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.

Free access to assistive technology products

If you or your students are suddenly at home with no access to your AT software, Freedom Scientific has you covered.

Your health and safety are just as important to us as accessibility. We know many of you must remain at home and will need to continue to work or attend school remotely. To ensure that your life remains accessible Freedom Scientific is offering those in the US and Canada a Free Home License of JAWS, ZoomText, or Fusion which will expire June 30, 2020.

For those outside North America, Freedom Scientific and its international distributors are working together to provide home solutions for their customers during the COVID-19 crisis. Please contact your local distributor if you need assistance connecting to school or work from home.…Read More

Screen recording and asynchronous collaboration tools

TechSmith is helping organizations and academic institutions who are preparing for prolonged absences and/or campus closures due to COVID-19. TechSmith is offering free access and expanded usage of tools that help enable business and educational continuity.

Their screen recording tool, TechSmith Snagit, and their asynchronous collaboration platform, TechSmith Video Review, will be free to use through the end of June 2020 to any organization that needs it.

In addition, for existing customers using their digital learning platform, TechSmith Relay, or their online video collaboration environment, Video Review, they will support increased usage with no charge. Existing Relay customers will be provided an expanded site license with campus-wide access through the end of June 2020.…Read More

5 ways to get started with OER

It has been almost three years since the launch of the United States Department of Education’s #GoOpen movement. If you are late to the #GoOpen party, it is the commitment to expand and accelerate the use of openly licensed educational resources in schools across the country.

The commitment, in a nutshell, is to replace at least one textbook with open educational resources (OER) within one year, share in a community of practice with other school districts, and share the resources created with a Creative Commons license. While this sounds like a novel concept in writing, this movement engages every stakeholder in the P-12 educational ecosystem. And, beyond the chatter and hype of #GoOpen’s launch, there is still lots of work to be done. The work begins with implementation and how schools plan to strategically scale OER.

In the words of Simon Sinek, if you “start with the why” when thinking about #GoOpen, the answer is easy:…Read More

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3 challenges to OER implementation

Open educational resources (OER) have made their presence known in education, with teachers and administrators voicing their excitement over free resources that are easily shared and adapted.

In fact, the movement has grown so much that it has received federal attention. The U.S. Department of Education’s #GoOpen campaign encourages states, school districts and educators to use open educational resources.

The Department is proposing a regulation that would require all copyrightable intellectual property created with ED grant funds to have an open license.…Read More

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Another requirement for teachers sparks controversy

New report says teachers should be required to prove data proficiency for licensure

teachers-data-licensure A new policy brief making the education rounds this week has sparked controversy over whether or not teachers should be required to prove data proficiency as part of their licensure. Proponents say it will ensure student achievement; opponents say it’s a premature move based on not-yet-there data systems.

The report, “Teacher Data Literacy: It’s About Time,” produced by the Data Quality Campaign (DQC) with support from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE), the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), says that state and federal policies have not gone far enough to promote the skills teachers needs to be data literate.

“Consequently, many teachers regard data as overwhelming, rather than as a tool for improving instruction and ultimately outcomes for students,” the report states.…Read More

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