The Changing Role of the CTO

A panel of top-level technology leaders from five school districts looks back on the role of the CTO in K–12 education and how it's transforming in the new year.

Making Virtual Reality a Reality in Today's Classrooms

MIT education researcher Meredith Thompson shares three vignettes of three different approaches to virtual reality in K–12: a social studies class in a suburban school district, a district-wide perspective from an urban school district and a class designed entirely around understanding and implementing VR for other classrooms.

Training Cuts Phishing Success

A new study by a security training company has found that even a few months of security awareness instruction can have a big impact on how well recipients respond to phishing attempts. In the education segment, specifically, KnowBe4 found that 27.16 percent of staff were "phishing-prone" — likely to open e-mails or click on files containing malware. After three months of training, the same people were 30 percent less likely to open such e-mail; and after a year, they were 88 percent less likely to do so.

Most Popular Password Is 123456

Recently, researchers at security firm 4iQ reported that they'd found a database of 1.4 billion clear text credentials, an aggregate database twice as large as any other ever uncovered in the dark web. The password 123456 was found in the database 9.2 million times.

PC Market Sees First Holiday Quarter Growth in 6 Years

Global shipments of PCs showed a slight year-on-year improvement in the fourth quarter of 2017, up 0.7 percent to 70.6 million sales, according to a new report.

3D Printing to Grow by Double Digits Through 2021

Spending on 3D printing will reach nearly $12 billion this year, up 19.9 percent over 2017, according to a new report from International Data Corp. The United States will lead spending as it accounts for about a third, $4.1 billion, of the total this year. Western Europe will follow with about $3.5 billion, and China will take the third spot as it spends $1.5 billion.

Google Adds Security Features to G Suite for Education, Launches Enterprise EDU Edition

Google today took the wraps off new security features for its education productivity suite, G Suite for Education, which includes Google Classroom, Docs, Sheets, Slides and a range of other tools.

NC District Hit with Malware Costing $314,000 for Cleanup

Rockingham County School District Superintendent Rodney Shotwell explained that even after all of the infected computers at the district were cleaned and re-imaged, they became re-infected. At that point the district IT team called in the cavalry, including the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as local IT experts.

Ransomware Breach Strikes 700 Texas Students

A compromised computer led to a data breach in Texas affecting 39 school districts.

Apple Waives Developer Fees for Schools, Nonprofits

Members of the developer program are able to distribute apps through the Apple App Store and gain access to tools such as app analytics, beta testing resources such as TestFlight, beta software and advanced app capabilities.

Proposals Sought for $500,000 to $4 Million Gates Foundation Grants

A range of organizations may qualify as intermediaries, including nonprofit school improvement organizations, charter management organizations, higher education institutions and school districts, for example.

$1 Million DoD Grant to Improve Math Achievement, STEM Career Readiness

Much of the funding will go toward professional development, interventionists and counselors, to help students look ahead toward their careers, as well as summer STEM programs.

Free Toolkit Promises Better Shift for Students from Head Start into Kindergarten

Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, school districts that take federal funding are supposed to develop written agreements with Head Start and other early childhood providers to improve coordination.

New Service Uses Speech Recognition, Auto-Scoring for Early Reader Assessment

Non-profit NWEA is launching a new oral reading fluency assessment for K-3 that uses speech recognition, automatic scoring and computer adaptive technology rather than human judgment and individual administration.

Rural Education Program Seeks Nominees for STEM Grant

Vic Worthington, a science teacher at Rochelle Middle School, previously won a $25,000 grant through the program and used a portion of the funds to build a 3D printer and then spent a year researching, designing and building a prosthetic arm for a local farmer.

Sub-$200 Windows 10 Laptops Debuting This Week

At the Bett 2018 conference this week, Microsoft Education is showing off new Windows 10 notebooks and 2-in-1 devices for K–12 schools that start below $200.

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