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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.

ReadSpeaker Announces Text-to-Speech Integration and Certified Partnership with Moodle, the World’s Largest Learning Platform

ReadSpeaker, the most trusted, independent digital voice and text-to-speech provider for educational institutions and innovative brands worldwide today announced that it is now a Certified Integration Partner with the world’s largest learning platform,  Moodle. With this partnership, students can listen to content on the Moodle LMS anywhere, any time and on any device and they can select from hundreds of different voices in over 50 languages.  Tweet this news.

As of September 1, ReadSpeaker’s accessibility and engagement tools are fully integrated into Moodle LMS, expanding learning opportunities for more than 200 million learners. ReadSpeaker is the first text-to-speech provider to become a Certified Integration Partner with Moodle. 

“Text to speech is a great equalizer and force multiplier for online learning, opening new and exciting pathways for engagement and mastery for millions of students, not just those needing accommodations,” said Roy Lindemann, Chief Marketing Officer for ReadSpeaker. “This partnership is extremely significant to the institutions and students we both serve, including those needing accommodations and those who simply want added capabilities to engage with learning materials.” …Read More

Savvas Unveils Major Enhancements to its Award-Winning Savvas Realize Platform, Offering Time-Saving Features Designed with Educators in Mind

PARAMUS, NEW JERSEY — Inspired by input from its educator users, Savvas Learning Company is excited to announce that for back to school it has updated its award-winning Savvas Realize platform with powerful enhancements and a new user experience intended to save teachers time, freeing them up to focus more on classroom instruction with their students.

Savvas Realize, recognized as one of the most innovative learning management systems (LMS) in the industry and the winner of seven edtech awards, has now been made even easier to use with intuitive navigation for both teachers and students and time-saving tools for teachers to make the most of their teaching day. These updates include a more streamlined interface with faster grading workflows, improved classroom management tools, and greater integration with the edtech tools that schools use most.

“Teachers have a lot on their plates, especially this school year with trying to get their students caught up. They need an LMS that’s easy to navigate for them and their students — one that provides robust support for personalized learning and the right tools to make their jobs easier,” said Bethlam Forsa, CEO of Savvas Learning Company. “After a year-long collaboration with nearly 100 educators, our highly acclaimed Savvas Realize LMS has been updated with significant enhancements to provide greater simplicity, shareability, and interoperability — helping teachers be more productive in the classroom.”…Read More

4 ways library media specialists lead digital transformations in districts

During the pandemic era of “emergency teaching,” school systems across my state and around the country made deep investments in edtech resources.  However, as we move into what some call the post-pandemic era, education stakeholders are searching for strategies to ensure that edtech investments continue to pay dividends.

In New Hampshire, library media specialists are playing a key role in driving edtech ROI. The state Department of Education has made excellent investments in edtech resources, and together with iLearn New Hampshire, has rolled out the Canvas LMS by Instructure, the Kaltura platform for media hosting, Zoom video conferencing, and Discovery Education’s digital K-12 platform to schools statewide.

Led by the NH Library Media Specialist Association, the state’s K-12 library professionals have engaged in dialogue around how they can ensure their school system can maximize the state’s edtech investment in their school system. Each participant approached this conversation assuming everyone else in the group had it all figured out or worked in a district that did. However, what we quickly discovered was that we were all grappling with the same issues. So, we worked to identify some common approaches to maximizing edtech ROI in our own district or school setting.…Read More

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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