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.

Poptential™ Digital Storytelling Makes Summer School Fun

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — (June 3, 2022) — Millions of high school students are expected to hit the books in summer school to help close the pandemic education gap, get a head start on a jam-packed schedule, or to repeat a failed class. As a result, teachers are looking for educational tools that engage students and help them compete with summer distractions.

“Summer school teachers have to work extra hard to keep students engaged,” said Julie Smitherman, who taught high school social studies for eight years and is now director of content management for Certell, Inc.’s  Poptential™ family of free social studies courses.

About 3.4 million students attended summer school in 2020, and as many as 40% were absent daily, according to ThinkImpact. One proven way to keep students engaged is through the use of pop culture media to illustrate key learning concepts.…Read More

How coding shapes students’ future success

With unpredictability fast becoming our daily bread, what can be more important than preparing the next generations for future challenges? Every parent wants to secure the best foundation for their children, be it for primary school education, academia, work, or life in general. 

In this sense, research has shown us how coding can be relevant across school subjects and academic disciplines. Now it’s time to talk about the other advantages it brings, including the cognitive effects of coding on children’s brains.

This is how coding shapes the future prospects of children.…Read More

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Online STEM Summer Camps for High School and College Students

Numerade—an online education platform founded with a mission to provide equitable access to high-quality STEM instruction—today announced the launch of free, virtual STEM summer camps open to students at the middle, high school, and college levels. Course offerings include SAT Test Prep, Calculus, Chemistry, and Physics, all taught by top-ranked STEM PhDs, college professors, and high school teachers. Students can enroll now for this free program and begin taking their courses as soon as June 1 with ongoing enrollment available thereafter.

Students can participate in Numerade’s free summer STEM camps to get a head start on the courses they’ll be taking in the fall or as an enrichment opportunity in which they can take courses not offered at their school. Students may also use these courses to catch up on any material missed due to school closures caused by Covid-19. Each course follows the common core curriculum and covers an entire semester’s worth of material.

“We’re excited to launch Numerade’s STEM summer camps at a time when it’s more important than ever for students to have access to world-class content to maintain and enhance their learning despite ongoing school closures,” said Nhon Ma, CEO and Co-Founder of Numerade. “By taking our engaging STEM courses this summer, students will not only acquire foundational knowledge but also be positioned to excel next school year. The summer camps are completely free and available asynchronously on any device, making them a great option for any student interested in getting ahead in their learning.”…Read More

A year in the life of a student-centered library

There’s no “typical” day for a library media specialist. In one school day, we can teach a class about fake news, help one student find the perfect resource for his research project, and guide another toward a “just-right” book series that appeals to her personal interests. For 21st-century media specialists, the idea of the library as a quiet space is out and creating new opportunities for deeper learning with students is in.

Our district, Hillsborough County Public Schools (HCPS) is the eighth-largest school district in the nation. We provide a wealth of educational opportunities for students and families that range from Head Start to adult-education programs within our 227 traditional public and magnet schools. We are a melting pot of urban, rural, and suburban areas. The word “diverse” doesn’t begin to describe our wide array of students and schools. It’s our job to make sure that at every school, every student has equitable access to high-quality reading, learning, and technological resources.

As we look back on 2017, we’d like to share the best practices that have worked for us, as well as a few predictions about what 2018 will look like for media specialists.…Read More

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Fab labs to launch in early childhood programs

Teaching Institute for Excellence in STEM will develop early childhood fab labs in Head Start programs

Teaching Institute for Excellence in STEM (TIES), a developer of digital fabrication laboratories (fab labs) and STEM curriculum and school design, has been named a partner in the Federal government’s new Early Education STEM initiative.

TIES is among a group of leaders who participated in April’s Early Learning Symposium hosted by The White House, in partnership with the U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human Services and Invest in US. The event highlighted the importance of promoting active STEM learning for our youngest children and to celebrate a broad range of public- and private-sector leaders committed to promoting STEM learning across the country.

In March 2016, The Bay Area Discovery Museum, in partnership with TIES and FableVision, launched the world’s first Fab Lab for young learners (ages 3 to 10) to help them navigate the design process from concept to production, and turn their ideas into reality.…Read More

White House allies produce preschool-for-all plan

The first part of the proposal would cost the government $84.2 billion over the first decade.

Days before President Barack Obama outlines his agenda for the coming year, a think tank with close ties to the White House is outlining a plan that would provide preschool for all children within five years.

The Center for American Progress proposal, released Thursday, provides a road map for how the Obama administration could move forward with pre-kindergarten programs for all 3- and 4-year-olds. For families with younger children, federal subsidies for child care would increase to an average $7,200 per child and the number of students in Early Head Start programs would double.…Read More

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Obama: Ryan’s economic plan costly to education

The Ryan budget, which failed to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate, would cut annual nondefense spending by 5 percent in 2013. The next year, it would be a 19-percent cut. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/MCT)

President Barack Obama is highlighting various sections of Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan’s sweeping budget proposals as he tries to paint the GOP ticket as too extreme for the nation. Next up in his analysis: education.

On Aug. 21, Obama plans to tell voters in sharply contested Ohio that Ryan’s budget proposal would cut $115 billion from the federal Education Department, remove 2 million children from Head Start programs, and cost 1 million college students their Pell Grants over the next decade. The line of criticism will be coupled with television ads.…Read More

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Eleventh-hour budget deal cuts $13B from health, education, labor

Though a federal government shutdown would have been more of an inconvenience than a disaster for education, some schools and students would have been affected.

A last minute budget deal for the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year, forged amid bluster and tough bargaining, averted an embarrassing government shutdown and cut billions of dollars in federal spending, including $13 billion from the health, education, and labor budget—the first major test of the divided government voters ushered in five months ago.

Working late into the evening April 8, congressional and White House negotiators struck an agreement to pay for government operations through the end of September while cutting $38.5 billion in federal spending overall. Lawmakers then approved a days-long stopgap measure to keep the government running while the details of the new spending plan were written into legislation.…Read More

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