How to build diversity, equity, and inclusion with scholastic esports

The inclusion of scholastic esports in academic programs is yielding strong and widespread results in the youth of today. Research demonstrates that strong communities are developing, with deep engagement from students who are involved in scholastic esports, particularly students that normally don’t become involved with school activities. Because of that draw, scholastic esports is in a pivotal position to help build diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at schools all around the country.

Organizations play an important role in fostering DEI among students. NASEF’s core values include diversity and respect, and its club members must adhere to the Code of Conduct to participate in tournaments and challenges. Likewise, HSEL competitors agree to abide by behavior standards in community events. 

From the beginning of NASEF’s curriculum in southern California to the 10 magnet schools in Miami-Dade Florida that piloted the curriculum with their students, we have seen a marked improvement among students with respect to DEI. NASEF is now seeing students all across the country and even the world are joining esports clubs and opening up new avenues for themselves.…Read More

Experience the Power of a Spoken Word Poetry

Good Deed Entertainment announced today that their spoken word, Rotten Tomato certified-fresh hit film SUMMERTIME, directed by Carlos López Estrada (Raya And The Last Dragon (2021), Blindspotting (2018) and Marvel’s Legion (2017)), and executive produced by Kelly Marie Tran, will be available for fans to own beginning on August 27, 2021 and can be purchased through all major retailers including, iTunes/AppleTV, Amazon, Vudu and Google Play. The film can currently be preordered at iTunes and a full list of where to purchase the film can be found at the SUMMERTIME website.

The film SUMMERTIME takes place over the course of a hot summer day in Los Angeles, following the lives of 27 young adults as they intersect. A skating guitarist, a tagger, two wannabe rappers, an exasperated fast-food worker, a limo driver—they all weave in and out of each other’s stories. Through poetry they express life, love, heartache, family, home, and fear. One of them just wants to find someplace that still serves good cheeseburgers.

The film was developed over a summer workshop with the young poets, who were all part of Get Lit – Words Ignite, an LA based nonprofit that fuses classic and original spoken word poetry to increase teen literacy on the page and in visual media. All 27 poets served as co-writers and stars in the film.…Read More

Study Shows Children Saw Improved Mental Well-Being Early on During the COVID-19 Pandemic

NEW YORK – JULY 28, 2021 — Let Grow, a nonprofit promoting childhood independence, and Dr. Peter Gray, a professor of psychology at Boston College, recently published their study results on the positive effects of the lockdown on children in April and May 2020. The study, published in the  American Journal of Play, found that for many children, their mental well-being improved early on during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Let Grow conducted several large-scale, demographically representative surveys online of children, ages 8–13, and their families in April and May 2020. The results are the opposite of what health experts—both in journals and the national media—feared at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. While many anticipated negative impacts on children such as increased stress, heightened anxiety, and depression, Let Grow and Dr. Gray found the opposite to be true.

“The sudden cancelation of school and other scheduled activities that typically occupied our children’s time led to a greater discovery of self-exploration,” said Dr. Gray, a professor of psychology at Boston College and one of the leading researchers on play and education. “With less schoolwork and more free time, we found children enjoyed their increased independence.”…Read More

Swing Education Recognizes Substitute Teachers for Their Positive Impact on Students and the School Community

Three exemplary educators – Wanda Drayton, Marcella Kerbein, and Valerie Pierce – to be inducted into Swing Education’s Substitute Teacher Hall of Fame

SAN MATEO, Calif., May 11, 2021 – Swing Education, a staffing application connecting schools to substitute teachers, has selected three exemplary educators to join its Substitute Teacher Hall of Fame. The 2021 class of inductees – Wanda Drayton, Marcella Kerbein, and Valerie Pierce – were selected among substitute teachers from across the country for their outstanding work as educators and their notable contributions to the students, teachers, and schools they serve.

“Day-in and day-out, substitute teachers play such an important role in their school communities,” said Mike Teng, CEO of Swing Education. “This year’s Substitute Teacher Hall of Fame inductees are truly standout educators in the profession who, like so many other substitute teachers out there, continue to make such a measurable impact through their hard work and dedication.”…Read More

Osmo For Schools Celebrates Five Years and Upgrades to Plastic Manipulatives in School Bundles for Classroom Hygiene & Safety

Osmo Projector App for Teachers Reaches 100,000 Downloads

Osmo for Schools, the educational division of Tangible Play that promotes in-classroom usage of Osmo’s award-winning educational systems, celebrates its fifth anniversary March 30, 2021 and highlights recent achievements. These include upgrading to plastic pieces in all its school bundles to maintain the highest standards of classroom hygiene, along with reaching 100,000 downloads of the Osmo Projector App intended for teachers, which helped grow Osmo’s community of active users. 

“Osmo for Schools began thanks to all the incredibly enthusiastic teachers across the U.S. and Canada who adopted Osmo as an educational device for classroom settings, promoting its usage, so that schools and districts started to purchase it,” explains Jan Richards, head of education sales and marketing at Osmo for Schools. “In early 2016, Osmo began our division by forming a sales team, a conference strategy, plus a Classroom Kit for schools, which really took off. It’s come a long way since!” The division now has 15 sales and consulting executives who work under Richards, offers nine different learning system bundles, and works with thousands of school districts.…Read More

Osmo For Schools Celebrates Fifth Anniversary

Osmo for Schools, the educational division of Tangible Play that promotes in-classroom usage of Osmo’s award-winning educational systems, celebrates its fifth anniversary March 30, 2021 and highlights recent achievements. These include upgrading to plastic pieces in all its school bundles to maintain the highest standards of classroom hygiene, along with reaching 100,000 downloads of the Osmo Projector App intended for teachers, which helped grow Osmo’s community of active users. 

“Osmo for Schools began thanks to all the incredibly enthusiastic teachers across the U.S. and Canada who adopted Osmo as an educational device for classroom settings, promoting its usage, so that schools and districts started to purchase it,” explains Jan Richards, head of education sales and marketing at Osmo for Schools. “In early 2016, Osmo began our division by forming a sales team, a conference strategy, plus a Classroom Kit for schools, which really took off. It’s come a long way since!” The division now has 15 sales and consulting executives who work under Richards, offers nine different learning system bundles, and works with thousands of school districts.

All Learning System Bundles Upgraded To Plastic Manipulatives for Effective Sanitization…Read More

NFL PLAY 60 Kids Day keeps kids active in advance of Super Bowl LV

The American Heart Association, the world’s leading nonprofit organization focused on ensuring longer, healthier lives for all, and the National Football League (NFL), in collaboration with its 32 NFL clubs, challenge kids to move more with NFL PLAY 60™ Kids Day leading up to Super Bowl LV. Included in the weeklong, free festivities are activities and challenges culminating with NFL PLAY 60 Kids Day, a day of action to inspire kids to get moving with their classmates, teachers, and families inclusive of virtual, hybrid, and socially distant classroom settings.

On Wednesday, February 3 at 1 p.m. ET/ 12 p.m. CT/ 10 a.m. PT, NFL PLAY 60 Kids Day will host an action packed, synchronous broadcast from the Super Bowl LV host city, Tampa Bay. During this broadcast, the NFL team with the winning NFL PLAY 60 exercise of the 2020-2021 season will be announced. Throughout January, kids were asked to cast their vote for their favorite team created NFL PLAY 60 exercise. Educators and families can find the resource at heart.org/KidsDay and register for the live event here. In addition, access an array of standards-aligned resources designed for wherever learning takes place on Discovery Education’s flexible K-12 learning platform. Discovery Education is the global leader in standards-aligned digital curriculum resources, engaging content, and professional learning for K-12 classrooms worldwide.

NFL PLAY 60 Kids Day offers interactive lessons and videos to jumpstart activity at home and in the classroom. Each school can completely customize their activation. Students and teachers can access on-demand exercises from NFL teams in the digital NFL PLAY 60 library to help them reach their recommended 60-minutes of daily physical activity. Schools can implement the majority of the NFL PLAY 60 activities at their own pace to allow scheduling flexibility during this untraditional school year. Advanced registration is required to access the NFL PLAY 60 Kids Day guide and attend the broadcast.…Read More

3 tips to cultivate meaningful parent engagement

With the onset of COVID-19, parents have stepped-up and continued to play an active role in their children’s daily education activities. Teachers, schools, and districts have put their best foot forward to ensure students are learning but still struggle with meaningful parent engagement, which has proven critical to a child’s ongoing success in the classroom.

The best school communities know the importance of giving parents a voice and a seat at the table. Here are three simple ways you can get parents more involved and start cultivating meaningful parent engagement.

1. Shift towards two-way communication…Read More

12 multimedia learning tools for the classroom

Key points:
Multimedia learning tools play an important role in classrooms in a number of ways–including, but not limited to, boosting creativity, encouraging student engagement, and helping students learn to collaborate. Shy students may come out of their shells when allowed to give a presentation via blog post or podcast. Natural leaders may emerge during group work as part of a team presentation assignment. Other students may find their true artistic calling using graphics or creating videos in the classroom. Multimedia learning tools engage students, and as we all know, students who are engaged in their learning often demonstrate higher academic achievement and take more ownership of their learning. Related content: 20 top edtech tools Because there are so many tools and teachers have limited time, we’ve compiled this list of multimedia resources to get you started on your search. 1. iMovie: With iMovie for iOS and macOS, students can browse video clips to create Hollywood-style trailers and 4K-resolution movies. They can even start editing on iPhone or iPad, then finish on a Mac. Students can unlock their creativity with green-screen effects in iMovie for iOS and macOS, placing themselves or their characters in exotic locations with a tap or a click. 2. SoundCloud: Students can use SoundCloud to create and share their own podcast, all from one place. With a Pro Unlimited plan, they can schedule releases, highlight their most popular podcasts, and more. 3. Book Creator: Book Creator is a simple tool for creating awesome digital books. Create your own teaching resources or have your students take the reins. Combine text, images, audio and video to create interactive stories, digital portfolios, research journals, poetry books, science reports, instruction manuals, “about me” books, comic adventures, and more. 4. Nearpod: Create interactive lessons in minutes–save prep time by importing existing lessons (pdfs, jpegs, ppts) and adding virtual field trips, collaboration tools, quizzes, polls, and more. Or, start in Google Slides add your favorite Nearpod activities. 5. Google Slides: Google Slides saves you time, keeps you organized, and allows you to connect and collaborate with your students in real time. Get started today with resources and tips from educators like you. 6. Soundtrap: Soundtrap for Education empowers students and teachers to explore creative sound recording in all subjects, for all ages and ability levels. It features integrations with major LMS systems and smart user management. Easy-to-use classroom features include assignments, lesson plans, and more. Teachers can give remote lessons through the virtual learning environment. 7. GradeCraft: This learning management system that helps instructors build gameful courses & encourages students to focus on the craft of learning. Flip the framework of your course so that everyone starts at zero: students earn their way up to success as they complete milestones. Empower your students to make choices about when and what type of work they want to do: they choose how to demonstrate their learning. 8. Piktochart: Choose from a library of over 800 professionally designed infographic, presentation, and print templates. Wherever your ideas take you, you might just get there faster with our ready-made designs. Add beautiful interactive charts, animated icons, images, and videos. Edit fonts. Change colors. Move things around. It’s design on your terms – right from within our intuitive drag-and-drop editor. Put your visual work out for the virtual world to see. Print it. Share it directly to your social media accounts, or password-protect it for sharing with clients and colleagues. Whoever you want to reach, we want everything you touch to delight each life it touches. 9. Glogster: Students can tell stories in classrooms, share experiences from a field trip, and express ideas using images, graphics, audio, video, and text–all on one digital canvas. Users can find information and inspiration with a constantly-growing library of more than 40,000 top-quality glogs from classrooms around the world. Categorized into 80 topics across 9 disciplines, these hand-picked glogs make up a rich and engaging resource. 10. Popplet: In the classroom and at home, students use Popplet for learning. Used as a mind-map, Popplet helps students think and learn visually. Students can capture facts, thoughts, and images and learn to create relationships between them. 11. Explain Everything: Create collaborative learning experiences where students and teachers can share thoughts and ideas in real-time. Strengthen leadership and collaboration skills by giving students the tools to create and share their own tutorials, animated stories, and presentations. 12. VoiceThread: Ed.VoiceThread is a platform where students develop critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity skills. Educators can use VoiceThread’s K-12 features for student presentations, conversational practice, professional development, rich assessment, and more.

Super Duper’s Jeepers Peepers Game Wins 2020 NAPPA Award

Super Duper Publications’ Jeepers Peepers The “Ask and Answer” Question Game has earned a 2020 National Parenting Product Award (NAPPA). This popular family favorite won in the Best Board & Card Games category.

“Jeepers Peepers is a great interactive game because it’s so much fun to play, and at the same time helps young children develop important skills such as asking questions, describing, categorizing, and problems solving,” said Thomas Webber, chairman of Super Duper Publications. “We are honored that NAPPA recognized it as one of the best card games for families.”

The National Parenting Product Awards has celebrated the best in family products for more than 30 years and is one of the longest-running family product awards programs in the country.…Read More

CCS Presentation Systems Launches First Ever Esports Demonstration Center

CCS Presentation Systems, one of the largest audio-video systems integration companies in the US, just announced the creation of a fully-functioning Esports Demonstration Center at its Scottsdale, AZ corporate headquarters. It provides customers with a working demonstration of every component of an esports facility – game play, audience presentation, streaming and more.

“This Esports Demo Center was purpose-built for our education customers. It includes everything necessary for school teams to be successful in this competitive sport,” said Julie Solomon, Chief Marketing Officer for CCS. “Esports gaming has very specific equipment standards. Facilities need to mimic each other as much as possible or players will be at a disadvantage during competition.”

The Extreme-eCampus News Worldwide Esports Survey found that 21% of schools already have an esports program and that over 70% of K12 schools are now considering introducing competitive gaming to their curriculum. Currently, there are more than 200 colleges and universities offering nearly $15 million in scholarships to high school students to join their esports programs.…Read More

Mentoring Minds Launches Mobile App to Support Instruction and Student Success

Mentoring Minds, a leading provider of K-12 instructional and critical thinking materials, announces the availability of the Mentoring Minds Resource Library, a mobile app comprised of resources to support instruction and promote student success. The app, available via the Apple Store and Google Play, includes best practices, research-based strategies and practical ideas from Mentoring Minds.

“It’s imperative that teachers are able to easily access instructional resources that are both impactful and cost-effective,” said Shad Madsen, CEO at Mentoring Minds. “The new mobile app builds upon recent efforts to digitize our award-winning content in a format that’s easy to consume, and perhaps most importantly, actionable.”

The Mentoring Minds Resource Library contains hundreds of ready-to-use instructional activities, interventions, extensions and proactive strategies and techniques, including:…Read More