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.

6 questions to ask when selecting your district’s AV equipment

Audiovisual (AV) technology is at the center of many classroom initiatives. Whether students are watching videos in a one-to-one classroom setting or English language learners are working on speaking and listening activities, AV lets them connect with media during classroom time.

While innovations are certainly taking place in the world of classroom AV, it’s convenient that some edtech staples are still functional and effective. For example, as long as a classroom’s current headphones are comfortable, durable, and safe, they won’t likely need to be updated.

As you review your AV needs for the 2018-19 school year, keep this checklist of priorities in mind.…Read More

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Do you use video to hire teachers? If not, you should!

Savvy school districts are starting to harness the cost and time-efficiency benefits that video interviewing platforms provide to make faster, cheaper, and smarter hiring decisions. The key feature of any video interviewing platform is what is referred to as the one-way, on-demand, or asynchronous, video interview.

Here’s how it works:

• First, the district invites candidates to complete a video interview within a given amount of time, usually three to five days.
• Using their smartphone or any webcam-equipped device, candidates will view a welcome message about what it’s like to work for that particular school district. (Many school districts already have recruiting or promotional videos that serve as great welcome messages.)
• Next, the candidate is asked some interview questions by an administrator or—at my district—a student, and then has time to record a video response for each question. We’ve found that candidates are more at ease when they see and hear students asking them the interview questions.
• The interview ends with a goodbye message, which could be a video or text with next steps and an estimate of the timeline for completion of the selection process.…Read More

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How our district is narrowing the digital divide

The digital divide and the opportunity gap. These are two of the closely related and defining issues that educators and administrators are grappling with today. At DeKalb County School District in Georgia, we set out to create a plan that narrows the digital divide our students are facing at school, in the community, and at home.

By providing our students with the digital technology needed for modern learning, we’ve started closing the opportunity gap caused in part by digital and technological inequities. Throughout this process, we learned important lessons and discovered key takeaways along the way that all schools can integrate into their own initiatives.

Installing hotspots to fire up learning…Read More

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4 surefire ways to get more for your edtech dollar

As warmer weather approaches, students start looking to spring break with excitement as a sign that the end of the school year is near. Not so for school IT directors, who are trying to determine how they will accomplish all of their summer projects in the absence of students and staff. These projects likely include planning their summer edtech refreshes and wondering how they are going to purchase everything they need with limited resources.

Finding the budget and time to do large technology refreshes will always be stressful, but there are a few ways IT directors can lessen the burden and get more for available dollars.

1. Use current technology to buy down the new fleet.
When it’s time to refresh devices, first look to your current technology fleet to determine its value. By making smart technology purchases and timing refreshes right, schools can use the residual value of their current devices to reduce the cost of purchasing the next fleet. I have found that there is enough equity in some devices after the second year to pay off the third and final year’s lease payment. This allows school districts to purchase more current hardware and software to ensure that educational goals for digital learning are met. Conversely, keeping devices too long can be a costly practice because schools miss out on the ability to leverage the optimal residual value of devices to offset the cost of the next purchase.…Read More

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Building a smarter network

Given the data, networking, and security implications of upcoming technology trends, K-12 schools will require a variety of innovations to meet dramatically increased wireless and wired network performance demands without adding more stress on overworked IT staffers.

We recommend the following strategies:

1. Adopt smart infrastructure.
To keep IT overhead low while delivering the performance required to power Internet of things (IoT) devices, augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) applications and whatever comes next, invest in more intelligent networking infrastructure. At the wired networking layer, replace your outdated switching paradigm with a modern platform that supports the new IEEE 802.3bz standard for multi-gigabit Ethernet and is driven by an advanced software operating system.…Read More

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How much do you know about web filtering?

eSchool News sat down with Brian Thomas, president & chief executive officer of Lightspeed Systems, which builds software that helps schools keep their devices safe and is used by more than 6,500 districts across 52 countries, to talk about the web-filtering landscape.

You’ve been with Lightspeed Systems for 20 years. How have you seen things change in content filtering?
When I first started with Lightspeed, we were selling an all-in-one product that did antivirus, traffic management, web filtering, spam filtering, and email archiving. At that time, web filtering was really a back-office IT tool that nobody else in the district cared much about. But as technology in schools changed and networks grew and mobile devices came into classrooms, the needs around filtering really evolved—and just blocking bad content wasn’t enough.

What else were schools looking for?
Well, for one thing they wanted less blocking, or at least less over-blocking. Teachers and students and their IT teams were looking for filtering that blocked inappropriate sites but didn’t block content that could be used for learning.…Read More

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Want to host a hackathon and teach real-life STEM skills? Here’s how

On Saturday, January 27th, Warren Township High School in Illinois celebrated our 2nd annual hackathon, Devil Hack 1.01. This two-day event featured teams of high schoolers hacking out a real-world solution to a real-world challenge. Devil Hack began at 9 am on Saturday and ended on Sunday at noon.

If you hear the word “hack” and you start to panic, please don’t! A hackathon is not an excuse to illegally access government or corporate databases. A hackathon is an invention marathon in which programmers, designers, and builders, come together to learn, build, and share their creations. Today, hacking means to quickly and intelligently create an application or solution that others can use.

Inside Devil Hack 1.01…Read More

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Here’s how 4 schools are supporting wireless internet needs

As wireless internet needs become more important for students and instructors, many schools are bolstering their connectivity to ensure smooth learning experiences.

Schools and campuses must support 1:1 online learning initiatives, artificial intelligence/virtual reality (AI/VR) use, BYOD, shared resources, and on-campus surveillance–these efforts require reliable and cost-effective wireless connections that support collaborative digital-learning environments.

And at a time when internet access is of the utmost importance for effective teaching and learning, IT leaders must ensure consistent access and reliable connectivity.…Read More

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15 metrics every superintendent should know

From interoperability to dashboards, data accessibility is one of the most prevalent topics in edtech circles these days. For superintendents, simply knowing what to look for can be a challenge. These 15 metrics can provide significant value for any district leader.

Technology usage rate
Why it matters: A recent report on software usage and waste found the education sector to be one of the worst industries at using the tech it’s paying for, with a whopping 47 percent of enterprise-software licenses either unused or rarely used. Many technology budgets are jammed with line items that sounded good at some point, but never really took off. If those funds could be allocated to more meaningful pursuits, the average district could be looking at six figures or more of unexpected funds.

Questions to ask:
1. Which apps, licenses, and hardware haven’t been used at all in the past year?
2. What is the average cost per login for your niche, low-user-count applications?
3. How much functionality overlap exists between disparate systems?
4. What percentage of your larger investments, such as information management systems, is sitting dormant?…Read More

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4 questions to ask about E-rate funding

Today’s K-12 schools are facing a complex web of needs, technologies, and regulations. Digital transformation has led to an expectation by students and faculty of constant connectivity to their school’s web assets. In response, schools have been incorporating programs that allow for more devices and a more web-focused curriculum. These services are critical, but they come at a great cost. Paying for internet access and securing the network do not come cheap.

The E-rate program was developed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and its subsidiary, the Universal Services Administrative Committee (USAC), to provide federal funding to K-12 schools and public libraries across the country. E-rate gives schools access to necessary technology they otherwise may not be able to afford. In fact, 87 percent of E-rate applicants report that this funding is vital to meeting their connectivity goals.

There are two categories of funding in the E-rate program. Category one funding provides data transmission and internet access. Category two funding supports the critical infrastructure required for security, speed, and compliance, offering schools $150 per student.…Read More

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