common Archives

4 pieces of advice for aspiring tutors

Key points:

You don’t have to be an expert to be a tutor–you just need a willingness to learn as an adult

Working with a reputable tutoring organization is essential

See related article: 6 keys to effective tutoring

What do directing planes to land successfully on the runway and directing students to read successfully in the classroom have in common? A lot, as I found out during my transition to tutor following three decades of managing the flow of aircraft around the country.

When I joined the Air Force in 1988, I became an Air Traffic Controller. I didn’t know it then, but this job would lead me down a path that included an eight-year military career and 22 years at the Department of Defense. During my 30 years of service, I managed both the training, and standardization and evaluation departments before becoming the tower chief controller.…Read More

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ISTELive, Abbott Elementary, and a push for Black educator representation

Key points:

Black male teachers are desperately needed in U.S. schools

Getting more Black teachers–and Black male teachers–means suggesting education career paths early on and understanding students’ cultural experiences

See related article: 5 ways the homework gap is worse for students of color

Representation matters, and when students have educators who look like them, it does wonders for their learning experience. At ISTELive 23’s opening mainstage event, featured speakers sat down for a chat about the challenges around representation and getting more Black educators—particularly Black male educators—into classrooms.

Director of ISTE Certification Carmalita Seitz sat down with Joyce Abbott, the inspiration behind Abbott Elementary’s name and a recently retired educator; Tyler James Williams, 2023 Golden Globe winner for best supporting actor as teacher Gregory Eddie on Abbott Elementary; and Sharif El-Mekki, CEO of the Center for Black Educator Development to discuss just how much representation matters for students and teachers.…Read More

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Defending against the most common cyberattacks

Key points:

Schools are using more edtech than ever–but they’re also more vulnerable to cyberattacks

Account monitoring, strong passwords, and strict access controls are just a few of the strategies schools can use to protect their networks

See related article: 4 key ways schools can strengthen and advance cybersecurity strategies

K-12 schools are facing an increased risk of cyberattacks due to a combination of competing factors. School districts have sprawling networks where availability often takes precedence over security, but are constrained in managing those networks by limited resources and overstretched IT teams.

Meanwhile, the increased use of cloud-based email and remote learning technologies, along with inadequately managed virtual private networks (VPNs), have made schools an attractive target for the types of basic attacks that larger organizations are better prepared to defend against.…Read More

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How asynchronous tech can bridge the digital divide

When pondering the future of education, it’s understandable that most of us will slip into Utopian scenarios. Think Garrison Keiler’s Lake Wobegon, “where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.” The reality, of course, is always going to be different.

So it is when discussing the idea of digital equity. Every student deserves the right to high-bandwidth, solid-state, always-on access to the Internet, right? Reality check: A 2021 report from Common Sense Media found that 15 to 16 million K-12 public school students in the U.S. live in homes with inadequate internet or computing devices. This represents around 30 percent of all public school students in the U.S.

That doesn’t mean those students can’t get the education they deserve. I had the pleasure of speaking with Ryan Ross, CEO of Olivia Technologies, about their attempts to address this issue through synching techniques that don’t require access to the Internet outside the school campus. Their solution has been deployed in schools in Texas and Hawaii, where in certain areas, over 30 percent of students do not have reliable internet connectivity. …Read More

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Open LMS Partners With Copyleaks, Adding Advanced AI-Driven Plagiarism and AI Content Detection

Raleigh, N.C. — Open LMS, a leading global provider of open-source learning management systems (LMSs), today announces its new partnership with Copyleaks, the leading AI-based text analysis, plagiarism identification, and AI-content detection platform. This partnership comes at a critical time when AI-generated content is becoming more prevalent in all industries, particularly academia.

Copyleaks uses advanced AI to detect AI-generated content, including outputs from cutting-edge AI tools such as ChatGPT-4. It also detects various forms of plagiarism while accounting for a wide range of common detection-evasion tactics such as hidden characters, paraphrasing, and even image-based text plagiarism. Through these methods, the tool provides institutions and organizations with a deeper understanding of the composition of submitted content while exposing attempts to deceive detection software.

Open LMS and Copyleaks’ partnership adds a powerful tool to clients’ arsenals as conversations around AI-generated content intensify.…Read More

Outsourcing student assessments can revitalize teaching

Key points:

There are several reasons it can be problematic for teachers to be assessors

New staffing models could create more balanced assessments and grading

See related story: 8 questions for educators as they use assessments to support student learning

As a restaurant manager, how would you feel if you were suddenly tasked with inspecting the food in your own kitchen? Or as a gymnastics coach, how would you react if you were asked to score your own team’s performances in a competition? It’s clear that when one person is both a manager or coach and an evaluator, conflicts of interest can arise. Yet, in the field of education, it’s common for teachers to both instruct their students and grade their academic achievements.

In conventional K-12 education, teachers are expected to wear many hats. They must design and deliver effective lessons, assess student learning, manage classroom behavior, and build relationships with students and families. But what if we could unbundle the role of the teacher and distribute these responsibilities across a team of experts?…Read More

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K-12 Security Essentials for Beginners

There are few industries that have felt the transformational touch of technology quite like education. In this e-book, we address the unique cybersecurity threats that impact K-12 education, highlight why it is so critical to proactively address them and:…Read More

How did the pandemic impact students’ social capital?

Students’ access to opportunities in life largely depends on their access to diverse, supportive relationships. Now, updated Christensen Institute research illustrates the impact students’ connections and relationships have on their ability to achieve success in adulthood–and underscores the need for schools to track this data as they measure students’ progress.

The updated report augments ongoing research and provides education leaders with the tools, knowledge, and sample survey items to make important strides toward measuring students’ networks in more equitable, meaningful, and actionable ways.

Emerging research from other organizations has strengthened the need to understand just how important relationships and resources are to students, particularly as opportunity gaps grow even wider.…Read More

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How our district improved a 5 percent attendance rate

Here at Eagle Pass Independent School District, we’re right on the border of the United States and Mexico. Approximately 95 percent of our students are Hispanic, and most of them speak Spanish. Ours is a tight-knit community where many people live next door to family members, which is wonderful, but it also brought some challenges during the pandemic.

COVID just kept cycling through the community over and over again, and it was common to hear people talking about how they’d had it a half dozen times. The number of people who died in our community was heartbreaking, and it scared a lot of people. The New York Times even published a story in August of 2020 about the high rate of new infections here.

When we returned to completely in-person schooling, families didn’t want to send their students back to school. They were scared, and they didn’t understand why we couldn’t do another year of virtual school. …Read More

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4 simple strategies to help students ace standardized tests

Standardized tests can be hard on students. Many of us still remember the frustration and anxiety we experienced when we were younger and sat down for our first round of testing. To make matters worse, it’s fairly common for students who are doing well academically to find themselves stymied by a single bad testing experience.

This “Know-Show Gap” can prevent teachers and schools from being able to represent the good work they do for the public. Thankfully, this doesn’t have to be the case–so long as both teachers and students plan accordingly.

By helping students prepare for tests mentally and physically, teachers can help them overcome even the trickiest of obstacles. These following strategies have been proven to help minimize the Know-Show Gap so students can prove what they really can do: …Read More

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