three years as vice president of federal government sales.…Read More

AtlasRTX Partners with Instructure to Provide AI-Powered Digital Assistant, Serving More than 30 Million Students

PARK CITY, Utah– AtlasRTX™ (www.atlasrtx.com), a leading AI-powered digital assistant SaaS solution building sophisticated real-time experiences, announced today a successful partnership with Instructure (www.instructure.com), a leading global education technology company supporting more than 30 million students, to seamlessly engage parents, teachers and students via web chat in over 100 languages 24/7, 365 days a year.

“Without our AtlasRTX digital assistant handling many of our inquiries, we wouldn’t be able to provide the level of service our customers deserve,” said Michelle Suzuki, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Instructure. “We needed a solution that would satisfy many needs, be affordable and easy to architect and manage. With AtlasRTX, many inquiries that previously required human responses are now being handled through automation, leaving the more complex inquiries to be routed through proper human contacts and departments in real-time.”

Powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and optimized by experts, AtlasRTX is a comprehensive end-to-end customer chat solution that offers the most engaging and natural experience available today via web chat, text, What’s App, and Facebook Messenger through automatically recognized multi-lingual translation, consistent messaging, effortless customer integration, and real-time data and insights.…Read More

Territorium Launches First AI-Powered Comprehensive Learner Record for Higher Ed and K-12, TerritoriumCLR™

SAN ANTONIO, Aug. 3, 2021 —  Territorium, a global education technology leader with 9 million users worldwide, today announced the U.S. launch of its AI-powered, cloud-based Comprehensive Learner Record. TerritoriumCLR is certified by  IMS Global Learning Consortium. TerritoriumCLR captures all aspects of learning and activities, in school and in life, into a complete competencies and skills transcript, empowering students to optimize their education and career.

By harnessing AI and machine learning, TerritoriumCLR is able to rapidly map and analyze every learning experience inside and outside the classroom into the granular competencies and skills that reflect true learning – not just the courses and grades on a traditional transcript. For higher ed students, TerritoriumCLR recommends courses, learning experiences, and job pathways tailored to each student’s interests and needs. For K-12 students and administrators, TerritoriumCLR ensures the State’s education standards are being followed and the necessary skills are being acquired to provide an accurate measure of competency-based learning.

“We are thrilled to bring our Comprehensive Learner Record to U.S. students,” said Guillermo Elizondo, Cofounder and CEO of Territorium. “By identifying skills gaps at all ages, students, parents, teachers and administrators all have the needed information to ensure proper learning is happening and make any corrections early and in a highly personalized manner. As the future of work changes, the need to understand skills and competencies is becoming increasingly critical. TerritoriumCLR eliminates the guesswork for all involved.”…Read More

Marking a New Era in Education, MindSpark Learning® Launches First of It’s Kind Certification in Disruption

August 3, 2021 — Denver, Colo. — MindSpark Learning® (MindSpark™), a nonprofit that delivers extraordinary and sustainable learning experiences for educators and professionals, is taking the concept of ‘disruption for good’ further than ever before in the education sector with the launch of the Disruption Certification (D-Cert). D-Cert is designed to recognize and reward the highest possible standards in education. 

The Disruption Certification uses a human-centric architecture designed to renovate the global education system, with district and school leaders being at the forefront of the change. This certification is not a band-aid but a solution that places meaning and value on the preeminent leverage points for education. The D-Cert is based on emergent practices driven by accountability, transparency, and performance. This certification is intergenerational and comes with a duality to retain and expand our educator talent, while activating the next generation to take its place in the workforce. 

While companies have long focused on stakeholder value, education has been slow to follow suit and acknowledge the broader ecosystem. The landscape of global education is changing and D-Cert defines a new set of rules. D-Cert’s robust, peer-to-peer network will fuel a collective vision, amplify the voices of strongest education leaders, and drive enduring prosperity for our society. It will put intelligence into practice by upskilling and uplifting educators across the globe – changing mindsets and behaviors about what it means to lead and learn. …Read More

Al Kingsley Book “My Secret #EdTech Diary” Releases Globally on July 14

Tuesday, June 29, 2021 — ATLANTA –  Looking at educational technology through a wider lens is the subject of a new book by Al Kingsley, who has also founded education trusts, served on several school boards, and runs a global education technology company, NetSupport. My Secret #EdTech Diary gets readers to think about the past, present and future role of educational technology and how it influences and shapes our education system.

Education technology is nearly ubiquitous in schools but primarily in supportive roles. When the pandemic hit, technology became the only way for learning to continue as students and teachers learned and worked apart from each other. An explosion of questions then arose as school leaders, teachers, and parents then began questioning if the reliance on technology was a bane or benefit to learning. Mr. Kingsley explores these questions and lays a framework for school leaders to plan the technology-learning connection for the future.

“Some people think of edtech simply as individual and distinct solutions to single problems they find in the classroom such as how to have a video conference with 30 students,” says Kingsley. “But this is the sea-change moment when we want to expand that view and be strategic in selecting and integrating learning technology. Now is the time to be visionary, and plan where tech fits in, where it doesn’t, and solidify its role as a learning product, not just tech for tech’s sake.”…Read More

Promethean Announces iKeepSafe Student Data Privacy Certification in the U.S. for ClassFlow Software

 Promethean®, a leading global education technology company, today at TCEA 2021 announced its ClassFlow™ platform had received iKeepSafe certification renewal. The certifications for FERPA, COPPA, and California (Student Privacy – CSPC) mean that ClassFlow has been assessed by iKeepSafe and meets iKeepSafe’s rigorous standards. iKeepSafe assesses and certifies for compliance with U.S. federal and state privacy laws, helping to eliminate privacy concerns during remote, hybrid, or in-person teaching.

Promethean’s ClassFlow enhances remote learning as a cloud-based lesson delivery service with advanced collaboration tools for student engagement. ClassFlow keeps remote, hybrid, and in-person students interested in interactive lessons, activities, quizzes, and thousands of immersive resources, lessons, and activities from educators worldwide. It also helps teachers deliver dynamic lessons to students’ devices and brings interactive classroom displays to life for effective hybrid learning. As ClassFlow is cloud-based, it can be accessed anytime and anywhere.

iKeepSafe privacy certifications ensure that edtech products are compliant and demonstrate responsible privacy, safety, and security practices. ClassFlow received the following certifications:…Read More