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.

5 reasons to use a one-stop-shop communications platform

Key points:

  • School communications platforms shouldn’t make communicating more complicated–they should ease a burden
  • The right platform can result in cost savings and can increase flexibility and consistency across a school district
  • See related article: Your top 5 school-home communication challenges, solved

When our School Administrative Unit (SAU) set out to find a communications platform that all six of its schools could use across all grades, we had good reason for doing so. For starters, our administrators were using one communication system and teachers were using a completely different system.

Teachers had to create their own distribution lists, which weren’t always current. For example, one might develop a distribution list at the start of the new school year but would get a new student in January and forget to add the new parents to the distribution list.…Read More

Aircuity Introduces New ‘Airside’ Energy Dashboard

New ventilation analytics provide insight, down to room level, to measure key areas of energy consumption

NEWTON, Mass., USA, June, 15, 2021 – Aircuity, the leader in creating healthy and sustainable buildings, today introduced a new “Airside” Energy Dashboard that lets building owners quickly identify which areas across the entire portfolio are consuming the most ventilation energy. By providing data that goes all the way down to the room level, the new dashboard helps building owners identify the root cause of an issue to ensure maximum energy savings, as well as meet and sustain efficiency and sustainability goals.

Aircuity developed the new Airside Energy Dashboard at a time when the property owners and developers in the areas of commercial real estate, life sciences, and higher education are bracing for new and more stringent regulations targeting inefficient buildings. Coming to the local, state, and national levels, these looming new requirements impose fines and other penalties for buildings that fail to reduce carbon emissions and other climate change contributors.…Read More

Aircuity Introduces “Air Quality as a Service” Solution to Accelerate Safer Building Re-openings

Aircuity, the leading provider of measurably better environments, today introduced “Air Quality as a Service” (AQaaS), a new indoor air quality (IAQ) solution that helps building owners create “healthy buildings” that meet both COVID-19 re-entry and longer term air quality requirements. As an operating expenditure, Aircuity’s AQaaS requires no or low upfront capital, making it easier – and faster – to deploy in existing buildings.

Aircuity approaches each AQaaS engagement by working with clients to prioritize their portfolio for IAQ improvement and identifying each organization’s largest operational and energy savings potentials. In many cases, untapped savings opportunities exist in critical environments and other highly variable occupancy spaces. These savings opportunities can easily help fund such air quality improvements to create a positive cashflow implementation and a true “win-win-win” for investing organizations, as follows:

  • Owners: see dramatically improved air quality and lower operating costs;
  • Occupiers: get a platform and understanding of better air quality; and
  • Operators: get a life cycle platform approach to managing and maintaining air quality over the life of the facilities

“Aircuity’s Air Quality as a Service addresses building owners’ need to deploy comprehensive air quality programs through a sustainable and economic strategy for both the current COVID-19 pandemic and the undeniable future demand for healthier buildings,” said Dan Diehl, CEO of Aircuity.  “We view this AQaaS solution as a ‘best practice’ to address the growing demand for healthy buildings, and it comes without a dramatic increase in operating costs or large upfront capital. Aircuity customers can access AQaaS at a time of historic low cost of capital and can immediately leverage identifiable and proven efficiency opportunities while achieving comprehensive and verifiable outcomes.”…Read More

3 ways a new E-rate funded technology is helping schools save

As schools near completion of their E-Rate filing for this year, one game-changing E-rate technology has the potential to save schools precious time and money. The technology–a new network design concept called Network Functions Virtualization (NFV)–allows schools and other organizations to replace their current network hardware such as routers and firewalls with a single, multipurpose device—while moving the “brains” of the network to a central software console.

This emerging network model offers a number of potential benefits to users, including less hardware and cost, simplified management and greater flexibility to deploy new services. When bundling Ethernet service with virtual routers, schools may be able to use Category 1 E-rate benefits to achieve significant savings.*

How does NFV Save Schools Time and Money?…Read More

The Virtual High School, Quincy College announce dual credit program

The Virtual High School (VHS, Inc.), a nonprofit empowering schools with online learning programs, is announcing its new dual credit partnership with Quincy College, a two-year, municipally affiliated college with campuses in Plymouth and Quincy Massachusetts. Starting Fall of 2016, VHS students can earn college credit from Quincy College for taking online Virtual High School U.S History courses.

Developed by VHS and taught by VHS teachers that meet Quincy College faculty requirements, these online classes are now eligible for transcripted credits, which are transferrable within Massachusetts’ State College and University system. Students who register for dual credit will realize significant savings, since Quincy College offers a discounted rate to high school students, resulting in savings of at least 60% versus comparable State College or University credits.

“This is an exciting step forward for VHS. It has always been part of our mission to offer high quality programs for students who are ready and prepared to tackle college-level work,” said Amy Michalowski, Dean of VHS. “Now we’re able to help students earn college credit in an affordable way. This agreement will provide access to a program they may not have at their high schools, giving them a head start on their college careers.”…Read More

Brightspace Excellence Awards highlight innovation in online learning

This year’s Brightspace Excellence Awards, announced at FUSION 2016 by global learning technology provider D2L, recognized the promise of online learning and its ability to connect more and more people to high-quality educational programs.

Faculty dedicated to helping students learn online created robust online environments and high-quality tools to help students succeed in their online learning endeavors.

This year’s crop of winners demonstrated progress and innovation in student and teacher engagement, student retention, and teaching and learning efficiencies that resulted in cost savings.…Read More

5 overlooked money-saving ideas for ed tech

5 ways to save money, spend smarter, and make better use of current resources

money-techAs the chief management analyst for the Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) in Bakersfield, Calif., Michelle Plumbtree has gotten up close and personal with a number of educational technology professionals and departments—many of which were struggling to balance classroom technology and infrastructure needs against limited institutional budgets.

And she says ed tech departments should consider rethinking a few things as technology becomes a larger part of school budgets.

“The area of technology is expanding too quickly, and it’s becoming more and more expensive to keep up with,” says Plumbtree, whose organization was created under AB1200, a California state law enacted after the bankruptcy of Richmond School District and the fiscal collapse of a few other California districts. And while Plumbtree says that many districts are “getting there” on the technology front, the financial aspect of that charge tends to trip up even the most financially savvy district.…Read More