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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.

EXO U to launch visual creation, collaboration tool at ISTE

The device-agnostic, Google Classroom-integrated, collaborative tool allows teachers and students to build lessons, activities, and interactive games

At ISTE 2016, EXO U Inc., a software development company, will launch Ormiboard, a front-of-class visual creation and collaboration tool. Ormiboard gives teachers and students the freedom to build lessons, activities, and interactive games for use in any classroom that has displays and/or mobile devices.

The device-agnostic Ormiboard goes beyond presenting and testing by opening up whole-class creation and participation. With ping-pong sharing and group collaboration, Ormiboard users create sessions where everyone can watch and participate in the lessons. In a classroom setting, teachers can select a screen from a student device and share it on the font-of-class display.

In seconds, teachers can fully integrate Ormiboard with Google Classroom, Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, and other common resources. With browser-driven publishing, lessons are assigned links and can be sent to students using Google Classroom. Ormiboard users can also share their creations with anyone, anywhere in the world through an online marketplace.…Read More

Is computer science a dead end in the workforce?

As software development tools grow more advanced and more coding moves offshore, the need for advanced development expertise is on the decline, InfoWorld reports. The future is bright for programmers, we’re often told. And yet, some analysts now suggest the picture is not as rosy for recent computer science grads as we would think. According to the latest data from the U.K.’s Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), computer science graduates in the United Kingdom now have the hardest time finding work of graduates in any subject, with an unemployment rate of 17 percent. It should come as no surprise that legal and medical students fare significantly better — the latter having a jobless rate of practically nil — but the HESA data suggest that new students might be better off pursuing foreign languages, marketing, or even creative arts, rather than computer science. While the situation in the United States might not be so dire, in truth few companies share Google’s zeal for academic credentials when hiring new developers. Many are willing to accept self-taught programmers, particularly if they have other skills relevant to the business. Some have implemented in-house training programs to allow employees from other disciplines to transition into software development roles. And as development tools themselves become more sophisticated and accessible, even workers with little formal knowledge of programming are trying their hands at creating applications. All are ominous signs that demand for computer science education in the job market might be on the wane…

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New design technique allows software to run faster

A new way to develop software could make security checks less time consuming.
A new way to develop software could make security checks less time consuming.

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a new approach to software development that will allow common computer programs to run up to 20 percent faster and possibly incorporate new security measures, the university reports.

The researchers have found a way to run different parts of some programs—including, for the first time, such widely used programs as word processors and web browsers—at the same time, which makes the programs operate more efficiently.

To understand how the new technique works, first you have to understand how computers operate today.…Read More

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