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 connected laptops are a pathway to digital liberation

Key points:

  • Digital classrooms–and their remote students–are here to stay
  • School facilities face unprecedented demand for broadband across education sites

The introduction of always-connected PCs and Chromebooks continues to be the catalyst for digitally liberating many students. Now is an especially exciting time to turn to this idea as PC and Chromebook battery life innovation, as well as performance, speed, audio, and video enhancement, is finally getting to the level needed to handle the digital criteria and learning throughout a school day and beyond.

Hotspots were heralded as the rescue, but often without weighing the pros and cons, especially in relevance to long-term solutions. What’s been overlooked is the substantial amount of learning time wasted just to leverage hotspots for learning. Connected laptops are a streamlined solution as the connection is built in, flexible and fitting into the ever-changing education system without the disruption of time.…Read More

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HMH Completes Acquisition of NWEA

Learning technology company HMH announced that it has completed its acquisition of assets from research and educational services organization NWEA. The combined organization will harness the collective power of instruction and research-based insights to support educators in their efforts to drive better outcomes for students.

NWEA CEO Chris Minnich will join HMH’s executive leadership team as president of a new NWEA division. The division will maintain its current offerings including its flagship assessment MAP Growth and continue to offer platform-agnostic assessment solutions to its thousands of partners globally. In addition, educators will benefit from a connected solution linking NWEA’s assessments with HMH’s curriculum. This will enable them to better understand how students are growing academically and how to maximize that growth with content specific recommendations that advance student learning.

“We are thrilled to welcome NWEA’s talented and innovative team to the HMH community. Together, we are deeply focused on the transformative power of education,” said Jack Lynch, CEO of HMH. “We look forward to diving into our collective work in support of students and teachers.”…Read More

Lightspeed Systems’ New ‘Digital Equity’ Module Provides Actionable Insight Into Students’ Internet Connectivity And School-Issued Device Health When Learning Outside of School

AUSTIN, TX –  Lightspeed Systems, the leader in safe, secure and equitable education technology, announces  Digital Equity—a module that provides robust and real-time connectivity and device health data on students’ school-issued devices. Digital Equity helps school and district leaders understand the challenges students experience while trying to study outside of school so they can ensure all students stay connected to learning. 

According to the  2022 Student Home Connectivity Study from the Consortium for School Networking (COSN), gaps remain nationwide in network performance and internet speeds at all grade levels for students connecting from outside a school, with approximately one-third of high school students experiencing “Far Below” or “Below Guidelines” for connectivity from home. In addition, large disparities exist among student subgroups, particularly by ethnicity and socioeconomically disadvantaged students.  

Empowering school and district leaders, Digital Equity provides a complete, real-time view of each student’s school-issued devices, including a device’s overall health, operating system, internet speed, service provider and more. Leaders can drill-down into specific data on each individual student and their devices, as well as view overall district-wide usage to help identify local communities that need additional support and resources. Digital Equity is customizable, giving leaders the option to turn on specific data and usage stats.  …Read More

What is a predictive metaverse? The future of guided learning

The word ‘metaverse’ has certainly been used a lot recently, specifically within conversations around the advancement of technologies and the ever-changing landscape of how we work and live. More often than not, it is usually connected to the gaming industry and does not tend to come up in conversations about education. However, the AI-powered virtual world is becoming increasingly appealing to content creators and educators as they recognize how it can be used to improve engagement and creativity and create personalized learning programs.

What is a predictive metaverse?

A predictive metaverse is a hypothetical concept that refers to an advanced form of a virtual world that is powered by AI and machine learning algorithms. In this scenario, the metaverse would be able to predict and anticipate the actions and behaviors of its users. It is essentially taking virtual learning to the next level.…Read More

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Wayside Publishing and Nualang Partner for World Language Education

Freeport, Maine – Wayside Publishing announces the launch of Nualang within Learning Site®, Wayside’s digital learning platform. This pioneering collaboration brings advanced technology to the world language classroom, providing learners with opportunities to practice their listening and speaking skills in a safe, confidence-building environment.

“As Wayside Publishing grows, we continue to expand our range of creative and time-saving technologies for educators—ones that also provide students with engaging and supportive learning-enhancement tools,” says Wayside President Greg Greuel. “This partnership shows Wayside’s commitment to enhancing how we deliver products for the world languages education community. Initially, Nualang will be available for the readers connected to the EntreCulturas Companion Reader Edition, and we will continue to expand its availability for other languages and products.”

“We see immense potential with our partnership with Wayside Publishing. At Nualang, we take pride in our technological innovation. Our tools give Wayside the ability to bring content to life with digital conversation exercises that are linked to their products,” says Greg Cawley, CEO of Nualang. “Together, we provide an engaging and comprehensive language learning experience that seamlessly integrates with Wayside’s Learning Site® and reaches a wide audience of world languages educators and students.”…Read More

K-12 cybersecurity vendors: Is the threat already in your house?

K-12 vendors are key components in all aspects of K-12 education. From operational needs such as attendance and payroll to learning applications for reading, science, and mathematics, vendors ensure school districts operate as efficiently and effectively as possible.

But K-12 vendors are also one of the greatest single sources of cybersecurity vulnerability for schools and districts. The U.S. Government Accountability Office asserted that “cyberattacks carried out directly against edtech vendors […] tend to have an especially severe impact on K-12 because they affect a large swath of students across multiple school districts at the same time.”

In fact, K12 SIX’s annual report asserted that 55 percent of reported school data breaches in 2021 were connected to incidents originating from district vendors.…Read More

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5 tools every school tech director should use

Teaching methods have changed dramatically over the last few years, leading to numerous electronic resources entering the classroom. This makes school IT a formidable challenge—security experts have to juggle budget constraints with heavy traffic on the network due to a huge number of connected devices.

There is no stopping the use of technology to enhance student engagement and learning. Therefore, cybersecurity concerns are increasing along with K–12 schools’ dependence on technology.

While no network is impervious to assaults, a reliable and effective network security solution is crucial for safeguarding student data and decreasing districts’ vulnerability to data theft and sabotage.…Read More

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Clearlake Capital-Backed Discovery Education Acquires Pivot Interactives

Charlotte, NC — Discovery Education, a global edtech company backed by Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. (together with its affiliates, “Clearlake”), announced it has acquired Minneapolis, MN-based Pivot Interactives SBC. Led by a team of science teachers, practitioners, and students, Pivot Interactives develops dynamic cloud-based activities and labs that actively engage students in the authentic exploration of real scientific phenomena. Terms were not disclosed.  

The acquisition of Pivot Interactives supports Discovery Education’s mission to prepare learners for tomorrow by creating innovative classrooms connected to today’s world. Pivot Interactives will complement Discovery Education’s other successful digital services supporting science education, which include  Discovery Education’s K-12 platform,  Mystery Science, the  Science Techbook series, and  STEM Connect. 

Pivot Interactives is Discovery Education’s second acquisition this month, having also acquired  DoodleLearning. …Read More