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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.

Why, and how, warranties should guide edtech purchasing

School technology leaders are faced with the buying decisions of products for an entire school or district. These types of edtech purchases are a sizeable investment and, unfortunately, funding can be wasted on products that are overpriced and underperform–diverting school budgets that could be better used to benefit students in other ways.

The first and most obvious factor in the search for the right technology is to decide which product will be most cost-effective. Durability of the technology is the next major influencer.

When evaluating a district’s edtech needs there are several factors to consider, including product warranties and life cycle of the product. Consumer brands typically do not offer warranties for school use, and this is where differentiation between consumer and commercial devices comes into play.…Read More

Survey finds gender gaps in school IT leadership

Data from CoSN’s 2014 ‘K-12 IT Leadership Survey’ raise important questions about gender equity in the school technology field

IT-leadership
Forty-eight percent of men in school IT leadership positions earn $100,000 or more, compared with 36 percent of women.

While women who occupy leadership positions in school technology are better educated and have more experience, on average, than their male colleagues, men in the school information technology (IT) field generally earn more money and hold more prestigious job titles: This is the main takeaway from an analysis of IT leadership in K-12 education by gender.

The findings are based on a sampling of data from the Consortium for School Networking’s 2014 “K-12 IT Leadership Survey.” They raise important questions about fairness, compensation, and leadership for women in school IT.

“Our findings reveal that, despite equity gains in recent years across industry sectors, gender disparity and bias [still] exist … in our nation’s schools,” said Keith Krueger, CoSN’s chief executive, in a statement.…Read More

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8 technology tips from top district leaders

Winners of eSN’s annual superintendent program share their technology advice

superintendent-technologyWhen it comes to school technology, having a plan, and having strong leaders to guide that plan, are two of the most important steps to success, according to the 2014 winners of eSchool News’ Tech-Savvy Superintendent Awards.

The eight winners of the eSchool News Tech-Savvy Superintendent Awards program, chosen for their commitment to educational technology and teaching and learning, shared their best practices for creating schools that boost student engagement and achievement by leveraging technology tools during a series of webinars sponsored by Lenovo.

From focusing on learning objectives first and devices last, to ensuring access to high-speed wireless internet and digital content, these eight superintendents have valuable advice and tips on what it means to be a tech-savvy superintendent.…Read More

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The ABCs of school technology programs

Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho shares his district’s experiences and priorities when it comes to supporting school technology

school-technologyMaking the decision to allocate school district resources to a digital conversion, and planning for and sustaining that technology conversion, requires effort and dedication.

And while no time will ever be the perfect time to make the digital transition, any time is the right time, said Alberto Carvalho, superintendent of the Miami-Dade Public Schools, a 2011 eSN Tech-Savvy Superintendent Awards winner, and 2014 American Association of School Administrators Superintendent of the Year.

The need for technology-rich school environments that mimic the environments in which today’s students will one day work and compete becomes evident “when we acknowledge the fact that, from zip code to zip code…there are significant gaps. There are literally and figuratively digital deserts in our communities,” said Carvalho, speaking during Discovery Education’s second annual Future@Now event on Feb. 26.…Read More

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Bring your own tech to school…and become a hacker!

Synching, optimizing, and personalizing is known as configuration management and it’s a thriving technology business, says a writer for the Huffington Post. Tools like Puppet enable professional system administrators to automate the setup of server farms and user’s computers. Tools likes Apple’s Migration Assistant, Google Chrome Sign In, and Dropbox bring configuration management to ordinary mortals. Last week the New York Times published a great story on the issues around kids using their own tech gear in school. It’s a great idea to help with ever shrinking public school budgets but some educators are worried about tech support problems or the lack of research on personal devices and learning. Well, I have an excellent domain expert at home on the whole Bring Your Own Tech (BYOT) issue: My high school-aged son. My son’s high school lets you BYOT. And he has friends at a nearby high school where every student is given an iPad. I don’t know what the official analysis of these programs is but my son gave me the test subject’s perspective and embedded journalist’s analysis…

Click here for the full story

…Read More

Opinion: Confusing access to information with becoming educated

Claims about the power of new electronic devices to “revolutionize” schooling are a dime a dozen. Yet, if they are nearly worthless, why have smart people said them over and over again? Asks Larry Cuban, a former high school social studies teacher, district superintendent) and professor emeritus of education at Stanford University. The answer is deeply embedded in American culture: a love affair with technology as the elixir of everlasting improvement in all things personal and institutional. In the past quarter-century, quasi-miraculous changes have occurred in communication, information accessibility, business and commercial activities, combat operations, medical diagnosis and treatment, and so many other activities. Why not schooling? But schools have changed. There are far more electronic devices in schools than when Papert wrote in 1984. Students use cell phones, personal computers, and tablets at home and in school. Ditto for teachers. Classrooms have been equipped with interactive whiteboards. So why is Arne Duncan calling for a “fundamental re-thinking of how our schools function?”

The reason is that while there is much hardware and software in classrooms, how teachers teach and students learn have remained remarkably stable over the decades. Schools have not yet blown up…

Click here for the full story…Read More

Ed-tech leaders schooled on interoperability standards

Interoperability presents an issue for educational technology leaders who often must integrate diverse products made by different developers.

When school technology directors purchase an innovative product from one vendor and an exciting upgrade from another vendor, schools can find themselves in a tangle of incompatible formats. A primer released this spring by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) explains how adoption of interoperability standards can streamline technology systems in K-20 education.

Interoperability, the ability of different systems to work together, presents an issue for educational technology leaders who often must integrate diverse products made by different developers. Those developers, too, must walk a fine line when trying to create products that encourage brand loyalty but also can be readily adapted to diverse systems.

SIIA’s report, titled “Primer on K-20 Education Interoperability Standards,” provides a framework for understanding interoperability standards that facilitate the exchange of content from different technology applications and systems. To provide a context for standards’ development and implementation, the primer surveys the challenges and benefits of adopting interoperability standards.…Read More

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University research will evaluate physical data to gauge teacher effectiveness

GSR technology could give an advantage to 'tyrannical' teachers, Ravitch says.

A student’s physical reaction to a classroom lesson soon could be used to judge how successful—or unsuccessful—an educator is in keeping students engaged.

Researchers and Clemson University received a nearly $500,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in November to study Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) bracelets, which house sensors that measure a student’s physical reaction to learning—such as increased sweating—and uses the data as a way to grade an educator’s performance.

Wireless sensors produce readouts showing whether students are alert, anxious, bored, or excited in the classroom, and as Clemson researchers determine the reliability of this experimental technological gauge, many in education are skeptical of the GSR bracelets as a mainstream classroom tool.…Read More

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