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.

Edtech integration, student engagement are top goals for new school year

Key points:

  • Educators are looking forward to a new year and plan to focus on growth
  • Edtech tools have become critical for student engagement
  • See related article: 5 edtech tools to save time this year

Educators are optimistic about implementing new education technology tools, including AI and gamified learning, and are prioritizing student engagement as the new school year gets underway, according to a new survey from GoGuardian.

The survey of more than 1,100 educators from across North America highlights back-to-school excitement, challenges, student engagement, and technology usage.…Read More

It’s critical to promote mental health supports at the start of the school year

Key points:

As the new academic year approaches, it’s crucial to pay attention to an aspect of school life that often doesn’t feature prominently in back-to-school prep: mental health. For both educators and students, safeguarding mental health is important to promoting a positive, supportive, and successful educational environment.

Anxiety, stress, and uncertainty can permeate the school atmosphere at the beginning of the year. Teachers might face pressures from lesson planning, meeting new students, or adjusting to changes in curriculum. Students often grapple with academic pressures, extracurricular activities, social dynamics, and the transition from lazy days spent playing on devices to the more structured school day. These collective stressors necessitate an emphasis on mental health support.…Read More

Districts brace for fiscal cliff as COVID relief funding nears an end

Key points:

  • COVID relief funding must be spent in the next year, but administrators are grappling with inflation and high costs that have shifted priorities
  • One-third of superintendents believe all students will be impacted equally by the discontinuation of ARP-funded instructional programs
  • See related article: Federal COVID relief funding will dry up soon. Are districts ready?

With one year remaining to spend close to $200 billion in federal COVID relief funds, more than half of school district leaders are shifting their American Rescue Plan (ARP) spending decisions due to higher-than-expected costs and inflation, according to a survey administered by AASA, The School Superintendents Association.

Educator feedback and the need to further direct resources toward the social and emotional needs of students were cited by nearly half of district leaders as the source for realigning spending priorities and decisions.…Read More

4 back-to-school cybersecurity tips

Key points:

  • IT teams face a major challenge: protect school networks with limited budget and personnel
  • Experts say it’s no longer a matter of if a school gets attacked, but when
  • See related article: Are ransomware attacks the new snow days?

Due to budget and resource constraints, many schools and other academic organizations are only able to implement very basic cybersecurity tools and processes, and this leaves them extremely vulnerable to cyberattacks.

We’ve seen this play out over the past 12 months with high-profile attacks on school districts in Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Tucson, Ariz., among many others. And, because cybercriminals can compromise school networks for big gains with very little effort, we expect attacks on education will only increase.…Read More

4 best practices to support and retain school leaders

Key points:

  • A culture of continuous learning helps leaders, teachers, and staff grow and develop throughout their careers
  • Mentorship programs and intensive training are two components of a well-rounded system that supports academic leaders
  • See related article: How to reimagine teacher leadership

For new school leaders, the first few weeks on the job can feel overwhelming. As a former principal, I know that leaders can only be effective when the right systems of support are in place. In fact, a recent research brief by RAND Corporation found that 16 percent of principals left their schools in the 2021-22 school year for a variety of reasons, including high workload, stressed work-life balance, threats to safety, political debates, budget constraints, and a lack of growth opportunities.

This research continues to highlight why it’s imperative that schools and districts create a culture of continuous learning so that leaders, teachers, and staff grow and develop throughout their careers. It also shows the importance of building a comprehensive leadership framework that includes transparent expectations and includes specialized support touchpoints – from onboarding to thoughtful professional development opportunities.…Read More

3 ways MDM helps fight school cyberattacks

Last September, the Los Angeles Unified School District was hit by a ransomware attack at the start of the new school year. The second-largest educational district in the country, with more than 600,000 students and 25,000 employees, had its email taken offline and other internal systems affected by the cyberattack. When the district chose not to pay the ransom, sensitive employee data was posted online. While this attack may seem extraordinary because of its size and scope, digital security breaches like this are happening at educational institutions across the country. And school districts need to take defensive action against cyberattacks now before it’s too late.

With school districts across the U.S. being targeted by cyberattacks, the need for robust, cost-effective cybersecurity support is not just important–it’s now considered essential. But many local governments and educational institutions remain unprepared for this type of active threat. A recent report by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on the K-12 school cybersecurity landscape found that close to 50 percent of the school districts in the country have neither the staff nor the budget to adequately protect their IT infrastructure.  

As schools look for solutions to bridge this security gap, one easy and cost-effective method they should consider is the adoption of mobile device management (MDM) platforms. A small number of schools are currently using this solution to their advantage. This includes public schools like the Interboro School District in Prospect Park, PA, which employs MDM to manage a fleet of iPads used to supplement classroom instruction. Interboro uses MDM to ensure the tablets are secure and functioning properly, the students using them are staying safe online, and the costs associated with maintaining the devices are minimized.…Read More

Are you leveling up with esports?

Imagine a new school program that is gender-neutral, inclusive to students with physical disabilities, bolsters school pride through competitive meets and is eligible for full and partial scholarships from over 175 colleges and universities.  You don’t have to be a gamer to see the value that esports (competitive videogaming) could bring to your school.

Collegiate varsity esports began in 2014 when Robert Morris University created scholarships for a League of Legends e-sports team.  Nearly a decade later, over 175 colleges and universities have followed suit, resulting in a $1.38 billion industry in 2022. The videogaming industry is forecasted to grow 7 percent annually and likely to top $200 billion in revenue in 2023. 

The industry offers many opportunities for a wide variety of skillsets–and not just at the higher-ed level, but at the K-12 level, too.  For example, creatives will find opportunities to develop fictional worlds, math and science interests can lead to careers in programming and engineering, and marketing and project management paths blend the other two.  Broadcasting esports has also been a viable path to careers in journalism and entertainment.…Read More

New school year shows continued signs of academic rebounding

Post-pandemic academic achievement is showing encouraging signs of improvement, although not evenly across school years, according to NWEA, a nonprofit, research and educational services organization serving K-12 students.

The new research findings are based on fall 2022 assessment data from nearly 7 million US students in grades 3-8.

The new report is part of NWEA’s ongoing research effort to examine how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted student achievement in reading and math. …Read More

Rethinking your K-12 cloud strategy

The new school year is upon us, and IT teams are ramping up strategic tech investments and systems to help ensure a smooth year ahead. For many of these IT teams, challenges around cybersecurity are top of mind, with recent research revealing over half of lower education organizations were hit by ransomware in the past year. On top of this, concerns remain around cloud costs, including new limits on free cloud storage, leaving some wondering what they’re supposed to do and having to pay up.

In light of these shifts and growing risks, K-12 IT teams need to rethink their approach to cloud storage costs and security. We recently experienced challenges at Hotchkiss School with our past cloud providers in this regard. We could not obtain the amount of secure storage we needed due to not only data consumption and performance challenges, but also because of their egress fees. In order to modernize and innovate, education decision-makers will need to embrace hybrid or multi-cloud storage options that keep their data secure by moving away from mainstream, high-cost cloud providers.

Further, to meet growing demands on schools’ IT departments, IT leaders will need to adopt a flexible cloud mindset that enables them to effectively and securely store and leverage the growing deluge of data they are inundated with – everything from student health care data to device and research data. Let’s dive into how a high performance, multi-cloud approach can help K-12 schools check the following major pain points off their list.…Read More

Don’t wait to secure your endpoints from cyberattacks

As we enter a new school year, among the myriad things that instructors and administrators need to be concerned about, ransomware remains high on the list. According to the K-12 Security Information Exchange, there were 166 publicly disclosed cyber incidents affecting 162 school districts across 38 states during the 2021 calendar year.

The rise of remote learning and the use of more devices comes with a price – more endpoints mean more opportunities for potential exploitation. This isn’t a new refrain, but we continue to see challenges facing endpoint security. Cyberattacks against schools can result in closures, not to mention high and unbudgeted remediation and recovery costs.

School districts are already grappling with one of the hardest missions out there – educating our youth – and having to worry about a potential data breach can’t take away from this. Fortunately, in this situation, knowledge is power. Understanding the potential risks that your endpoints face is key to knowing what needs to happen to mitigate these risks and keep your information and systems safe.…Read More