The Consortium on School Networking’s latest State of Ed Tech Leadership Survey reveals that despite warnings from multiple agencies and rising incidents of ransomware attacks targeting K–12 schools, IT leaders continue to underestimate the risk of ransomware to their districts, and IT departments remain woefully understaffed with very few having a dedicated full-time employee managing cybersecurity, CoSN said.
Almost 17 million students had no access to the internet in their homes at the start of the pandemic, while many more were impeded by unreliable internet connectivity and slow speeds. This divide wasn’t only restricted to rural locations; it was mirrored in towns and cities too.
Online learning can be an important tool for advancing student equity by bringing instructional opportunities to students that didn’t exist for them before. However, as we’ve seen during the pandemic, online instruction can sometimes widen equity gaps if the circumstances aren’t favorable. For online learning to support student equity, here are five critical elements that must be in place.
A new survey of 1,000 parents of school-age children found that nearly half (48%) reported technological barriers that hindered their kids' academic success over the last year. Barriers included limited equipment, lack of Wi-Fi and other factors.
The nonprofit that helped close the school digital gap is now back, with a new goal: Making sure families who need home access to affordable broadband can get it.
EducationSuperHighway is shifting its attention away from the needs of K-12 internet connectivity and to the unconnected American household. The nonprofit, which helped close down the "classroom connectivity gap," has a new mission: to make sure the 18.1 million households that can't afford to connect to broadband get it.
While a lot of districts and schools struggled on their own during the early months of the pandemic to come up with ways to figure out which of their students needed access to computing gear and broadband, the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) has had a better idea: Why not come up with a standardized way to collect that information that local education agencies can turn to when the need arises?
The Texas county that houses Houston will be rolling out a private LTE network using Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum. The major beneficiary for the initial phase will be families with students that lack high-speed internet access. The project is being funded with CARES Act money.
Cleveland Metropolitan School District in Ohio is helping to connect families to the internet for remote learning. Initially, the district is expected to push free broadband to about 5,300 families.