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.

Believing the Hope, Not the Hype, of AI

How much longer will our newsfeeds be stuffed with headlines either extolling AI as the greatest thing since sliced bread or damning it as a sign of the coming education apocalypse? It’s going to be a while I’m afraid. In the meantime, I suggest you listen to this insightful interview with Dr. Eric Wang, Vice President of AI at Turnitin, who puts much of the hoopla into context. 

Turnitin has been working in AI since before it was cool—25 years this month. The company’s tools are built into popular learning management system (LMS) workflows across 16,000 institutions, in 140 countries, and used by over 40 million students at both the k-12 and higher ed level. In April 2023, Turnitin launched its AI writing detection tool, which as of July 2023 has processed over 76 million paper submissions.

Eric conjures a future where AI detection tools in education serve as a means to foster learning and growth rather than a gotcha app meant to punish or shame students. The goal is not to discourage AI use but to teach students how to use the tool effectively while valuing authentic human work. Click below to listen and scroll down for some takeaways and other resources offered by Turnitin.…Read More

The Future of Canvas

Drop the company name Instructure on the average educator and you may get a blank stare in return. Now mention the company’s flagship product Canvas and be ready for a flash of instant recognition. Founded in 2008, Instructure reports having more than 6000 customer organizations with more than 35 million users around the world in both K12 and higher education.

I had the opportunity to attend InStructure Con23 in Denver last month—the company’s first user conference since the pandemic—and met many educators, partner companies, and senior leadership including Chief Product Officer Shiren Vijiasingam, Ryan Lufkin, Vice President of Global Strategy, and CEO Steve Daly. We hit on a number of topics that will affect the way educators and students teach and learn, including post-pandemic behaviors, student security, the pursuit of equitability and education, and the future of hybrid learning. Plus of course, AI, AI and yes, a little more AI. This was the first Innovations podcast recorded in person, but it certainly won’t be the last.

Steve Daly
Ryan Lufkin
Shiren Vijiasingam

More Highlights from InstructureCon23:…Read More

eSchool Live@ INSTRUCTURECON 2023

Breaking news out of day two at Instructure‘s professional learning event for educators and edtech users in Denver. The company announced a partnership with Khan Academy to integrate Khanmigo, Khan’s AI-powered student tutor and teaching assistantCanvas, into Canvas, the market-leading learning management system. We caught Instructure CEO Steve Daly just after the announcement to provide some context and provide a timeline for when Canvas will be updated with Khanmigo. Scroll down for more details and look for more in-depth conversations With Daly and other senior executives on the Innovation Insights podcast next week.

From the press release: This integrated solution will put the transformative power of generative AI into the hands of students and educators using the Canvas learning environment.

Generative AI represents an opportunity to enhance the role of technology in supporting educators and creating efficiencies in their day-to-day instruction. This new solution will harness this transformative moment by enabling educators with an integrated Khanmigo experience that supports human-driven, technology-enhanced essay feedback and grading, lesson planning and rubric creation. This solution is a large step forward in delivering personalization for each student while allowing busy educators to scale their excellence and impact in ways unimaginable a few short months ago.…Read More

6 reasons to use edtech tools to save valuable classroom time

According to the National Council on Teacher Quality (2012), the average teacher in the United States gets 45 minutes of planning time per day. If a teacher has five classes, that gives them just 9 minutes per class to create an engaging lesson that meets the needs of every student in the room.

Needless to say, educators don’t have nearly enough time to plan lessons. The easiest solution to this problem would be to give teachers more prep time. However, as that seems unlikely to happen, here are six ways that teachers can use edtech tools to save time.

1. Find a learning management system that works for you
Learning management systems such as Google Classroom, Schoology, or Seesaw can drastically cut down on the time needed to assign in-class work or homework. With just a few clicks, a teacher can push out an assignment to all of their students instead of having to waste time at the printer. Each learning management system operates a little differently, so you should experiment with a couple of them to see which one works for
you.…Read More

Edsby Introduces New Social Emotional Check-Ins for K–12 School Districts and Regions

ANDOVER, MASS (August 23, 2021) – Edsby®, a multi award-winning, next generation K–12 learning management system (LMS), today introduced a new system enabling teachers to understand their students’ emotional states in and out of the classroom by giving students a systematic way to share how they’re feeling. The new feature augments a series of capabilities in Edsby focused on student well-being.

Students choose from animated icons representing emotions, color-coded for their intensity level and how pleasant the emotion is, either once per day or even per class, based on educator preference. Emotion options are tailored to students’ grade levels, along with developmentally appropriate definitions. Age-appropriate regulation strategies curated by experts are also presented for each emotion.

Teachers see the emotions their students are experiencing, and can monitor patterns and trends over time, which can help draw attention to students who may need additional support. Teachers see which emotional regulation strategies have been presented to each student and receive their own professionally curated strategies based on what their students are feeling. They can engage students in conversations and are able to take actions consistent with the district or region’s existing protocols to ensure student well-being, ranging from the ability to loop in a school guidance counselor or other professionals as required.…Read More

InSpace Announces Integration That Will Bring Virtual Communities, Classrooms and Offices to Canvas

BURLINGTON, VERMONT, August 4, 2021 –   InSpace, a leading online communication platform built by educators for educators, is announcing a full integration with Canvas, the industry-leading learning management system (LMS) by   Instructure, which serves 30 million teachers and students worldwide.  

The integration means that the transformative features developed by InSpace, including video-conferencing for learning and socializing, synchronous and asynchronous chat functions, mobile notifications and virtual office hours for professors and administrators, will be available at the click of a button for Canvas users.  

“We have spoken with hundreds of fellow educators who were dissatisfied with the experience of teaching with video-conferencing platforms that were designed for business, not the classroom. They lacked human interactions and social cues necessary for learning,” said Narine Hall, the CEO of InSpace and a professor of data science and machine learning at Champlain College.  …Read More

6 ways edtech tools help teachers save time

According to the National Council on Teacher Quality (2012), the average teacher in the United States gets 45 minutes of planning time per day. If a teacher has five classes, that gives them just 9 minutes per class to create an engaging lesson that meets the needs of every student in the room.

Needless to say, educators don’t have nearly enough time to plan lessons. The easiest solution to this problem would be to give teachers more prep time. However, as that seems unlikely to happen, here are six ways that teachers can use edtech tools to save time.

1. Find a learning management system that works for you
Learning management systems such as Google Classroom, Schoology, or Seesaw can drastically cut down on the time needed to assign in-class work or homework. With just a few clicks, a teacher can push out an assignment to all of their students instead of having to waste time at the printer. Each learning management system operates a little differently, so you should experiment with a couple of them to see which one works for
you.…Read More

Poll Finds High Level of Dissatisfaction with Many LMS Platforms in K–12 Education

ANDOVER, MASS. (July 27, 2021) – Edsby®, a multi award-winning, next generation K–12 learning management system (LMS), today released  results of a new, recent “Grade Your LMS” poll. The research effort sought to better understand educators’ opinions about how well their current LMS platforms serve them. Satisfaction ratings indicate that educators expect more from conventional LMS platforms.

Key poll findings include:

  • While 85 percent of respondents reported their district has a single, official LMS platform, more than one-third (36 percent) said they’re unsatisfied or unsure about how well their current platform meets their needs.
  • No single capability of conventional K–12 LMS platforms received a “most satisfied” rating above 33 percent among poll respondents.
  • Of all capabilities, parent engagement received the highest “most satisfied” rating. It’s one of the bright spots for LMS platforms over the last two years as families became more involved in their students’ coursework.

“As schools and districts plan for a mix of remote and in-person learning this fall, it’s important that educators know and trust their LMS platforms,” said John Myers, Edsby CEO. “A strong LMS platform makes all the difference. We’re honored that Edsby users who took the poll indicated a satisfaction rating that is 22 percentage points higher than users of other systems.”…Read More

Edsby K-12 LMS incorporates Microsoft Teams and Zoom real-time video, chat and whiteboarding

New EdsbyLive capability makes synchronous learning easier and safer for K-12 students and educators

ONTARIO, Canada (May 6th, 2021) – Edsby®, a multi award-winning, next generation K-12 learning management system (LMS), has introduced new built-in support for popular platforms to enable simpler and more secure real time synchronous learning in hybrid or online-only environments. A new EdsbyLive feature now programmatically connects Edsby classes to popular real-time online meeting services.

EdsbyLive initially supports Microsoft Teams and Zoom, and all of the rich, real-time video, chat, whiteboarding and other capabilities they offer. EdsbyLive has been built to be platform-agnostic, and support for other systems is planned in the future.

Once configured to use a school district or region’s official platform, teachers receive new “Go Live Now” buttons in their Edsby classes. These buttons launch online meetings and make them available only at the time a teacher has requested it, and only to students in the class. If configured by the district, only authenticated users may participate in meetings, and only with their real names, minimizing the chance of unauthorized intrusions.…Read More

Instructure Acquires Certica Solutions to Make Learning Personal for Every Student

Instructure today announced it has signed an agreement to acquire Certica Solutions, an industry leader in K12 assessment and analytics, and longtime partner of Canvas and MasteryConnect. Through this acquisition, Instructure will provide the comprehensive and open set of tools educators need to drive student outcomes by bringing together a learning management system, assessment management system, assessment content, and data analytics into one streamlined K12 learning experience.

“This topsy-turvy year has only underscored just how important it is to know if our students are learning, whether they are being taught in the classroom or online,” said Steve Daly, CEO of Instructure. “Welcoming Certica into the Instructure family will support educators by combining our assessment platform with smarter, standards-based assessments, assessment item banks, and powerful analytics empowering educators to make learning personal for each student.”

Certica has been a pioneer in K12 assessment creating a high-impact program of standards-aligned item bank content, predictive benchmark assessment, rigorous formative assessment, and teacher-ready analytics to provide the most immediate, accessible and actionable data for educators to use in the classroom.…Read More