THEJournal.com editor and host Kristal Kuykendall visits with several K–12 educators, instructional coaches, and education technology specialists who participated in the Apple Learning Coach pilot program before it was launched publicly this past March and they share deep insights and inspiring stories about how ALC has been a change agent at their schools: from helping spark new enthusiasm among students and teachers, and improving the frameworks of existing teacher coaching programs, to building technology-powered instruction that dramatically increases student engagement, creation, and collaboration.
Aptitude assessment and CTE solutions provider YouScience has acquired the National Center for College and Career Transitions, or NC3T, expanding YouScience’s ability to help K–12 students find and prepare for the career and college options that best fit their interests and abilities, according to a news release.
Vector Solutions, a company that provides education and industry training courses, announced it has added eight new courses to its stable of education courses for K–12 schools. The courses address key areas of cybersecurity awareness for education leaders and employees and include topics such as creating a cybersecurity culture, preventing social engineering attacks, laws and compliance, best practices, and more. Information about the courses will be available starting Oct. 1, 2022.
THE Journal’s “7 Questions: Ed Tech Explainer” series gives ed tech leaders an opportunity to summarize their solution(s), explain how their product helps educators and schools, and give a quick overview for K–12 decision-makers — sort of an extended (but not too extended) elevator pitch. For this installment, SchoolStatus Founder and CEO Russ Davis explains how SchoolStatus works in a school tech ecosystem, how it helps educators and students, and how it's pivoted over the past year.
Learning technology company HMH this week introduced a host of enhancements to Ed, its teaching and learning platform, including integrations with Google Classroom and Clever and improvements to its core, supplemental, and intervention solutions and professional learning services, according to a company blog post.
Apple has launched a new professional learning hub for educators called the Apple Education Community, which expands on the resources previously hosted on the Apple Teacher Learning Center and adds a brand new educator Forum, now live in beta.
To start using Google add-ons, district admins will need to set up add-ons and can then enable access for educators; admins need to have the Google Workspace for Education Plus edition or Teaching & Learning Upgrade assigned to each educator that they want to have access to add-ons, Google wrote on its blog announcing the launch. Here are step-by-step instructions for getting started with Google add-ons.
K–12 learning platform Discovery Education this week unveiled a new layout and look for both teachers and students, doubled the size of its ready-to-use quiz library, improved search filters, added an Explore page with personalized content recommendations, and launched new professional microlearning focused on competency-based education with content partner Marzano Academies.
A literacy and intervention director at a California district with a serious literacy issue — only 16% of its 22,000 students in TK–12 were reading at or above grade level districtwide — explains how they used technology to overhaul the district's literacy professional development program and address access and equity problems.
When Felisa Ford and her instructional tech colleagues in Atlanta had trouble getting the district's teachers on board with using Minecraft: Education Edition, she created a student ambassador program to empower young Minecraft experts to coach other students and teachers, and it was so successful that Microsoft started a learning path for educators to sponsor their own local student ambassador programs. Then came Good Trouble.