Features


Don't Play It, Make It!

A new generation of gamers is not just picking up skills by playing video games--they're learning by designing and creating the games themselves.

Swimming With Data

How much data does a district really need to make informed decisions about student achievement? Not that much, it turns out, but districts likely can’t do it alone.

IT Transformation on a Budget

Up until last summer, Jackson-Steele Elementary School was in the dark ages when it came to information technology. Serving 225 students in a community where the average per capita income is about $21,000, the Hayneville, AL, school had little current technology and little IT budget to do anything about it....

Professional Development Just-in-Time and One-on-One

A new Gates Foundation-funded pilot is testing how effective professional development can be when the algebra teacher turns to an online coach in real time for assistance with lessons and classroom management.

Examining Green Cloud Claims

Cloud computing is touted as a "green" technology, but this claim fails to take into consideration the full environmental impact of the scalable resource. The energy savings a school can experience by reducing its hardware can be significant, but other environmental factors must also be addressed if the traditional green claims are declared valid.

L.A. School District Crowdsources Maintenance Requests

At the beginning of 2011, the LAUSD launched a pilot crowdsourcing program that has resulted in 1,000 repair requests in the first eight months of the year. Once fully implemented, it could cut the district's maintenance request-processing expenses by 80 percent.

QR Codes in the Classroom

Wyoming science teacher London Jenks not only allows mobile technologies in his classroom, but he's also learned how to maximize them as educational tools, tapping the devices for assessments, research, and even student scavenger hunts using QR codes.

When Students Run the Help Desk

A Massachusetts high school will take a bold step this fall by training students to handle most of the troubleshooting and problem solving for its new 1:1 iPad initiative.

Google+ May Open Social Networking for Some K-12 Schools

Thanks to granular privacy controls and a unique interface for controlled sharing, schools that have previously banned social networks are looking at Google+ as a viable alternative.

Migrating Administrative Systems to the Cloud

A New Hampshire high school is migrating its administrative systems to the cloud, a move that so far has allowed it to do things that weren't previously possible for its resource-strapped IT department. Among other things, the migration has enabled Sanborn Regional HS to implement a new student information system and add new nutrition management and health records management systems.

White Papers:

  • A New Mindset in Product Design PDF screen shot

    The terms "3D printing" and "additive manufacturing" refer to processes that automatically build objects layer by layer from computer data. 3D printing can accelerate the design process, improve designs and cut costs. Download this whitepaper to learn how this technology is already being used in education. Read more...