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.

Kids Discover Online unveils custom assessments feature

Kids Discover, a provider of engaging science and social studies curriculum, announced that its interactive digital library, Kids Discover Online, now includes custom assessment capabilities. Kids Discover Online enables educators to mix and match material from science and social studies to facilitate students’ exploration of big ideas through cross-curricular learning. The newly added Assessments tool gives educators full control to create, distribute, and assess custom quizzes, tests, and homework assignments directly within the platform.

The Assessments feature includes more than 5,000 pre-built questions covering more than 1,200 science and social studies topics. Question types vary to include discussion prompts, short answer, multiple choice, and true/false. Educators can save content to their Classroom and have questions specifically corresponding to a given article automatically populate the question bank.

“It is so important that our users know we listen to their feedback and requests. They are our best source of information on how to continue making our solution the absolute best for them and their students,” said Ted Levine, the president and CEO of Kids Discover. “With pre-built questions, customization features, automated grading, and Gradebook tracking, teachers will now be able to use our science and social studies content to accurately assess their students’ knowledge and understanding within those subjects.”…Read More

Performance Matters introduces classroom observation tool for K-12 districts

Being observed in the classroom can be a nerve-wracking experience for teachers. Yet, observations that paint a fair, accurate picture of teachers’ strengths and areas of need can play a crucial role in their professional growth. To make the observation experience easy and efficient for both observers and teachers, Performance Matters announces Truenorthlogic Observation.

Truenorthlogic Observation is an intuitive, online solution for conducting classroom observations, collecting evidence and sharing feedback. Going far beyond simple scripting tools, it gives K-12 districts the tools to configure, customize and streamline the observation process, eliminating the need for onerous paper-driven processes.

With Truenorthlogic Observation, districts can design observation templates that match existing observation instruments, rubrics and ratings scales, and highlight desired teaching practices. School leaders can easily schedule formal observations or classroom walkthroughs, or start one on demand. They can also see how many scheduled observations are on the calendar and which teachers have not yet been observed.…Read More

TeachCS zeroes in on computer science

TeachCS addresses critical shortage of qualified computer science teachers by connecting high school educators with computer science curricula

computer-scienceAs the nation focuses on Computer Science Education Week, December 7-13th, computer science curricula developers and professional development providers joined forces to announce TeachCS, a platform for high school teachers looking to broaden their computer science training and curricula.

Funded by private sector philanthropy, the goal of TeachCS is to match in-service high school teachers with both computer science professional development and financial support to attend training from leading academic institutions, in order to better prepare their students for the lucrative computing jobs most in demand in the future.

In its pilot year, TeachCS will provide in-service high school teachers with funding for professional development in one of three areas – Exploring Computer Science (ECS), AP Computer Science Principles (AP CSP), or Bootstrap.…Read More

App of the week: Winning Words Match Games

winningwordsName: Winning Words Match Games

What is it? Winning Words takes the familiar game of memory match, and adds a twist: Instead of matching two pictures, users match two synonyms, antonyms or other word combinations. Created by a retired teacher and downloaded more than 25,000 times in the last two months, their apps were listed in the top 200 grossing educational games section in the app store.

Best for: Most ages…Read More