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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.

Case Study: How Weston School District Built a Digital Strategy with Digital Signage, 15 Minutes at a Time

(May 12, 2022) –– Rise Vision has released a new case study of Weston School District, a small school district which serves three rural communities of Cazenovia, Hillpoint, and Lime Ridge, Weston and has a student population of 300 students. While Weston School District doesn’t face the problems a very large school does, it does face its own challenges.

Amanda Keller, who has been social media and public relations director at Weston for the past 4 years discussed the district’s challenges of its students across 12 years of compulsory education. Back in 2018, Weston struggled with keeping families updated with printed, physical newsletters.

‘It was frustrating to put so much time into communication we knew would be outdated before it reached our families and community,’ Keller continues. ‘It was also time-consuming to create bulletin boards that were very limited in how we could use them. These bulletin boards also had to be recreated often to keep the images current.’…Read More

Why we should let online elementary students lead

The role of elementary teachers has never been more important, especially as kindergarten through fifth grade students today are facing more change than ever before–from the effects of the pandemic to social media and stressful current events being right at their fingertips.

According to The Annie E. Casey Foundation, the annual average learning gain for Kindergarten through second grade students is higher than at any time during a child’s years in school. This is why we both decided to become elementary school teachers–to make a positive impact in children’s lives during such a critical time of development and growth.

While it is essential for students to understand and master their learning in elementary school, it is also important that students develop confidence, feel ownership over their work, and become passionate about learning. If you can excite elementary students about learning, it can set them up for success not only throughout their entire education, but also their life.…Read More

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Parallel Learning—Psychoeducational Telehealth Platform—Announces Official Launch Alongside $2.8m In Funding

NEW YORK, NY (December 28, 2021)—Parallel Learning (Parallel), the digital health company that
provides psychoeducational services to families, educators and students dealing with learning and
thinking differences, today announced its official launch alongside $2.8M in funding to date. The funding
was led by Eric Reiner and Dan Povitsky of Vine Ventures, with participation from Global Founders
Capital, Great Oaks and social media influencers Josh Richards, Griffin Johnson and Noah Beck of Gen
Z-focused venture capital fund Animal Capital, among others. These funds will enable Parallel to
accelerate its growth by expanding nationwide, increasing access to special education services for
students across the country.

Parallel’s platform provides cross-disciplinary support services to diagnose, teach and empower students with learning and thinking differences directly to families and to school districts on a contractual basis. The company employs licensed psychologists, learning specialists, occupational therapists and more in each state and matches students with providers based on their referral concern and desired services. With Parallel, evaluations begin within days instead of waiting months and cost a fraction of the price of traditional evaluations which can be upwards of $5,000. The digital health company worked with
prominent research institutions and renowned testing publishers including Riverside to develop its
American Psychological Association (APA)-compliant evaluation platform. This proprietary technology
cuts the evaluation time in half, allowing students to receive a full report within just two weeks. The
comprehensive services currently offered include:

● Comprehensive Psychological Assessments
○ Licensed psychologists work through a series of assessments to uncover what impacts
the student’s ability to learn, help them improve their abilities and determine the
accommodations they need to succeed in the classroom.
● Educational Therapy
○ Therapists provide intensive interventions to help students build on foundational skills by
using evidence-based, multi-sensory approaches to teach techniques for coping with
learning and thinking differences.
● Executive Function Coaching
○ Occupational therapists teach students how to become more efficient learners and build
their confidence and independence by teaching organizational and management skills
that can help them in and outside of the classroom.…Read More

Rise Vision Creates Free Posters for Encouraging Safety and Reducing Bullying for Students

(September 29, 2021) –– Anti-bullying is focused on promoting safety, addressing behaviors, defining rules and expectations, and rewarding positive behavior through communication. All teachers, staff, and administrators must be on board to prevent bullying from occurring. Rise Vision has released 10 free anti-bullying posters for schools that feature positive messages and motivational quotes to promote healthy student learning. The posters can be printed, shared on digital signage, websites, and on social media. 

The posters are available for download as both JPEG and high-resolution PDFs, in landscape and portrait-oriented formats.

“Bullying impacts students online and in schools around the world. October is Anti-Bullying Month and so to help schools spread the message we’ve created this set of posters. The 10 posters share messages that promote kindness, discourage bullying, and raise awareness. We hope schools find them valuable and that they help reduce bullying.” Shea Darlison, Head of Revenue.…Read More

The Social Institute Partners with Additional Public Schools to Bring Modern, Engaging SEL to More Students Across the Country

Durham, N.C. – The Social Institute today announced that its newly enhanced social-emotional learning curriculum is reaching even more students, thanks to several new partner schools that span the country, from Boston, Massachusetts to Juneau, Alaska. 

Juneau School District in Alaska, USD309 Public Schools in Reno County Kansas, and Washington Irving Middle School in Massachusetts are the latest public schools to partner with The Social Institute to empower their students to navigate social-emotional health, social media, and technology positively.

“Juneau School District (JSD) is looking for innovative ways to engage both students and staff in talking about how to best support themselves and each other as we return to in-person learning and recover from the trauma the last two years has brought,” said Ted Wilson, Director of Teaching and Learning Support at JSD. “Academic success is only possible when a person feels safe and secure, and isn’t distracted by unmet personal and social needs. #WinAtSocial provides a highly engaging platform to engage staff and students in discussions and activities that will help meet social emotional learning needs, leading to greater academic success as we work to move beyond COVID-19.”…Read More

5 ways peer networks lead to better student support systems

Student support services didn’t live up to their potential during the global health pandemic, economic ups and downs, political turmoil, and more upheaval, according to a report from the Clayton Christensen Institute.

As a result, many students turned to each other to gain support as they navigated challenging issues.

Students often turned to social media–and, by default, used their own social capital–to learn about emergency aid, support networks, and available resources. Social capital refers to “access to, and ability to mobilize, relationships that help further an individual’s potential and goals. Just like skills and knowledge, relationships offer resources that drive access to opportunity,” writes author Chelsea Waite, a research fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute and the leader of the Canopy project.…Read More

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3 changes that will outlast the pandemic

Many have labeled the pandemic’s run as our “lost year”–lost activities, lost vacations, lost connections. More commonly, however, it is a reference to the loss of an academic year for America’s children.

Since March 2020, not a single day has been void of news stories, social media memes, or (socially-distanced) checkout aisle conversations about kids, school, dining room tables, and wondering when it will all end. And so “back to normal” has been our collective mantra.

COVID-era remote education began with low expectations. It was rushed. It was out of most people’s comfort zone. For many, it was seen as a momentary placeholder and treated as such. As summer transitioned into fall, however, students and parents started to accept their new normal and started digging in for the long haul of an at-home 2020-21 school year. …Read More

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How an online shift increased outdoor learning opportunities

One year ago, we at The Ecology School were confronted with the pandemic reality of cancelled in-person programs in exchange for remote, virtual learning. What we created in the wake of those changes led to new outdoor learning journeys–relevant not just on Earth Day, but every day.

We quickly filled a need and began by connecting with our students and families through Nature Nuggets, short activity-based videos shot with our cell phones and shared through social media. These videos were structured to engage participants in observation-based field ecology and discoveries within their quarantine bubbles. Using their five senses to explore and learn, viewers were introduced to complex scientific concepts through simple activities and playful experiences.

As the at-home days wore on and our Nature Nuggets gained thousands of views online, we realized additional resources could help us reach so many more people who were desperately seeking this sort of content. …Read More

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Tightrope Brings Online and OTT Channel Publishing to Schools and More with Cablecast VIO Stream

Available immediately, new automated solution lets organizations efficiently deliver live and on-demand video across multiple platforms in their own sophisticated content portals

Tightrope Media Systems has unveiled Cablecast VIO Stream, a full-featured, automated solution for bringing live event streams and on-demand video to the web, social media, and over-the-top (OTT) platforms. Extending the “add once, publish everywhere” efficiency of Tightrope’s proven Cablecast broadcast automation solution to organizations that don’t have their own television channel, VIO Stream enables local governments, schools, churches, and businesses to dramatically expand the public’s access to their content with unprecedented ease.

“Many public sector organizations, institutions and enterprises already offer VOD content or a live stream through social media or their website, but OTT platforms such as Roku®, Apple TV®, Amazon Fire TV®, and Android TV™ have become very significant for reaching viewers,” said Steve Israelsky, President of Tightrope’s Cablecast Community Media division. “VIO Stream makes it easier and more efficient for them to present their content online in a branded, professional-looking format, while effortlessly extending their reach to OTT devices through the same workflow. From city council meetings and high school sports to worship services, users can broadcast live streams of their scheduled activities while building a rich library of VOD content.”…Read More

Rise Vision Creates Free Women’s History Month Posters for Schools

 In honor of Women’s History Month, Rise Vision has released 9 FREE Women’s History Month posters for schools to print out, share on their digital signage, websites, and social media, or use in their classrooms and lesson plans. 

The posters are available for download in high-resolution JPG and landscape and portrait-oriented PDFs.

“Our aim is to support K-12 teachers who are looking for teaching resources or ideas for lesson plans. These posters are a visual way to spark conversations around Women’s History Month. We hope they will be a great compliment to other teaching material that schools are using.” Shea Darlison, Head of Revenue …Read More