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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.

SmarterServices Integrates Calculator Application into SmarterProctoring to Eliminate Distractions, Create Equity, and Promote Academic Integrity

PITTSBURGH, PA – Student success is an utmost priority for SmarterServices, which has led to a recent partnership with ClassCalc to integrate features that eliminate student distraction, create equity, and promote academic integrity. 

ClassCalc is a calculator application that has been most recently integrated into all of the SmarterProctoring Virtual Proctoring modalities. SmarterProctoring provides a flexible and credible way to manage and administer proctored exams with support for face-to-face and online proctoring. It integrates with a variety of different LMS to offer safe and reliable testing experiences for students and teachers. 

With the optional ability to enable the ClassCalc feature in each online exam configuration, instructors and teachers are able to view students on their calculator devices during exams — eliminating distractions and promoting academic integrity by preventing students from looking up answers online. Students are also able to practice with the ClassCalc calculator before starting their assessment, so they are confident in using the application on exams. …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

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

MobileMind Launches the Industry’s First Crowd-Sourced Professional Learning Hub: MobileMind Community

ATLANTA— MobileMind, the modern professional learning hub for schools, has launched MobileMind Community, the industry’s first competency-based, crowd-sourced PD platform. MobileMind customers can now create and share quality-assured micro-courses across all topics, methodologies, and technology with other MobileMind districts. 

MobileMind Community allows districts to save valuable time creating district-scaled PD for common training topics like learning acceleration, project-based learning, interactive whiteboards, LMS, and even subject-focused PD. Districts can quickly add micro-courses to their district’s learning paths with one-click cloning and edit content to fit their district’s needs. 

To learn more about MobileMind Community and how MobileMind can maximize the impact of ESSER funding, visit the company’s website and schedule a call. …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

Savvas Realize Earns Award for Best Remote and Blended Learning Tools

Savvas Learning Company, a K-12 next-generation learning solutions leader, is proud to announce that Savvas Realize™ has earned a Tech & Learning 2021 Award of Excellence for Best Remote and Blended Learning Tools for grades K-12. Savvas Realize, one of the edtech industry’s most versatile learning management systems (LMS), was honored in both the primary and secondary education categories as a technology solution that is “key to helping schools transition to remote, hybrid, and blended learning environments.”  

The Tech & Learning 2021 Best Tools for Remote and Blended Learning is a new category in its Awards of Excellence program, which recognizes innovation in the edtech industry. The new award celebrates exceptional technology solutions that delivered “quality, continuous teaching for remote learning in 2020.” Judges deemed these products as “standouts for helping students, parents, and teachers succeed in these new learning environments.” Savvas Realize also won a Tech & Learning Award of Excellence in 2020.

“We are honored that Tech & Learning has once again recognized Savvas Realize as an exceptional LMS that makes distance learning simpler and more productive so students can get the most out of their learning, no matter where it takes place,”said Bethlam Forsa, CEO of Savvas Learning Company. “Our groundbreaking platform is part of our overall commitment at Savvas to provide the most innovative digital tools, coupled with the highest-quality, standards-aligned content, to empower educators and engage all learners.”…Read More

Copyleaks Inc Partners with Canvas LMS to Offer Plagiarism Detection using AI and Machine Learning.

Copyleaks, an artificial intelligence platform that detects plagiarism, today announced a partnership today with Canvas, the learning management platform from Instructure, that allows educational institutions to seamlessly enable advanced plagiarism detection software directly within a Canvas account. Copyleaks can now be accessed by thousands of K-12 schools and universities around the world that are part of the ever-expanding Canvas community.

Through its artificial intelligence and machine learning technology, Copyleaks is able to understand and learn more about the text that students are writing throughout the school year. While many plagiarism checkers only find identical matches of text, Copyleaks can spot similar words and paraphrased text that are commonly missed by plagiarism software. The platform allows both teachers and students to improve their writing processes.

As more schools adapt to an e-learning environment this fall, teachers are both emphasizing the importance of academic integrity, as well as taking extra precautions to check that students have written original work.…Read More

Powerful training LMS at no charge

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Edified is offering it’s powerful training LMS at no charge to any educational institution through the end of the school year. We have added training courses to help teachers record their lessons to be delivered remotely. These include Zoom, Google Hangouts, Snag-it, SMART and more. Simply follow this link to fill out a short form to get started!

If you are interested in gaining access to Edified you can request access here.

Tools For Learner Productivity
Relevant courses covering the educational hardware and software of leading manufacturers
On-demand training that’s available any time, from anywhere, and from any device…Read More

Full computer science curriculum and coding platform at no cost

During this time, Vidcode would like to support schools in any way they can. As such, they are offering their full coding platform and research-backed computer science curriculum for free to help schools and districts as they plan for potential school closures and student absences.

If your school or district is planning a closure for health-related reasons, you can apply to get access to Vidcode’s full computer science curriculum and coding platform at no cost.

Vidcode will provide you and your students with access to our courses, lesson plans, and virtual PD resources until May 2020 (Vidcode states they will happily extend this offer until your school reopens). Students will be able to access courses from home as a supplement to your other e-learning measures and teachers will have full access to our LMS to monitor student progress.…Read More

4 common barriers to accessible content for all students

This summer, many faculty will work on developing or revising curricular content for their courses. One of the keys in developing new digital materials is verifying that those materials offer accessible content for all students.

Today, most learning management systems (LMS) and software programs offer some level of accessibility compliance checking. However, they are not always thorough or error-free.

Related Content: 5 steps to ensure accessibility…Read More

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