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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.

EVALYON’s DataCapture Ed™ for Teachers and Educators is Now Available

Evalyon’s DataCapture Ed App allows educators to capture student data to help comply with Federally mandated RTI (Response to Intervention) requirements. Data is easily digitally captured by educators on iPads, and can be tracked, evaluated, shared, and safely stored to create detailed reports for teachers, administrators, and for parent/teacher conferences.

It’s available now at $43.99, for a limited time.

The App allows teachers to have more quality interactive time with each student, to monitor, in real time, daily progress toward goals, to capture audio/video/images of student work products, and to evaluate them for any issues that might need immediate intervention. This data capture is ENTIRELY PAPERLESS!! Data is categorized, charted, permanently stored. This data can be used in reports to help educators quickly determine RTI progress toward goals, interventions and placements, and to properly place students in appropriate RTI Tiers.…Read More

Understanding cyber liability insurance

[Editor’s Note: This article was first published on the TCEA TechNotes blog.]

Have you read the latest newsflash? School district data breaches are on the rise, and your school district’s student information system (SIS) data could be a prime target for hackers. The SIS contains records of minors, representing an unexploited, potential victim. Identity thieves are sharpening their digital knives for the feast. Let’s explore this topic from a cyber liability insurance perspective.

Framing the discussion

Keep these questions in mind as we step through this relevant topic.…Read More

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How safe is my student data?

Ed tech companies are not immune to hackers and vulnerabilities. But schools can protect themselves

data-safetyA few years ago I was attending a meeting at my county office, where a vendor who runs a popular education site was making a presentation. If I’m being honest, I’ll admit I wasn’t paying close attention. It was a product our district was already using, and I was our top level administrator for my district’s domain on the site. Stifling a yawn or two, I started to do what any bored student would do—see if I could break stuff.

Eventually, I happened upon an exploit by chance. I was working both in my district’s instance (the domain and accounts registered for our schools) as well as the one the county office set up for this presentation. Sometimes when I signed out of one, it signed me out of the other as well.

I signed into my district as the top-level admin, and then redirected to the county site by simply changing the URL. In doing so I gained top level privileges to the county’s instance, too, which should have been reserved exclusively for the vendor reps making the presentation. I raised my hand and asked, “Do you know someone can gain higher privileges than they should have?”…Read More

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5 key steps to safeguarding student data

Understanding data can improve student performance and lead to greater productivity for administrators and teachers; here’s how to protect this information

safeguard-dataToday, more than 90 percent of school districts electronically store data on everything from student demographics and course enrollment, to attendance and test scores on statewide assessments.

As uses of student data continue to expand, districts must be prepared to protect this information and ensure it’s only used for its intended purpose: to help students succeed. Here are five things school districts can do to safeguard their student data.

1. Understand the difference between data privacy and security.…Read More

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5 critical student data questions for schools

U.S. Department of Education issues guidance on student data privacy, use

student-dataStudent security and data privacy are top concerns for today’s students, and now federal guidelines are helping to shed light on the often confusing issue of data security.

Speaking at the Common Sense Media Privacy Zone Conference on Feb. 24, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said keeping student data secure and using it for its intended purposes are top priorities.

To that end, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) on Feb. 25 released guidance for vendors that work with schools to store student data. Part of ED’s efforts will involve helping educators understand how technology and data interact and how privacy issues surround data issues.…Read More

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Experts: Here’s how to turn data into achievement

During AASA’s National Conference on Education, superintendents look for guidance on overcoming fears of school data use

data
“We need to change the conversation from data as a hammer to data as a flashlight,” Guidera said.

School systems are collecting a “tremendous amount” of data about their students, said Dan Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators (AASA), but how can they use this information to improve instruction?

That was the focus of a thought-provoking session at AASA’s National Conference on Education in Nashville Feb. 13. During the session, panelists agreed that the answer to this question relies on changing the entire culture around school data use.

“Data has gotten a bad rap in schools,” acknowledged Aimee Guidera, executive director of the Data Quality Campaign, a national nonprofit advocacy group that works to improve student achievement through effective data use.…Read More

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Student data privacy: The role of policymakers and schools

Federal laws provide important safeguards for protecting data and preserving student privacy

data-privacyAs states move to collect, store, and interpret student data, education leaders should be familiar with important federal laws that safeguard student data and protect student privacy.

Efforts by the U.S. Department of Education officials and the Data Quality Campaign to create clear-cut explanations for how student data will be protected, and how privacy plays an important role, are regular parts of data discussions. A number of federal laws and resources are designed to help protect data privacy, while at the same time ensuring data is used to inform teaching and learning.

On Nov. 19, DQC will release Data for Action 2013, the ninth in a report series detailing state efforts to use and safeguard student data. A primer on student data and privacy may be useful for educators and policymakers in the interim.…Read More

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Three state approaches to student data privacy

Administrators must balance student data privacy concerns with transparency and action

data-privacyAs school reform efforts receive nationwide attention, collecting and using student data plays an important role in improving teaching and learning in today’s classrooms. But accompanying student data are conversations about data privacy.

Concerns about how education leaders use and protect student data abound, and some states and state education leaders are making a concerted effort to ensure that adequate protections are in place for student data, while at the same time making sure that educators are able to use data to inform and improve instruction.

During a Connected Educator Month webinar sponsored by the Data Quality Campaign (DQC), state education leaders described their efforts to safeguard student data with privacy measures and practices.…Read More

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Teacher evaluation in PreK: Using student data is risky

According to a new report, many states will soon measure student learning in the “untested grades,” meaning teacher evaluation will use data from students in prekindergarten through third grade. The report explores the risks associated with this and its potential impact on teachers?

The brief, “An Ocean of Unknowns: Risks and Opportunities in Using Student Achievement Data to Evaluate PreK-3rd Grade Teachers,” funded through grants from the Foundation for Child Development and the W. Clement and Jessie V. Stone Foundation, reports that as of 2012, 20 states and Washington, D.C. require evidence of student learning to play a role in evaluating teacher performance. As a result, better information on student learning is in high demand, and no grade level is immune.

Historically, most states have required standardized testing only in grades three through eight. But now those 21, with likely more to follow, must devise comparable ways to measure student learning in the “untested grades,” as well, including preK, kindergarten, and grades one and two. And even with testing in grade three, a lack of baseline data has implications for those teachers, too.…Read More

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