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.

Effective SEL instruction isn’t possible without this key element

Key points:

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is a critical component of education today, and that’s especially true in the wake of the global pandemic, which has left many students grappling with anxiety, depression, and other social-emotional challenges. While high-quality SEL involves many elements, at its foundation is the need to establish a welcoming and inclusive learning environment for every student.

SEL is the process by which students learn the skills they need to understand and manage their emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions. These skills are essential for navigating both academic and non-academic environments successfully, and they’re critical for improving behaviors, attitudes, and educational outcomes.…Read More

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District virtual schools need to innovate beyond flexibility and security

Key points:

  • It’s time to transform district virtual schools from pandemic stop-gaps into pioneering models of 21st-century learning
  • The sustainability of district virtual schools hinges on whether they can evolve beyond the current versions we see in most districts
  • See related article: 5 tips to keep online students motivated

Imagine a classroom where learning transcends physical boundaries, and where every student’s need is met with individualized attention. This isn’t a distant dream, but an emergent reality born in the wake of the global pandemic. 

Prior to the pandemic, approximately 375,000 students attended online schools—less than 1% of the total number of US K–12 students. But as the crisis unfolded in 2020, virtual schools became a preferred educational choice for a significant number of families. Our survey in August 2021 found that 43% of districts had introduced a full-time virtual school option during the pandemic. These were new schools that students and families could opt into, separate from the emergency remote instruction commonly provided during the pandemic though existing brick-and-mortar schools.…Read More

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ISTE23 Redux—AR/VR Over AI?

Up until about Thanksgiving last year, another acronym that began with the letter “A” was most popular in education circles. Like AI, it has mixed reviews on its practical effectiveness but still carries excitement in its potential. 

Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR) was and is still at the forefront of edtech as evidenced by the show floor at ISTE last week. According to ResearchAndMarkets.com’s  “Virtual Reality In Education Global Market Report 2023” report, space grew from $8.67 billion in 2022 to $11.95 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow to $46.14 billion in 2027. Major players like Google, Microsoft Corporation, Meta, Samsung and Lenovo continue to invest major resources into its development.

To help break down just where the technology is as it relates to being a true teaching tool in the classroom today I spoke with ClassVR’s Chris Klein. The company was launched at the Bett Show in London in January 2017 and has since been installed in more than 40,000 classrooms worldwide. Have a listen.…Read More

Pearson’s Connections Academy Launches New College and Career Prep Initiative

HOBOKEN –  Pearson, the world’s leading learning company, announced today that Connections Academy, its K-12 online school program will expand its slate of college and career readiness initiatives for middle and high school students. The initiatives feature partnerships with Coursera, the global online learning platform, Acadeum, the largest course sharing network in higher education, e-Dynamic Learning, a provider of Career Technical Education for middle and high school students, and Credly, a global leader in digital credentialing.

The career readiness initiatives for high school students will offer an innovative new tri-credit approach where courses can deliver:

  • High school credit from Connections Academy
  • Industry-recognized micro-credentials on Coursera, and
  • Eligibility for college credit toward over 150 bachelor’s degree programs in the U.S. via the Coursera/Acadeum college and university partner network

The industry credentials available can help qualify high school students for careers in fields like data analytics, UX design, software development, and cybersecurity, while also allowing them to earn eligible credit and cost savings toward a college degree.…Read More

Savannah-Chatham County Public School System Selects D2L Brightspace to Provide a More Unified Learning Experience

TORONTO /PRNewswire/ – D2L, a global learning technology company, announced today that Savannah-Chatham County Public School System, the 10th largest school district in Georgia, has selected D2L Brightspace to support student learning and teacher professional development.

With a current enrollment of more than 36,000 students and 5,600 employees, Savannah-Chatham County Public School System is the largest employer in Chatham County. This school system is the winner of two National Blue Ribbon Schools and has outperformed the state graduation rate average eight years in a row.

Recognizing the need for a consolidated learning platform to support student learning and professional development, Savannah-Chatham County Public School System selected D2L Brightspace for its ability to help provide teachers with access to curriculum, content creation and upskilling – all in one place. D2L Brightspace will help provide Savannah-Chatham teachers with a space to access consistent teaching and learning materials and help enable them to reach and empower students throughout their educational journeys.…Read More

These Education Startups Are All Business

The pandemic forced the greatest beta test in education history—billions of students pushed home and online. And while there were obvious devastating effects with which we are still coming to terms, there were also plenty of innovations that sprung from the experience. Many of those ideas and techniques are reflected in this year’s crop of finalists for the Milken-Penn GSE Education Business Plan Competition (EBPC) according to John Gamba, Penn GSE’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence. 

Catalyst @ Penn GSE—a global center for education innovation at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education (Penn GSE)—and the Michael and Lori Milken Family Foundation announced the selections this week. The finalists’ ventures are focused on some of the biggest challenges in education, including college access and persistence, social-emotional learning, literacy, adaptive learning, and more. 

Considered the most prestigious and well-funded competition of its kind, the EBPC attracts innovative education ventures from around the world. To date, the EBPC has awarded over $1.8 million dollars in cash and prizes. Winners and finalists have gone on to secure more than $180 million in funding.…Read More

Swing Education Raises $38 Million in Series C Funding

SAN FRANCISCO  – Swing Education, an online marketplace that connects schools and substitute teachers, announced today $38 million in Series C funding. The funding round was led by funds advised by Apax Partners LLP (“Apax”), a leading global private equity advisory firm, and by edtech investment firm Reach Capital. The funding enables Swing Education to invest in its growth and better address the nation-wide substitute teacher shortage.

This financing follows a 2018 Series B funding co-led by GV (formerly Google Ventures) and Owl Ventures and a seed round from a consortium that included Social Capital, Kapor Capital, Moment Ventures, Ulu Ventures, Red House Education, and Edovate Capital.

Swing believes that every classroom deserves a teacher, and every student deserves to learn without disruption. Since its founding in 2015, Swing has worked to improve the experience of being a substitute teacher and made it easier for K-12 schools to grow and manage their substitute teacher pools. Swing currently works with over 2,800 school partners and in the 2022-23 school year has supported these schools in filling over one million instructional hours with substitute teachers. …Read More

3 new school grant opportunities

Key points:

Each day, teachers are tasked with doing more and more with increasingly fewer resources. And despite federal emergency funding to help schools provide staff and resources as the pandemic abates, school leaders still grapple with funding challenges.

School grants are often one-time funding opportunities, and while they are not permanent policy changes, grants often help students earn much-needed scholarship money, gain valuable experiences, and they also connect teachers with classroom resources or professional development.…Read More

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How AI enhances personalization in education

Key points:

  • AI can provide new opportunities and allow us to see things differently
  • AI tools can help create learner profiles to give educators a more accurate impression of students

Learning now is so much more than making notes from a textbook and critiquing other people’s ideas. It is cultivating your own vision of the future and how things can be improved to better our lives and advance the next generation. AI technology is a key driver in this change and will enable students to have a deeper understanding of global events and how they can make an impact. Personalization in education is just one pillar of AI that I want to explore.

In many ways, AI is an extension of ourselves. It can help offload the typically boring tasks we have to put up with and realise our potential by accessing new information and learning at our own speed.…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

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