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.

ChatGPT is the shakeup education needs

Key points:

Since its launch in November 2022, ChatGPT has dominated conversations in the media landscape and within the education industry. A key conversation focuses on weighing its benefits versus risks, and many education institutions have been quick to implement bans on the technology altogether for fears of plagiarism in written works. But is this the right course of action to take?

As technology evolves, industries must evolve alongside it, and education is no exception – especially in an era where students heavily and regularly engage in technology and its applications. Instead of being afraid of the unknown, educators and leaders should navigate these changes with curiosity and an open mind and embrace the shake up the education industry has been waiting for. ChatGPT can be the answer we’re looking for in our search for the ideal, personalized student experience–and ultimately student success.…Read More

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BookNook Names Education Veteran Jared Harless Chief Product Officer

SAN FRANCISCO (PRWEB) — BookNook, a leading provider of effective high-impact literacy and tutoring solutions for schools and students, announces the appointment of Jared Harless as Chief Product Officer. A team-oriented veteran in the education space, Harless will strengthen BookNook’s tech-enabled solutions that keep students, educators and tutors at the center of learning.

“BookNook is making a measurable difference in the lives of hundreds of thousands of students to address disparities in reading proficiency,” said Harless. “I’m eager to strengthen the integration between technology, content and human capital to further BookNook’s mission-driven work.”

Prior to joining the BookNook team, Harless was the Vice President of Product Strategy at Encoura, an educational data science and research company, where he built a product management organization and launched a new direct-to-learner product for high school students navigating the post-secondary planning process and a B2B2C experience for educators supporting those learners. Before Encoura, Harless served in various product leadership roles at McGraw-Hill Education for more than 17 years.…Read More

4 ways to use ChatGPT for learning and creativity

Key points:

  • Educators are worried about AI tools enabling plagiarism and cheating
  • Banning ChatGPT prevents students and educators from using AI in new ways

With the rising popularity of ChatGPT, many educators and administrators have trepidation toward the new technology, seeing it as a threat both to students and schools. Many teachers and educational institutions have even gone as far as to ban ChatGPT due to concerns of cheating and academic integrity. But the reality is that AI is here to stay, and its abilities will only increase with time. Rather than banning the tool, it’s important that educators work to understand and embrace this new technology for all it has to offer.

While there are legitimate concerns about ChatGPT and cheating, let’s not forget that educators had similar worries about the use of the internet in classrooms just 20 years ago. And now, doing a Google search is just a basic tool for students to put together an essay. Still, many are quick to point out that AI’s capabilities are different and, in many ways, that is true. …Read More

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Instructional audio can boost confidence in the classroom

Ask me what technology I’d most like to see implemented in every single K–12 classroom and I’d say instructional audio. As a long-time audiologist, I’m admittedly biased. But research bears out the benefits and I’ve seen the results firsthand in my 27 years (and counting!) working in public schools.

Here are some of the ways we know instructional audio technology helps build students’ confidence and benefits all student groups—as well as a few suggestions on how to get started.

Amplifying students’ voices…Read More

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How to build a P-TECH Academy on the go

As the principal of a brand new “pathways in technology early college high school” (P-TECH), I’ve had to become comfortable with the idea of building a program even as students are enrolled in it. Fortunately, my leadership team and I understand what our school will look like when everything is in place.

We have a blueprint that we’re implementing one year at a time, so we don’t have to do everything at once. We also have a partner, the Ulster Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES), that has successfully run a similar program for eight years providing guidance and support. Here’s how it’s working so far and why it’s so important to our students and our community.

Building the plane as we fly—with excellent mechanics aboard…Read More

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The Earth Prize 2023 Winners Announcement


On Monday, April 24th, The Earth Foundation held a fully virtual event, The Earth Prize 2023 Awards Ceremony, to announce the winner and runners-up of its USD 200,000 environmental sustainability competition for teenagers. Over 1,270 student teams registered from over 1,000 schools across 116 countries and territories for the 2023 edition of the competition.

Team Delavo, made up of four young women – Yagmur, Avjin, Damla and Irmak from Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey – was proclaimed the victorious recipient of the USD 100,000 grand prize that comes with The Earth Prize 2023 Winner title. The prize money will be split evenly between the team members and the educational institution with which they registered for the competition, Bahçeşehir Koleji Fen ve Teknoloji Liseleri (Diyarbakir Bahcesehir College for Science and Technology High School).

Inspired by the problem of water scarcity from droughts in the Tigris River basin where they live, the team’s winning idea is the “ECaundry” device, which addresses the fact that 20 gallons (75 liters) of toxic waste water from every load of laundry in the world’s washing machines contaminate the soil and groundwater. Once the ECaundry is hooked up to the machine its integrated hollow ultrafiltration tubes and carbon filter treat and reuse laundry waste water, thus conserving more than 90% of it.…Read More

Can technology help schools prevent AI-based cheating?

Since the public release of ChatGPT took the world by storm last fall, many educators have worried about students using the highly advanced, artificially intelligent chatbot for cheating on school assignments by passing off AI-generated work as their own. But if AI can be used to produce written content, can it also be used to determine whether a piece of writing was created by AI or by a human being?

That’s what Turnitin is hoping to do with a new feature the company has added to its existing writing tools. Beginning April 4, all Turnitin products—including Turnitin Feedback Studio (TFS), TFS with Originality, Turnitin Originality, Turnitin Similarity, SimCheck, Originality Check, and Originality Check+—will include AI detection capabilities for existing users.

Turnitin began working on detection capabilities for GPT3, the underlying technology upon which many AI writing applications are based, nearly two years before the release of ChatGPT.…Read More

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