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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.

How to make the most of your COVID relief funds

School district leaders across the country are cautiously optimistic about post-pandemic teaching and learning–and they’re also tracking what may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to upgrade their technology infrastructure and classrooms with next-gen solutions like interactive displays, laptops, and more.

In 2020 and 2021, Congress passed three COVID relief packages that added up to over $190 billion for public and private schools. Billions more are slated to arrive shortly.

The potential for this funding is great. How to effectively secure and implement it can be daunting. Join eSchool News and a panel of the country’s most insightful analysts as they discuss the state-of-play of federal and state edtech funding programs and what districts can do to take advantage.…Read More

Weaving SEL into curriculum doesn’t have to be hard

As an educator and curriculum content creator, I’m always seeking to develop lessons that offer students opportunities to express complex emotions and share personal experiences. Inspiring self-expression and building a safe communal space begin with authentically exploring social-emotional learning (SEL) content.

Students are always navigating developmentally appropriate mental health and emotional-regulation growth, but today’s students are also coping with the effects of the pandemic. We cannot deprioritize SEL in our school spaces, and the great news is that we’re seeing significant investment and support for SEL. District spending on SEL on SEL programming grew about 45% between the 2019-20 and 2020-21 academic years, from $530 million to $765 million. When administrators and teachers were asked in a survey to rank their top priorities before and during the pandemic, improving students’ mental health and promoting students’ social-emotional competence rose to the number 1 and 2 priorities.

Currently, the grander concern for most educators in the classroom is the overwhelming “how.” Despite having a greater budget and public support for SEL, many teachers are unprepared to incorporate SEL into their instruction. Barriers include insufficient planning time, lack of parental consent, or lack of comprehensive SEL training for educators. …Read More

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Animalia and Rise Vision Partner to Teach Animal Facts and Statistics Through K-12 Digital Signage

(April 29, 2022) –– Looking for new and exciting ways to teach your students about the animal kingdom? Look no further than Animalia, an online encyclopedia of 6341 mammals, 10360 birds, 4464 reptiles, 3421 amphibians, and 4906 mollusks. This month, Rise Vision has partnered with Animalia to help students learn, explore, and value the magnificent diversity of the animal kingdom.

What makes this partnership so great is for no additional cost to schools, Rise Vision has created new templates including the Animal Of The Day, which shows a new animal every day of the year, with fun facts including the type of vore, life span, movement speed, and population size, along with a high resolution image of the animal.

Want to add these templates to your displays?…Read More

Follow the money! Use COVID relief funds to your advantage

School district leaders across the country are cautiously optimistic about post-pandemic teaching and learning–and they’re also tracking what may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to upgrade their technology infrastructure and classrooms with next-gen solutions like interactive displays, laptops, and more.

In 2020 and 2021, Congress passed three COVID relief packages that added up to over $190 billion for public and private schools. Billions more are slated to arrive shortly.

The potential for this funding is great. How to effectively secure and implement it can be daunting. Join eSchool News and a panel of the country’s most insightful analysts as they discuss the state-of-play of federal and state edtech funding programs and what districts can do to take advantage.…Read More

Council of the Great City Schools Names Congressman Bobby Scott as the Recipient of the Dr. Michael Casserly Legacy Award for Educational Courage and Justice

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 8, 2022—The Council of the Great City Schools (CGCS) recently announced that Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D-Va.) is the recipient of its Dr. Michael Casserly Legacy Award for Educational Courage and Justice. Sponsored by Curriculum Associates, the award, named after the Council’s former executive director, is presented annually to a person who has made outstanding contributions in the field of K–12 urban education by taking courageous and passionate stances on the issues of educational justice and equity. Scott is the second person to receive this award; the first person was Michael Casserly himself.

Scott has served as a member of US House of Representatives since 1993 and currently serves as the chairman of the  Committee on Education and Labor, where he works to advance an agenda that improves equity and quality in education. As chairman, he helped craft the 2021 American Rescue Plan, which provided $122.8 billion under the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund, the single largest federal investment in K–12 education in American history. In 2015, he was one of the four primary authors of the Every Student Succeeds Act, which reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act for the first time in 13 years and replaced the No Child Left Behind Act.

As a former member of the Committee on the Judiciary, Scott was a leading advocate for reforming the nation’s criminal justice system. He has successfully worked to pass bipartisan legislation to reduce mandatory minimum sentences, reform the juvenile justice system, and require reporting and federal data collection of deaths that occur in police custody, jails, and prisons.…Read More

3 ways educators can leverage videos

As Covid-19’s Omicron variant is pushing some school districts back into distance learning, teachers may be frustrated at the return of video meetings. However, imagine if video wasn’t as ubiquitous as it is today.

I contend that video technology helped to save education during the pandemic, and therefore should not be abandoned. As years of research from Harvard University has shown, the benefits of capturing and sharing videos to support preservice teachers, new teachers, and instructional coaching are far too great.

While a districtwide system dedicated to recording, annotating, and sharing video may sound like it would require a big budget, teachers can get started using just their cell phones. The evidence is all around us. From TikTok to Instagram to Snapchat, students are perfecting complex dances, learning, and showcasing their skills with musical instruments, teaching each other about climate change, and more.…Read More

Need edtech funding? Here’s how to get it

School district leaders across the country are cautiously looking forward to post-pandemic teaching and learning–but they are also eyeing what may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to upgrade their technology infrastructure and classrooms with interactive displays, laptops, and more.

In 2020 and 2021, Congress passed three COVID relief packages that added up to over $190 billion for public and private schools. Billions more are slated to arrive shortly.

The potential for this funding is great. How to effectively secure and implement it can be daunting, and you may feel that you need a bit of guidance. Join eSchool News and a panel of the country’s most insightful analysts as they discuss the state-of-play of federal and state edtech funding programs and what districts can do to take advantage.

…Read More

Learn to use books to foster critical thinking

While I’m a far cry from a Newbery, once a year, I’ve gotten into the habit of writing a picture book for my nephew Knox. My goal is to keep the eight-year-old excited about reading, because what little boy doesn’t want to read a book about himself?

For the purposes of this article about using picture books in instruction, I invite you to listen as I read aloud to you The Great PunkaKnox.

When I was in school, my teacher would have read the book out loud and asked us questions to test our comprehension, such as:…Read More

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One Animation’s Oddbods Partners With Splashlearn’s Digital Learning Program – Reaching Over 40m Kids In The USA

SINGAPORE/USA 10 February 2022 – Award-winning content creation, distribution and licensing studio One Animation has secured a new partnership for Oddbods with SplashLearn. The massively popular digital learning program for reading and math, SplashLearn has benefited over 40 million children internationally. Under the deal, Oddbodsdigitalbooks, including ‘The Pied Piper of Oddsville’, ‘Pogo and the Magic Lamp’ and ‘The Great Bod Bake Off’, will launch exclusively as part of SplashLearn’s reading program on 10th February. 

SplashLearn, one of the fastest-growing learning programs in the USA, has bagged many prestigious edtech awards such as the Stevie Award for best edtech product, Tabby Award for the best business and the Parents Choice Award, is also backed by prominent investors. In 2021 alone it added 7 million new users and is currently accessed in over 150 countries, including the UK, Australia and India. The program is also used by over 750,000 teachers in around 77,000 schools. SplashLearn is free for schools and teachers, ensuring every child gets access to quality, fun education resources in their classroom. 

SpashLearn’s reading program, which will feature the Oddbods books, has been designed to develop core reading skills through a sequential learning path that takes into consideration factors such as sentence predictability, word features, story structure, among several others. It’s a comprehensive and interactive program that caters to children aged 3-11 years and features a rich library of titles. …Read More