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.

Designing custom ed-tech software requires joint effort

Off-the-shelf education technology platforms can often fall short when aligning with educators’ specific approaches to instruction. As a result, many school systems take matters into their own hands by developing custom software and tools only to find they lack the scale, revenue sources and expertise to do so successfully.

In a new study, the Clayton Christensen Institute profiles two organizations that co-designed technology to help school leaders bridge the disconnect between instructional models and new technologies.

“Connecting Ed & Tech: Partnering to drive student outcomes” examines a unique collaboration between Leadership Public Schools (LPS), a charter school management organization that operates three high schools in the San Francisco Bay Area, and Gooru, a nonprofit ed-tech company. Each organization had separate yet related issues – LPS needed more robust technology to support a new blended learning program at scale, while Gooru needed a school partner to help align its technology with specific classroom use cases. Rather than developing solutions independently, LPS and Gooru merged their teams to collaboratively design a tool that has already shown positive learning results for LPS students.…Read More

Groups partner to leverage open tech standards

ClassLink, Mackin partnership aims to help students, teachers enjoy single sign-on to an industry provider of print and digital media

ClassLink announced a new single sign-on connection to Mackin Educational Resources, an adaptive learning platform for grades K-8. This new partnership will provide users with secure, OneClick access to MackinVIA, a free and complete digital resource management system providing easy access to eBooks, audiobooks, educational databases, and video.

ClassLink OneClick delivers single sign-on to web resources, like MackinVia, and to files, whether they are stored in the cloud, on a device, or on the school network. With more than 3,000 single sign-on connectors, ClassLink has brought together more resources than all other single sign-on platforms combined.

For 33 years, Mackin has provided library and classroom materials for pre-K- 12 teachers and students. Working with over 18,000 publishers and a database of more than 2.5 million printed titles and more than 350,000 digital titles,Mackin supplies print books, eBooks, online educational databases, audiobooks, video resources and more, along with digital content management and custom collection analysis services.…Read More

Survey: What online professional learning do teachers prefer?

New survey reveals teachers’ professional learning preferences, trends in priorities

Educators from Pre-K up through higher education most often prefer to participate in professional learning opportunities that focus on training for online software and digital resources (34 percent), classroom management strategies (34 percent), and digital device training (33 percent), according to a new survey released during this year’s ISTE conference.

The 2016 Vision K-20 Professional Learning Survey Report is the ninth annual national K-20 educator survey from the Education Technology Industry Network (ETIN) of SIIA, and also is the first survey focusing on online professional learning (PL).

The survey finds that educators from PreK-12 and higher education institutions most often enroll in courses that provide training for online software and digital resources and classroom management/behavior training.…Read More

IO Education, EADMS merger will expand online formative assessment

Complementary formative assessment solutions will help educators better leverage tools

IO Education and Educator’s Assessment Data Management System (EADMS), a provider of K-12 assessment and data management software, have merged to better leverage online formative assessment capabilities.

With EADMS’ fully integrated assessment and data management capabilities, IO Education will continue to strengthen its ability to utilize all student data to drive educator insight and improve educational outcomes. These complementary solutions will give educators an integrated solution across assessment, analytics and reporting, talent management, professional development and classroom management.

EADMS offers a comprehensive formative assessment and data management solution that provides educators at all levels immediate results to measure student performance, and is optimized for online and paper-based assessment. EADMS enables K-12 districts to personalize instruction by providing the tools to identify performance gaps that prevent students from achieving standards mastery.…Read More

Boxlight to debut standard, interactive laser and bulb projectors at ISTE

New P12 line of projectors offers models for every classroom budget and need, including laser projectors, touch projectors, and combinations of both

Boxlight will be unveiling its new line of P12 projectors at the 2016 ISTE Conference & Expo in Denver, Colorado. Attendees will be able to see live demos of the touch projectors by visiting the Boxlight booth (#3311).

Scheduled to start shipping in late June, the product line offers educators four easy ways to bring stunning visuals to classroom instruction. In addition to a standard projector, the line includes laser, laser HD, and laser ultra-wide projectors. A full list of all 12 P12 interactive touch projectors, as well as stylus-only and non-interactive models, is available at http://www.boxlight.com/P12-Series.

Stevan Vigneaux, Director of Product Management for Boxlight, drew special attention to three models: the P12L ultra-short-throw laser projector, the P12LU laser ultra-wide projector and the P12B ultra-short-throw projector.…Read More

Impero Software’s keyword library addresses online safety concerns

New terms will help schools flag potential instances of bullying, abuse, self-harm or radicalization

It makes the headlines often: A young man or woman in the U.S. ends his or her own life due to bullying or becomes radicalized and attempts to join ISIS or other hate groups. In both instances, adults in these youth’s lives are often left wondering what they could have done to intervene.

In an effort to protect students in this always-on and connected world, Impero Software, a remote monitoring and management software provider, has updated its keyword libraries to include a more comprehensive list of U.S. specific terms related to bullying, self-harm, radicalization and more, in order to alert educators so they can help students before a tragedy occurs. Impero will showcase the updated library in their booth #708 during the 2016 ISTE conference June 26-29, 2016 in Denver.

The updated library, combined with Impero Education Pro software, gives educators an edge on internet safety by helping them monitor and analyze student activity on school devices. The software alerts educators when a student uses words or phrases that match a term in the keyword library.…Read More

Pearson Realize course content now works with any LMS

Interoperability certification gives teachers, students freedom to assign and use any Pearson content regardless of LMS

Pearson announced a new iteration of its main content delivery system for K-12 schools that will allow them to experience learning, assessment and data applications seamlessly, saving thousands of hours and dollars in the process. Traditionally, teachers, students and administrators have to deal with multiple logins and repetitive data entry. Pearson Realize is now fully compatible with IMS Global’s Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI™) standards, making almost all of the company’s K-12 content and data easy to use, access and analyze, regardless of the school’s learning management system (LMS).

IMS Global is a non-profit organization that sets standards for digital educational content. Leading IMS members like Pearson are committed to creating content and applications that “play nice” with one another so that accessing content from multiple sources and publishers is a unified, continuous experience.

“When we say we put digital content at teachers’ and students’ fingertips, that should be the reality. Now fully compatible with all learning management systems, the digital content delivered through Pearson Realize should make learning and assessing student performance easier, and that’s why we’re committed to interoperability,” said Marc Nelson, vice president of product management at Pearson. “We’re proud to support IMS and the future of digital education, where educators can easily select the digital products that meet their students’ needs without having to worry about whether or not they work together.”…Read More

EXO U launches Ormiboard Pro Visual Creation Software

New whiteboarding software offers instant sharing to any student device, classroom management, and advanced interactivity building without an internet connection

At InfoComm 2016, EXO U Inc., a software development company, launched Ormiboard Pro, a visual creation and collaboration tool. Ormiboard Pro gives teachers and students the freedom to build lessons, activities, and interactive games for use in any classroom that has displays and/or mobile devices.

The device-agnostic Ormiboard Pro goes beyond presenting and testing by opening up whole-class creation and participation. With ping-pong sharing and group collaboration, Ormiboard Pro users create sessions where everyone can watch and participate in the lessons. In a classroom setting, teachers can select a screen from a student device and share it on the front-of-class display.

Ormiboard Pro is designed for schools and districts and is primarily offered through distribution channels. Ormiboard Pro is an installed software with a perpetual license and enables complete device integration and collaborative sharing over existing networks via local WIFI (no internet access required). Ormiboard Pro is optimized for fast speed and split-view capabilities for multi-touch panels and tables, and gives administrators dashboard control over building, classroom, teacher, user and content grouping.…Read More

How to manage your one-to-one program after you hand out devices

After the Chromebooks and iPads are distributed, admins and IT teams must keep asking the tough questions

If there’s one thing schools have learned from the multiple one-to-one mobile device implementations that have rolled out during the last few years, it’s that they’re hardly “set it and forget it” projects.

Purchasing and handing out the iPads, Chromebooks, or laptops are just the first steps on a long path that must also incorporate ongoing professional development for teachers and training for students; the establishment of acceptable usage policies and procedures; management of device support, insurance, and repair…and the list goes on.

“As a one-to-one implementation matures, different things happen that you may not have considered at the outset,” said Scott S. Smith, Ed.D., who serves as chief technology officer at Mooresville Graded School District in Mooresville, N.C — a district with one of the most celebrated one-to-one programs in the country. “For this reason, it’s important to maintain a clear vision and purpose from day one.” For most districts, that vision should center on why the one-to-one initiative is a good idea and how it will change instruction, teaching, and the learning environment for the better.…Read More

EnGenius introduces K-12 schools to a new network solution

Neutron Series Distributed Network Management Solution provides fast wi-fi connectivity without licensing or subscription fees

EnGenius Technologies, Inc., a provider of high-performance, versatile networking and telecommunications solutions for businesses and consumers, recently introduced its new Neutron Series Distributed Network Management Solution.

The Neutron Series Distributed Network Management Solution is a highly-scalable managed wireless LAN solution that makes it easy and affordable to deploy and centrally manage a high-performance, secure wireless network throughout a campus, or even across multiple campuses in a school district. Addressing the tight budget concerns of many K-12 school districts, the Neutron Series requires no licensing or subscription fees to monitor or manage its products, lowering operating expenses and freeing up budgets for other education initiatives.

Key features and benefits:…Read More