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.

4 innovative online learning practices educators should keep

Over the past two years, education systems across the nation have been challenged with oscillating shifts, from classroom learning to remote and online learning, and even hybrid approaches, due to COVID-19 precautions and responsiveness. Amid these ongoing changes, educators reimagined the ways they engaged with their students, and many turned to museums and other community organizations for support to better understand how to leverage our collections, educational resources, and expertise creatively for their students.

For the community of more than 300 museum educators at the Smithsonian, the sudden urgency to scrap our traditional modus operandi unleashed new levels of innovation. We reimagined how to share a vast library of artifacts, artworks, specimens, and content expertise with our audiences to best meet their teaching and learning needs.

As teachers and students return to schools and museums searching for a “new normal,” below are some practices from the past two years I know we’ll keep.…Read More

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Performance and Reliability Combine in New Christie GS Series Projectors

CYPRESS, Calif. – (March 11, 2022) – Christie® is pleased to announce the addition of  two new models to its line-up of class-leading 1DLP® projectors. Designed and built to offer both performance and reliability for high-use environments, the new Christie GS Series models are available in two brightness options: 9,000 ISO lumens and 10,600 ISO lumens, and are ideal for installations including meeting rooms, education spaces, museums, houses of worship and more.

“With their compact footprint and quiet operation, the new Christie GS Series models won’t distract audiences from the bright, vibrant projected images,” says Joel St-Denis, director of product management, Christie. “For installations that require multiple projectors, such as smaller entertainment venues, places of worship and themed attractions, the included warping and blending tools will save both time and money.”

The new projectors feature laser illumination, which offers 20,000 hours of consistent illumination to 50% brightness and a low total cost of operation – there is no need for lamp or filter replacements, which also reduces maintenance.  …Read More

New 10,000 ANSI Lumen 3LCD Projector Expands Laser Line for Large Scale Displays

Today, Maxell Pro AV announced the expansion of its laser projector lineup with the 4K ready MP-WU8101 3LCD laser projector. The new high brightness 3LCD projector is designed to deliver stunning displays for digital signage applications as well as large lecture halls, conference rooms, auditoriums and museums. An extension of Maxell’s laser projector line, the MP-WU8101 comes backed by a generous 5-year/20,000-hour warranty.

The MP-WU8101 projector comes 4K ready— designed with 4K signal input on HDMI, HDBaseT and Display Port input terminals for HD and 4K images and videos providing an enhanced viewing experience. In addition, the 10,000 ANSI lumen brightness creates stunning displays in spaces where natural and ambient light is unavoidable.

With up to 50,000 hours light source life on Long Life 2 mode, the MP-WU8101 provides vivid, colorful projection— and with laser light source, mercury lamps and lamp replacement become obsolete, resulting in lower maintenance costs and an eco-friendlier projection investment.…Read More

How to effectively support struggling readers during distance learning

Parents who might be uncomfortable with continuing their role of teacher this fall can find solace in this fact: authentic teachable moments happen outside the classroom all the time. If your student or child had to rapidly transition to an at-home learning environment as a struggling reader, an English language learner, or one with dyslexia, there are many ways that the support they were receiving in school can transfer to their home.

Creating authentic learning experiences such as having your child help prepare meals, shop, and participate in outings to parks or museums can improve literacy. Simply engaging in conversation in the language spoken at home around shared experiences, explaining your thinking, and asking open-ended questions so your child can share their thoughts, facilitates a deeper level of communication. This builds metacognition, which is key for comprehension and reading success.

Related content: How we reinvented our district’s reading program…Read More

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How student-created VR can enhance SEL and special ed

Quality social-emotional learning (SEL) and effective special education (SpEd) programming look remarkably similar. Each relies on a positive, safe learning environment and touts activities geared toward student strengths and weaknesses. Both types of programming facilitate a group experience where individual outcomes are designed to be disparate, be recorded, and used to track growth. Because these two types of programming are similar in philosophy, it should come as no surprise that both SEL and SpEd can be enhanced and expanded by innovative edtech solutions—most notably, student-created virtual reality (360 VR videos).

The benefits of VR

VR is proving to be an effective engagement tool in diverse ways: visiting museums around the world, blasting off into space, etc. But VR does not have to be limited to geography and science classrooms. By using student-created, perspective-taking videos, VR can be a powerful experiential tool that aligns with and augments both SEL and SpEd outcomes.

When students put on a headset to view these types of videos, they are stepping into another life, another story. They will find connection in the familiar and discover meaning in what they perceive to be different. Students then begin to develop perspective-taking skills, resulting in newfound levels of relationship skills (communication), self-management (emotional control in response to a story), and social awareness (empathizing with the storyteller). As a bonus, viewing VR films is an incredibly immersive experience, making student engagement—often a legitimate challenge—easier to achieve.…Read More

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5 digital learning trends in museums

No longer do students fill out worksheets during museum trips–today’s spaces are going digital

digital-museum
Jorg Hackemann / Shutterstock.com

Museums are a popular field trip destination, but as learning becomes more digital, more and more museums are offering digital learning programs designed to engage students and give them enhanced educational experiences.

During an Alliance for Excellent Education webinar, Barry Joseph, the associate director for digital learning at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City, offered an overview of how digital learning programs are taking root in museums.…Read More

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