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.

The 21st century learning mantra is played out

The world is changing in remarkable ways, and the pace of this change is only accelerating. Thanks to unprecedented advances in technology, society continues to evolve at an exponential rate. The rapidity of change has led to dramatic shifts in all aspects of life, from how people communicate and collaborate to how they solve problems, create projects, and consume content (Sheninger, 2019).

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is upon us, and it is drastically different from the previous three, with the hallmark of this period being the momentous evolution of digital technology. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is defined as “a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.” Rapid advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, the internet of things, and biotechnology characterize this revolution.

This high-speed evolution of technology has drastically changed the way we communicate. Social media platforms have revolutionized how people interact, allowing them to connect with each other no matter where they are in the world. People can now instantly share their thoughts and experiences with people worldwide, creating a truly global community. This phenomenon has enabled people to collaborate on a global scale, working together to solve complex problems and create far-reaching projects that would have been impossible in the past.…Read More

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Students need freedom to develop critical skills with edtech

After decades of working with educational technology, I’ve come to the realization that technology will have its greatest impact in the classroom when educators allow learners to use digital technology as a self-directed learning tool. This means not just providing students with laptops and online resources, but ensuring they have the necessary skills to find, validate, apply, and curate the vast amount of information now available to them.

More importantly, they must be given control of when and how these digital tools are used. Think about how adults use their smartphones; they use them whenever they need to. No one is dictating when they can use it, how they can use it, or where they can use it–why don’t we allow learners to do the same?

Imagine a classroom where students have unfettered access to digital tools and resources whenever needed. That would be a very different classroom than the ones I’ve experienced, but one that would be able to support the digital learners in our classrooms today.…Read More

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Hays CISD: Using Display Technology to Engage Students and Promote a School’s Mission

Hays Consolidated Independent School District, located south of Austin, Texas, comprises 25 K-12 schools and is one of the fast-growing districts in the state. Like many K-12 districts around the country, Hays CISD schools are avid users of projection technology to present information in classrooms. The district also has adopted a software application, Mirroring360, that allows students and teachers to share content from mobile devices via computers in the classrooms.

Hays CISD has also started introducing new digital technology, such as flat-screen displays for digital signage. “We’ve begun deploying digital signage systems throughout the school,” says Dianne Borreson, Chief Technology Officer for Hays CISD. “For example, cafeterias have digital displays for menus.”

At Hays CISD’s Johnson High School, the district went big into video, with a wall of 86-inch LG stretch monitors in the front of the school to highlight the school’s mission and provide a visual canvas for communicating with students, staff and visitors.…Read More

How to protect your district from ransomware attacks

As with almost every industry, COVID-19 has required educational institutions to embrace digital technology for remote learning and student, teacher, and internal administrative meetings and collaboration.

Web applications are adapting the learning experience, and streamlining the way educational institutions work. K-12, college, and university campuses are increasingly reliant upon these digital technologies.

While campus IT departments work hard to accommodate the diverse needs of users, IT complexity has created many challenges. Cybercrime is up, and no school or university is immune. The new “learn from anywhere” environment has dramatically increased the number of remote students, faculty, and administrators, who are on the frontlines of a growing cyberwar.…Read More

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4 ways AR/VR can transform your lesson plan

The post-1990’s generation, Gen Z, doesn’t remember a world without digital technology. In fact, the children of millennials, born after 2010, are sometimes described as Generation Alpha. They are poised to be the most tech-savvy demographic to date, with a pathway to success that is largely shaped by video, e-books, podcasts, voice command, and the advent of virtual reality (VR) headsets and augmented reality (AR).

As our business and personal lives increasingly merge with the digital environment, the progression to a more technologically focused model in the classroom is gaining momentum. This trend is reflected in the growing demand for VR and AR applications as equipment becomes cheaper and easier to use while proving its value as an educational tool.

Even though technology has allowed knowledge to be more easily attained for more people, there are roadblocks to learning that must be surmounted. Traditional teaching methods too often focus on providing facts and delivering large amounts of information. The result? A bored, disengaged room of students who are not sure about what they are learning and why.…Read More

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Introducing the math selfie

Math selfies, QR codes, and Kahoot games enrich one school

Sure, you may have taken a selfie, but you likely haven’t taken an equivalent fraction selfie — and if you ask the Jefferson Elementary School fourth-graders in Jennifer Moser’s fourth-grade math class, you haven’t really lived until you’ve snapped, uploaded and shared your share of equivalent fraction selfies.

These high-tech, mathematically-savvy and, let’s face it, just plain cool selfies are just one way Wichita Falls ISD students are using digital technology in their classrooms as a way to enhance and enrich learning.

Teams of administrators spent much of Wednesday visiting these classrooms, part of the District Classroom Pilot Program, as part of the nationwide Digital Technology Day. They wanted to see the innovative ways educators are using such technology. The district launched the program this school year, supplying 42 teachers across all grade levels and subject areas with iPad Minis, Google Chromebooks or laptops for a cost of about $475,000.…Read More

Now is the time for digital tech to transform K-12 learning

The time has come to extend digital connectivity to every student in every classroom, the Huffington Post reports. Access to the internet is an essential tool for equipping students with 21st century skills. And as the debate over the future of education heats up, traditional learning methods are being called into question, and we’re starting to see the K-12 landscape being reshaped in bold new ways. As the world continues its love affair with smart phones and tablets, mobile has become so essential to our lives that most people couldn’t imagine life without it. Over the next five years, smartphone shipments are expected to surpass the seven billion mark, which is roughly the equivalent of the world’s population…

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