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.

Curriculum Foundry integrates with Google Drive, Google Apps for Education

Growing number of schools using Google’s programs can now share learning resources created in Curriculum Foundry

Learning.com‘s Curriculum Foundry, a solution for seamlessly accessing, organizing and sharing digital content, is now fully integrated with Google Drive and Google Apps for Education.

The growing number of schools that use Google Apps for Education and Chromebooks will be able to share the learning objects, lessons, units and courses they have created in Curriculum Foundry through Google Drive.

According to Google, more than 50 million students and teachers around the world use Google programs and, according to Futuresource Consulting, more than 50 percent of the devices sold to U.S. schools in the third quarter of 2015 were Chromebooks. With Curriculum Foundry’s new integration with Google Drive and Google Apps for Education, thousands of schools and districts around the country now have a seamless end-to-end solution for digital learning.…Read More

Making classroom observations more efficient — and effective

A custom web-based system is making for more thoughtful classroom observation

Instructional leaders need to know what is happening when the bell rings and the door closes — in every classroom, in every building, every day. And the best way to do that is through careful but effective classroom observation. The challenge, then, is how to design a customizable, user-friendly system to observe classroom teaching that doesn’t seem like a top-down affair.

Just over five years ago, my organization, the Southwest Plains Regional Service Center in Kansas, set out to do just that, and to date, 13,572 teachers have been observed in 726 schools. This includes over 150,000 observations and over 6.5 million data points.

First, here’s what we know: Quality of teaching is the number one factor affecting student learning; collaborative dialogue is the number one factor affecting quality of teaching; and collaborative dialogue requires data.…Read More

Hawaii partners on statewide STEM, energy curriculum

Defined STEM Curriculum aims to engage students in statewide renewable energy initiatives

The Hawaii State Department of Education (HIDOE) is moving to further support Ka Hei, its statewide strategic program kicked off in 2014 that educates students about sustainable energy transitions happening across schools throughout the state, through partnerships with Defined STEM, the flagship curriculum supplement of Defined Learning, and OpTerra Energy Services.

Hawai’i is the most fossil-fuel-dependent state in the nation, and the state’s schools spend $48 million a year on electricity alone. The Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative aims to relieve the state’s dependence on oil by using 100 percent clean energy by 2045.

The goal of the Ka Hei program is to integrate innovative energy technology with meaningful learning experiences, all while reducing energy costs.…Read More

What makes a great education tweet?

How to write an education tweet that adds value and gets noticed

Since getting its start less than a decade ago, more than a billion users have signed up for Twitter, with an estimated 320 million of them currently active. While Katy Perry (@katyperry) may top the charts with the most followers (80 million and counting), the average number of Twitter followers for those of us who aren’t pop sensations is a more modest 208. Regardless of who the user may be or the number of followers one may have, each tweet is restricted to a simple 140 characters. What you do with them is up to you.

While some tweeters may elect to update the world when they brush their teeth, many choose to use Twitter as an effective communication tool; one that generates conversation, pushes thinking, and at times, brings about change. And every day, millions of education-related tweets are posted to the site.

So what makes a Tweet valuable and worth reading? Why do some tweets receive a large amount of attention while others are left to themselves with no interaction at all?…Read More

6 reasons why Chromebooks are the device of the moment

What makes Chromebooks popular, and will they outlast their buzz?

google-devicesAs the familiar refrain goes, “It’s not about the device,” but even so schools need to choose one to advance their digital instruction goals. And by all accounts, Chromebooks are the device of the moment, with 2.5 million shipped to schools in the first half of this year alone. There’s no doubt they’re trendy, but is there any deeper reasons for the sales surge beyond appearance and affordability? Recently, I joined host Larry Jacobs and Google Certified Innovator and trainer Chris Scott for an episode of Education Talk Radio in which we talked through these issues at length and came up with a handful of reasons for the Chromebook’s trendsetting status. Here’s the CliffsNotes of that discussion, but be sure to check out the full conversation available online.

Google’s name has staying power. We’ve been Googling for more than a decade by this point, and with the near ubiquity of Google Apps for Education in the nation’s classrooms, educators and students feel comfortable with the Google ecosystem. Branding helps, but at the end of the day, educators do realize that Google is just the conduit for students to advance their learning, not the first and last steps.

Chromebooks have some surface-level advantages. First, they’re cheap, with models often starting around $200. And while the cheaper cost can mean lower quality, it also means cheap replacement parts, too. IT management is simple — and there are few horror stories equaling what schools went through with iPads. They’re easy to share among students, and at a time when online high-stakes testing is still very much a part of the conversation, Chromebooks have the all-important built-in keyboard. None of these things necessarily makes the Chromebook the ideal or superior device for education, but they certainly don’t hurt.…Read More

22 districts join network of innovative school systems

 Digital Promise League of Innovative Schools members partner with other leading educators, entrepreneurs, and researchers from across the U.S.

league-innovativeTwenty-two new school districts have been accepted into the League of Innovative Schools, a national coalition of forward-thinking school districts organized by Digital Promise, an independent, bipartisan nonprofit organization authorized by Congress to accelerate innovation in education.

The League of Innovative Schools, launched in late 2011, accepts new members through an open application process once per year. With the new members, the League now includes 73 school districts in 33 states, representing 3.2 million students. The full list of members can be found at digitalpromise.org/districts. A list of the 22 new districts being added is also available via a blog post from the league.

“The League’s goal is to find leaders pioneering bold, creative, and student-centric practices, connect them with each other, and amplify what they do best so others can learn,” said Sara Schapiro, director of the Digital Promise League of Innovative Schools. “With these new members, we add a wealth of insights, ideas, and energy to help our members effectively support teaching and learning through technology.”…Read More

Humble teacher shocks community by leaving $8.4 million

A retired teacher who worked with special-needs kids, the late Margaret Southern drove a 1980s Cadillac, lived in a modest home and had just one indulgence in life: taking her friends out to eat from time to time, the Huffington Post reports. So when the Greenville, S.C., community learned that the humble resident, who died at age 94 in 2012, had left $8.4 million to the Community Foundation of Greenville, a group that provides grants to targeted programs, they were pretty shocked to say the least, Greenville S.C. News reported. The donation was made public this week as the first of the annual grant distributions will be doled out this month, the foundation announced…

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Computer Science Education Week: How will you participate?

Participate in computer science events, which run from Dec. 9-15

computer-science-education-weekComputer Science Education Week begins today, and the week is full of resources and events to help curriculum directors and educators integrate and implement computer science lessons.

As of Dec. 6, 167 countries had planned 33,247 events for 4.5 million students–and those numbers definitely increased over the weekend.

Educators and stakeholders can take a number of steps to support Computer Science Education Week and broader nationwide initiatives.…Read More

Opinion: How schools (even great ones) fail kids with ADHD

There’s a group of students struggling through school rd to navigate that gets little attention in the media or in the debate about how to fix schools: Children with ADHD, the Washington Post reports. ADHD, or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, is a brain condition that makes it especially hard for children to focus and concentrate in school and has a number of other symptoms. It is too often misunderstood by teachers, parents and even the students themselves. According to the Centers for Disease Control, about 9.5% or 5.4 million children 4-17 years of age, had been diagnosed with ADHD, as of 2007. Many others who have the disorder haven’t had the benefit of a diagnosis. Here is a powerful post by David Bernstein, a nonprofit executive who lives in Gaithersburg, Md., writing about the difficulties that his two sons, ages 7 and 15, have confronted in school as a result of ADHD…

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