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.

Using digital comments to enhance feedback on student work

As students return to their classrooms for in person learning this fall, many teachers have been reflecting on what elements of remote learning were effective and worth maintaining in a more traditional classroom setting.

In an in-person classroom setting, it is often obvious when a student seeks help from the teacher, and it becomes obvious which students are getting the most consistent support. Some students may feel embarrassed or shy, and thus miss out on receiving support that is crucial to their learning.

Throughout the pandemic, students were completing their work on various online platforms, such as Google Slides and Google Docs. As students worked, teachers had the ability to view their work live and leave feedback in real time using the comment feature available with Google applications (click here for more information about the comment feature on Google products). …Read More

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How text and voice apps are changing student engagement

The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in some major changes for educators across the globe. Classes became virtual, as did most everything else, and administrators, teachers, and students alike received a crash course on the finer points of digital learning technology. As a result, digital transformation is no longer an alien concept–it’s a reality that everyone has had to embrace with open arms.

Although Zoom made a lion’s share of the headlines over the last year, other innovative new tools and concepts were also hard at work filling the gaps between students and teachers. One such technology, developed by Mote Technologies, is a Google Chrome extension enabling teachers to leave voice notes and feedback on documents, assignments, and emails via Google Classroom, Gmail, Google Docs, and more.

Thanks to the likes of Clubhouse, voice apps are extremely popular right now. However, they aren’t just being used for social purposes. Teachers are turning to voice apps like Mote to give students richer and more meaningful feedback on homework assignments. Of Mote’s 1 million users, most are teachers and students.…Read More

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Lockhart Ed Tech

David Lockhart started teaching high school history in 2004. He had to find that thing that made his lessons stand out, and he saw it with technology. For the last four years, he has been an instructional technologist who coaches, trains, and speaks full time. Today, he teaches students to program, and his blog, Lockhart Ed Tech – The Big Guy in a Bow Tie Blog, covers all the important edtech topics: STEM, coding, makerspaces, G Suite, virtual reality….

If you’re looking for ways to introduce coding into your classroom, Google Docs add-ons, or tips for helping your students make videos, Lockhart has you covered. As a long-time instructor, his posts offer clear advice and helpful how-to details.…Read More

Everything you never knew about using Google in the classroom

Google Certified Teachers share tips and secrets for using Chrome, Docs, and more

google-tipsDid you know you can see all your copy/paste history in Chrome in a click? Bookmark all your browser tabs at once? Create choose your own adventures in Google Slides?

More than half a dozen Google Certified Teachers recently descended on Palm Springs to share their favorite tips, tricks, add-ons, and extensions during a packed session at the Annual CUE 2015 conference. Each presenter shared a micro-presentation honing in on their top ways for teachers and students to make the most out of the Google ecosystem.

The session’s presenters included: Alice Chen, Jen Roberts, Catina Haugen, Lisa Nowakowski, JR Ginex-Orinion, Kevin Fairchild, Scott Moss, Jo-Ann Fox, and Jason Seliskar.…Read More

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Google offers mobile editing on Google Docs–with many restrictions

This morning, Google announced that smartphone users could use its Google Docs site to edit documents on the go, says Rob Pegoraro of Faster Forward. Make that some users, on some smartphones, editing some documents. The addition of mobile editing capabilities to Google Docs’ word-processing component (its spreadsheet application gained that feature in February 2009) is subject to limitations that shut out much, if not most, of its potential audience. First, you need to run the right device. Google supports most iPhones and iPod touches, as well as the iPad. But if your phone runs Google’s own Android software you need the latest, 2.2 release. The Mountain View, Calif., firm’s latest numbers show only 36.2 percent of active Android devices have this version. Second, the document in question has to have been created with the new editor Google launched in April. Older files, even if you’ve worked on them since April, are ineligible for mobile editing. On top of this uncoordinated mix of functionality and the lack thereof — something I’m more accustomed to seeing in other companies’ web efforts — you need to have this feature turned on in your account…

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Google’s encrypted search creates problems for schools

In order to remain CIPA complaint, schools need to track the search side as well.
A new encrypted search site from Google has raised concerns among schools.

A new encrypted search feature that internet search giant Google Inc. rolled out last month is causing problems for schools, which say the service keeps them from complying with the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) and could put their federal e-Rate funding at risk.

The service lets users search the web in a way that can’t be tracked by employers or internet service providers. Google launched a beta version of the service May 21 to give users more control over the searches they make; the company has come under fire from privacy groups in recent months for how it handles sensitive information.…Read More

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Printing in a smart-phone age

This week, Hewlett-Packard will introduce a fleet of printers with web access, their own eMail addresses, and touch screens—opening up new ways for people to print from web services such as Google Docs, and from smart phones and devices such as Apple’s iPad, reports the New York Times. The new printers will range in price from $99 to about $400. Every one will come with what HP executives billed as a breakthrough feature: its very own eMail address. HP’s engineers hit on the eMail address as an easy, familiar way for people to send print jobs to the web-ready printers. You can, for example, take a photo with a phone, eMail it to your printer’s address, and have the printout waiting for you at home. Or, you can share the printer’s eMail address with family and friends. This means that someone can buy Grandma a web-ready printer and have it pump out photos of the grandchildren without Grandma having to do much of anything (except buy that pricey ink). HP is also lining up partners for a web site, the ePrintCenter, which the company envisions as the kind of app store that Apple, Google, and others have for their smart phones. The idea is that the partners can build software and services for HP’s web printers. For example, children and their parents could print out coloring books from Crayola, and Dora the Explorer birthday activity packs from Nickelodeon…

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…Read More

Schools beef up security for web applications

Colleges are using web apps for more than just eMail.
Schools and colleges are using web apps for more than just eMail.

K-12 schools and colleges are adding extra layers of security to web applications that are being used for everything from eMail service to group assignments. The extra security is particularly desired as administrators use the applications to store sensitive information that could compromise student and faculty privacy.

Google Apps has risen to prominence in education’s move toward web-based tools that store massive amounts of data and allow for collaboration. Google announced in February that 7 million students—about half of all college students in the U.S.—now use the company’s applications, such as Google Sites, Google Docs, and Gmail.…Read More

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Has Google developed the next wave of online education?

Google Wave has a spell checker that uses context to correct misused words.
Google Wave marks the next step in collaboration capabilities for group projects, some in education say.

Combining text, audio, and video chat with features like drag-and-drop documents and interactive polls, Google Wave is a free web program that could add unprecedented depth to student interaction, many educators say.

Programmers who designed Google Wave, a tool still in development and only available through limited invites, started with a question: What would eMail look like if it were invented today?…Read More

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Google Docs upgrades storage to all file types

Users of Google Docs will have more storage ability.
Users of Google Docs will have more storage ability.

Google Docs users now will have access to 1 free gigabyte of storage in the online suite of word processing, spreadsheets, and other commonly-used programs, and each file can be as large as 250 megabytes.

Google already offered unlimited storage for files that were automatically converted into the Docs format. With the change, Google Docs also will store files in their original format, and only those will count toward the limit.…Read More

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