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Vector Solutions’ Student Safety & Wellness Courses Wins Platinum Award in THE Journal’s New Product Awards

Tampa, FL – December 29, 2021 – Vector Solutions, the leading provider of training and software solutions to help schools make their operations and communities safer, smarter and better, was named a winner in THE Journal’s New Product Awards for its Student Safety & Wellness Courses. The courses earned a Platinum award – the highest available – in the Social Emotional Learning Program Management category. 

Vector’s Student Safety & Wellness Courses are powerful, engaging web-based video lessons authored by subject-matter experts on topics such as Bullying & Cyberbullying, Youth Suicide Awareness, Alcohol, Vaping & Drug Prevention, Sexual Harassment, Digital Citizenship, Stress & Anxiety, Depression, and Healthy Relationships. The courses feature diverse peer presenters and can be used for primary prevention training or for remediation with students who may have disciplinary issues related to these topics. They include lesson plans and  activities to help facilitate conversations about these important topics.

“We created our Student Safety & Wellness Courses to help schools support student wellbeing by helping students understand and navigate difficult situations and address stress, anxiety and depression,” said Vector Solutions CEO Marc Scheipe. “Winning this New Product Award from THE Journal validates the importance of this work and Vector’s mission to help make schools safer and more inclusive.”…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

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10 SEL activities to help students with stress management

As an educator, you are in a unique position to provide stability and care to your students and their families. One of the best ways you can support students during these uncertain times is by teaching them effective stress management strategies.

Just like adults, unmanaged stress in students can lead to anxiety, depression, irritability, poor concentration, aggression, physical illness, fatigue, and sleep disturbance. It can also increase tobacco, drug, and/or alcohol use.

Here are 10 activities to help your students learn effective stress management.…Read More

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classroom.cloud from NetSupport Releases New Classroom Management and Safety Features, Giving Teachers More Control in the Cloud

Thursday, November 4, 2021 — ATLANTA –  NetSupport, which develops network and cloud-based technology for K-12 schools, has released several new safety and control features for classroom.cloud, a cloud-based classroom management tool.  classroom.cloud was launched during the pandemic to help teachers keep students on task when learning online and it has proven equally valuable when students are in the classroom, too. Teachers use classroom.cloud to monitor the applications and internet use on each student’s computer regardless of where they are, either learning remotely or in the classroom.

In this update, teachers can control sound and USB drives, and they have additional safety monitoring features and time-saving keystroke shortcuts. Because the pandemic has altered how and where school takes place, teachers need these additional device controls so that they can keep students safe regardless of whether they are in a physical classroom or at an outside location in what is essentially a new paradigm in K-12 education.

The NetSupport CEO, Al Kingsley, is a published author, a podcast host, and a sought-after speaker on the topics of safe and secure technology use in education. Kingsley says that development of the new classroom.cloud features was accelerated by the pandemic. “For 30 years, NetSupport has been the teacher’s partner in classroom management tools and over that time period, their needs have constantly evolved,” said Kinglsey. “When COVID struck and teachers needed a cloud-based classroom management tool, we accelerated development of classroom.cloud and now we’ve added even more features to keep pace with their needs. classroom.cloud is a reliable and powerful classroom management platform giving teachers an improved ability to keep students safe and better engaged in the classrooms of today.”…Read More

SchoolStatus Acquires Operoo; Accelerates Vision to Build World’s Leading Unified K-12 Analytics, Communications, and Workflow Platform

RIDGELAND, Miss., Oct. 27, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — SchoolStatus, a leading provider of an education communications platform designed to improve student outcomes through data and parent engagement, announced today the acquisition of Operoo, a privately-held, Australia-based company that provides one of the most widely-used cloud-based solutions for online school forms, medical data, and trip management.

SchoolStatus will acquire Operoo in its entirety, fully incorporating Operoo’s operations, technology, and team into SchoolStatus, including 27 employees and over a thousand customers in Australia, Europe, and North America. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Operoo enables thousands of schools, clubs, and associations around the world to automate, manage, and track operational tasks from a single cloud-based platform. The company offers digital workflows for a range of routine processes – which are often manual, disconnected and paper-based – including distributing and collecting parental consent, payments, medical and emergency information, student registration, staff onboarding, policy management, incident reporting, activity and group management, paperless school trips, and more. …Read More

Online Courses from Vector Solutions Help Schools Address Pandemic-Related Behavioral Challenges

Tampa, FL – September 20, 2021 – For many students, the stress and challenges of the pandemic may have caused regression both socially and emotionally and in terms of their behavior.  To support teachers and administrators this school year, Vector Solutions, the leading provider of training and software solutions to help schools make their operations and communities safer, smarter and better, has created a new set of online training courses addressing some of the most common behavioral challenges expected this school year.

The “ Back to School Behavior Management Course Bundle” includes 15 evidence-based training courses in the areas of managing challenging student behaviors, key behavioral disabilities, and essential processes and procedures for handling behavior appropriately and safely.

“We’ve heard a lot about the need to tackle pandemic-related ‘learning loss’ this school year, but if we don’t support students’ behavioral, social, and emotional needs, they may not be able to focus on academics,” said Vector Solutions CEO Marc Scheipe. “Our new courses provide valuable training to help teachers and administrators safely address these behaviors and help students focus on learning.”…Read More

Backed by ECMC Group, Dell Foundation and Others, New Apprenticeship Closes $2.5M Seed Funding to Solve Entry Level Tech and Diversity Hiring Gaps

San Antonio, Texas (Sept. 14, 2021) – New Apprenticeship (NEW), the federally recognized digital apprenticeship solution that is bridging the tech skills and opportunity gap, announced today the close of a $2.5M seed funding round. The financing was led by Minneapolis-based ECMC Group’s Education Impact Fund, with participation from the Dell Foundation, Michelson 20MM Foundation, Learnstart, and others. This funding will allow the company to build out its management team while also making significant investments in sales operations and technology to efficiently scale and serve the growing number of tech employers and their surrounding communities.

“We believe apprenticeship equips employers to become the engines of digital talent production. Forward-thinking companies partner with us to build sustainable talent pipelines, fueling their short and long-term talent needs. Modern degree apprenticeships represent the greatest breakthrough in workforce innovation because they create accessible pathways for students to high-value careers without requiring access to costly 4-year universities.” said Brad Voeller, CEO, New Apprenticeship.

NEW partners with leading employers to fundamentally change the way tech talent is recruited and developed. This maximizes return on talent investments through ownership and control of talent pipelines, ensuring faster onboarding, improved performance, higher retention, and overall lower cost of talent. The company was founded to support diverse communities of students, veterans and the underemployed with an innovative “earn-and-learn” pathway that combines on-the-job experience with expert training. A NEW apprenticeship leads to a Department of Labor (DOL) Apprenticeship Certification, including up to 30-hours of credit towards a bachelor’s degree from accredited partner colleges. In collaboration with education and workforce partners, NEW offers learners a direct on-ramp to tech careers where they previously did not exist. And employers get direct access to a diverse rich, tech talent ready pipeline yielding substantial ROI savings in both hiring and retention gains.…Read More

Nureva XT Classroom Solutions Extend In-room Experience to Remote Students

Calgary, Alberta — September 15, 2021 — Nureva Inc., an innovator in advanced audio conferencing solutions, announces Nureva® XT classroom solutions, a unique and highly integrated combination of audio, video, device management and product services designed specifically for educators who want the flexibility to extend the in-classroom experience to remote students. Easily combined with existing classroom technology products (such as projectors and displays), the solutions enable live participation of remote students, while also supporting full-classroom audio pickup – all via a single USB connection to the instructor’s computer. There are four Nureva XT solutions for standard-sized and large classrooms. Each combines a Nureva audio system (HDL300 for standard, Dual HDL300 for large) with the new Nureva CV30 classroom camera kit and a three- or five-year subscription to Nureva Pro, which includes advanced device management features in Nureva Console, 24/7 technical support, extended product warranty and advance replacement. Refer to the additional product details section below for more information on each solution component.

Nureva XT solutions support a variety of in-room and remote classroom scenarios and use cases, such as hybrid and HyFlex learning, and remote participation of guest speakers or students. They can be deployed and managed by a small IT team and are focused on ease of use and simplicity for instructors as they move from room to room – with a quick start-up experience and no lost class time. Each solution delivers a unique combination of full-room microphone pickup, in-room voice amplification, playback of audio content and front-of-room video coverage with auto tracking, camera presets and digital pan/tilt/zoom, allowing teachers to move around freely. Unlike complex, one-off solutions that are often not purpose-built for classrooms, have limited functionality, and require time consuming installation and maintenance, Nureva XT solutions bring together all this capability in an affordable package that is easy to install, set up, manage and scale. The solutions also overcome the limitations associated with webcams and all-in-one systems that were designed for small meeting spaces and have insufficient microphone pickup range for classroom environments. Each Nureva XT component has been thoughtfully designed and rigorously tested to work as an integrated classroom solution that is flexible, adaptive, future proofed and responsive to evolving needs. Using breakthrough Microphone™ Mist technology, Nureva’s unique approach to audio conferencing provides the flexibility to support multiple classroom layouts (including on-the-fly changes), various teaching approaches and learning styles, along with changing health and safety guidelines. In-room students can spread out, face any direction and move around the space as they talk. The first microphone and speaker bar to be certified for large Microsoft® Teams Rooms, the HDL300 system’s patented continuous autocalibration automatically adjusts to changes to in-room configurations, reducing the need for IT staff or technicians to visit learning spaces. In addition to Microsoft Teams, Nureva solutions integrate with other leading UC&C platforms like Zoom, Cisco Webex®, Lifesize® and many others to give students an exceptional remote learning experience.

“Today’s classrooms require the flexibility to support a wide variety of scenarios that involve the need for people outside the classroom to participate in learning sessions, whether they be guest speakers participating remotely or students joining the class from home, other classrooms or elsewhere,” said Nancy Knowlton, Nureva’s CEO. “We are excited to announce a full-featured classroom solution that is future proofed and offers the simplicity, flexibility and reliability that have become so critical in today’s education environments.”…Read More

U.S. Department of Education Taps FileBank to Deliver Ed Tech Services

OAKLAND, N.J., Aug. 25, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — New Jersey-based enterprise management company, FileBank today announced a new partnership with the U.S. Department of Education.  Through this partnership, FileBank will provide ed tech services to the federal agency, storing physical documents in its 600,000 cubic foot archive center known as The Vault ™, and providing digital access through its secure, cloud-based platform.

This furthers the New Jersey company’s growth to education and government institutions across the country. FileBank provides ed tech and enterprise content management services to more than 300 schools and municipalities in the region. During the past year, FileBank has signed partnerships with new clients including the South Brunswick Board of Education.

“While it is an exciting contract for FileBank, it is also an honor to serve our country through the way we know best… document management,” says Gregory Copeland, President of FileBank. “Our bespoke solution promises to increase business productivity, organization, efficiency and the management of their crucial documents in a central and secure repository.”…Read More