TRENDING  //  Pillars of Today’s K-12 Classroom  //  Implement the Science of Reading with Ease

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.

Navigate360 Sets New Standard for K-12 School Safety with Fully Integrated Visitor, Volunteer & Emergency Management Suite & Alyssa’s Law-Compliant Panic Alarms

RICHFIELD, OH, July 20, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Schools nationwide are working quickly to enhance safety and security plans to satisfy updated state mandates and give their students and staff the confidence they need to be successful. Navigate360 is proud to aid in their efforts with a new, fully integrated Safety & Security Suite that seamlessly provides the tools and technology schools need to ensure proper plans and processes are in place to prevent a critical incident and respond to a crisis if necessary. 

Navigate360’s Safety & Security Suite integrates state-of-the-art Visitor, Volunteer and Emergency Management systems with Alyssa’s Law-compliant panic buttons, enabling schools to directly – and silently – alert first responders when faced with an emergency incident. The cloud-based solution enables 360-degree visibility of both the site and the location of students, staff, visitors and volunteers, which is critical when every second counts for first responders and school security teams.     

“School safety is a complex, multifaceted issue, and it’s clear that point solutions aren’t enough on their own,” said Navigate360 CEO JP Guilbault. “We’re delivering on our ‘better together’ commitment by providing a modern, connected platform that eliminates schools’ functional and data silos by integrating visitor, volunteer and emergency management into a single platform with Alyssa’s Law-compliant panic buttons. This is the new standard for modern school safety.”  …Read More

Jamf Introduces Jamf Safe Internet to Power Online Safety Anywhere Students Learn

MINNEAPOLIS, July 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Today, Jamf (NASDAQ: JAMF), the standard in Apple Enterprise Management, rolled out  Jamf Safe Internet to K-12 education customers across the globe. Designed to help schools protect minors from harmful content on the internet, Jamf Safe Internet allows customer admins to enforce acceptable-use policies without sacrificing the unmatched learning experience Apple devices provide.

Apple has already established a  strong presence in the education market as students spend more time learning online. This creates a growing need for digital safety to prevent students from accessing unsafe content and eliminate cyberattacks. Incorporating filtering technology and network threat prevention features currently available to commercial customers through Jamf’s security solutions, Jamf Safe Internet is the only Apple-first, education-focused cybersecurity solution that ensures students can navigate the internet safely. Jamf Safe Internet values student privacy by applying prevention over inspection principles.

“With technology now firmly embedded in the student experience, there is a growing need for digital safety to eliminate cyberattacks and prevent students from accessing unsafe content. Jamf combines best-in-class network threat prevention and a vast content-filtering database to block unsafe and malicious content so that students can safely learn online from anywhere,” said Suraj Mohandas, Senior Director of Education Strategy, Jamf.…Read More

Trustifi Recognized with Four Awards for Data Protection and Classification in First Half of 2022

LAS VEGAS — June 30, 2022 — Leading cybersecurity and data management firm Trustifi has added four new awards as of this month, demonstrating its consistent reliability in protecting customers against email-related cyber threats. The latest slate of honors includes a Gold Globee, Gold Stevie Award, SourceForge’s Top Performers Award, and a place on Expert Insights’ Top 100 Most Innovative Cybersecurity Companies list for 2022.

“Our most important endeavor is protecting information. Our customers rely on us to keep their data safe, and we take that seriously because we know we are protecting their livelihood and all that entails,” said Trustifi CEO Rom Hendler. “Recognitions like these showcase our solutions and their efficacy across many different customer bases.”

Two awards were determined based on overall company performance, while the others were focused on specific product benefits. For instance, Trustifi’s Inbound Shield and Outbound Shield were recognized. Inbound Shield protects organizations and individuals by analyzing, detecting and classifying an abundance of malicious email types — including phishing, spam and viruses. Outgoing emails are protected with Outbound Shield, which secures information with data identification features and has quick implementation and automated integrations for common office suite software.…Read More

Ripple Effects, Leader in Social Emotional Learning, Announces New Chief Executive Officer John Ray-Keil

NEW ORLEANS – June 27, 2022 – Today, Ripple Effects, a leader in digital social emotional learning (SEL), mental health and behavior supports, announced the appointment of John Ray-Keil as its new CEO. Ray-Keil succeeds co-founder, Alice Ray, who will become chair of the board.

Prior to joining Ripple Effects in 2019, Ray-Keil served as CFO of BlueFoot Partners, an investment firm. He has more than 20 years of experience growing small companies and optimizing portfolio management. Ray-Keil also served on the boards of numerous local youth and school organizations and is an advocate for advancing scalable solutions in the education market.

“John’s deep experience and success in the financial sector coupled with his commitment to delivering the best digital content to help PreK-12 students receive the social emotional supports they need uniquely position him as the right person to move the company forward,” said Alice Ray, chair of Ripple Effects board of directors.…Read More

How to block school security threats now–and in the future

The typical K-12 school system has the same basic security needs as any modern university campus: centralized management and control of security systems and procedures, and a strategy for staying ahead of threats while protecting earlier investments. In both cases, the latest open-architecture Physical Access Control System (PACS) solutions offer an infrastructure that is flexible, scalable, and can easily be upgraded to strengthen security and add capabilities without changing the hardware.

Building a Future-Safe Foundation

A future-safe PACS infrastructure operates with any access control software and add-on solutions ranging from parking gates to additional IT security. This requires a highly flexible and non-proprietary open-architecture framework with modern security protocols, technology interoperability, and open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that enable hardware to be integrated into any access control system software or security application.…Read More

1 2

Microsoft and Optoma Partner to Offer Cloud Based Remote Management Solution for Audio Visual Displays

LAS VEGAS, June 8, 2022 – Optoma, a world-leading manufacturer of large visual display products, and the #1 DLP brand worldwide,* today announced its cloud version of the Optoma Management Suite (OMS)™, an intuitive display management solution, powered by Microsoft Azure, to streamline operations by monitoring, diagnosing, and controlling audio visual displays worldwide via a single platform.

Complimenting Optoma’s award-winning display products, the OMS remote management solution is compatible with other displays that are connected via PJLink, enabling easy integration into existing display fleets while offering differing levels of access and control for users, ensuring devices are securely managed.

“The collaboration with Optoma and Microsoft marks an important milestone in our IoT business’ partnership and boosts Optoma’s capabilities to focus on end customers and IoT operations at scale,” notes Jenna Lee, Head of Asia Technical Sales – Internet of Things (IoT) Solutions at Microsoft. “In strengthening our IoT partnership with Optoma through Azure IoT services, we aim to serve and empower Optoma’s IoT ambitions to enhance existing businesses, develop new opportunities at the global scale, and bring the best IoT solutions to the market.”…Read More

Poptential™ Digital Storytelling Makes Summer School Fun

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — (June 3, 2022) — Millions of high school students are expected to hit the books in summer school to help close the pandemic education gap, get a head start on a jam-packed schedule, or to repeat a failed class. As a result, teachers are looking for educational tools that engage students and help them compete with summer distractions.

“Summer school teachers have to work extra hard to keep students engaged,” said Julie Smitherman, who taught high school social studies for eight years and is now director of content management for Certell, Inc.’s  Poptential™ family of free social studies courses.

About 3.4 million students attended summer school in 2020, and as many as 40% were absent daily, according to ThinkImpact. One proven way to keep students engaged is through the use of pop culture media to illustrate key learning concepts.…Read More

Pikmykid Achieves Success With Positive Reviews and Excellent Ranking

TAMPA, Fla., Apr. 29, 2022 – Pikmykid, the leading provider of school safety and dismissal solutions, today shares its success among schools nationwide, including its impressive Net Promoter Score (NPS), measuring customer experience and predicting business growth.

The Pikmykid platform has achieved an NPS score of 60, putting the platform in the same category of customer experience management as major brands including Starbucks, Netflix and Amazon, as well as Samsung, Intel and John Deere. Additionally, Pikmykid’s NPS score remains higher than mega-companies, such as Apple and Google.

The intent of NPS is to measure the willingness of customers to recommend a company’s products or services to others. It is used as a proxy for gauging the customer’s overall satisfaction with a company’s product or service and the customer’s loyalty to the brand.…Read More

Here’s how to support student well-being

Student well-being directly impacts their motivation, engagement, and learning. In short, their social and emotional well-being has a long-term impact.

Skills such as self-awareness and self-management are also critical for effective collaboration and learning. And when school leaders support overall student and educator well-being, creates a foundation for equitable education environments.

During an eSchool News webinar featuring edtech educators and district mental health experts, attendees will learn how to:…Read More

Riverside Insights and 7 Mindsets Partner to Improve Student Well-being with Lessons for SEL

ITASCA, Ill. – March 24, 2022 – Riverside Insights®, a leading developer of research-based assessments and analytics, today announced a new partnership with 7 Mindsets to offer Lessons for SEL, a cloud-based solution featuring a streaming platform of video lessons and social and emotional learning (SEL) content with specific focuses on self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, relationship skills and decision-making skills. 

Unlike other well-being tools, Lessons for SEL offers a complete curriculum of powerful, engaging resources and video content aligned to the CASEL framework to help educators, mental health professionals, and school leaders enhance  the social emotional wellness of their students and staff.  Educators can use the platform to identify relevant topics that address unique classroom needs and tailor instruction to support individual student development. 

“Riverside Insights’ partnership with 7 Mindsets demonstrates our continued commitment to support the whole child and their ‘limitless learning’ by empowering them to unlock their full potential,” said Matt Tebbe, General Manager at Riverside Insights. “Lessons for SEL offers a wide variety of educator resources to promote differentiation within the SEL curriculum and is easy to incorporate into the daily routine, since the platform requires no additional infrastructure and many lessons are only six minutes long.”…Read More