How to Craft Useful, Student-Centered Social Media Policies

Whether your school or district has officially adopted social media or not, conversations are happening in and around your school on everything from Facebook to Snapchat. Schools must reckon with this reality and commit to supporting thoughtful and critical social media use among students, teachers and administrators. If not, schools and classrooms risk everything from digital distraction to privacy violations.

How to Bounce Back After an 11th-Hour Technology Switch

Five steps to finding, implementing, and rolling out a technology platform in a pinch.

Teacher Absent? How Tech Can Bridge the Gap

The teacher-absence policy at my school was clear: The teacher isn't coming to school? No technology for the class. The rationale is that it's just not worth it. Devices are too valuable to be trusted with kids when they don't have experienced supervision. Only the classroom teacher can manage classroom tech.

What We Can Learn from New Orleans' Post-Katrina School Reforms

Reforms put in place in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005 turned out to have many positive impacts, according to a new report published by the Education Research Alliance. The move to state-controlled charters boosted student achievement, high school graduation rates, college entry numbers, the college persistence rate and the college graduation rate.

Combining Data from Multiple Digital Learning Tools Produces Better Predictions

A study undertaken jointly by the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and education technology companies Blackboard and VitalSource found that early activity with digital tools is a "strong predictor" of passing a class — even more so than the grade point average a student enters the class with.

Personalized Learning Top Priority for Tech Usage in K–12

The top learning priority in education for technology use is personalized learning. More than nine in 10 respondents to a survey on the topic reported that in the pursuit of encouraging personalized learning their districts 1) provide software or digital curriculum to classrooms (designated by 96 percent of participants); 2) provide computing devices to classrooms (94 percent); and 3) provide professional development in personalized learning practices (92 percent). Two-thirds of districts (65 percent) also assess teachers on their implementation of personalized learning practices.

Educators Largely Uncomfortable with Newer Tech-Based Teaching Practices

A majority of teachers expressed discomfort with newer teaching practices that rely on technology and said they need more collaborative planning time with their peers, in addition to traditional PD.

Access to Power a Limiting Factor for Classroom Device Use

A report being released this week finds that a sizable chunk of educators do not have access to enough outlets or charging stations to support the devices used in their classrooms.

Minecraft EDU to Make iPad Debut

Minecraft: Education Edition is coming to the iPad platform in September.

Google Polishes Education Offerings

In time for back-to-school season, Google has polished its education offerings. Changes include updates to Classroom, Google Docs, its virtual reality offerings and teacher training.

Feds to Pump $1.2 Billion into CTE Next Year

After six years of kicking around the official language for an updated Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education bill, Congress and the president have voted and signed the act into law. The Perkins Act, H.R. 2353 (115), which has been considered for reauthorization since 2012, commits between $1.2 billion and $1.3 billion for the program over the next six years.

Cloud Service Consolidates School Payments

A new cloud-based payment platform is intended to help schools and community groups accept and process payments from multiple systems and have them accessed through one interface. Families can pay directly through the school's website, and payments are tracked through a single dashboard on the school side of the transaction.

Abre.io Releases IEP Builder, Forms and PD Tracker Apps

Ed tech company Abre.io has released three new apps as part of its education management platform, including one designed to help build IEP and 504 plans.

Acer STEAM Lab Makeover Contest Entries Due This Month

The application period for Acer's STEAM Lab Makeover contest is coming to a close in a few weeks. The contest will award a mixed-reality technology package to one school.

AWS Dual Enrollment Program Ramps up in California

A group of community colleges in Southern California is working with Amazon Web Services and its education program to develop college credit courses for a cloud computing career pathway that starts in high school, continues through college and leads to industry certifications. The goal of the "CA Cloud Workforce Consortia" is to expand this common curriculum and develop a regional career pathway program and certificate.

GitHub Expands Learning Lab Courses

GitHub has released four new courses on its Learning Lab, an online learning hub intended for people "of all skill levels."

Kaltura Intros Simple Personal Video Capture Program

Kaltura Personal Capture lets users record both screen and camera in one click.

Microsoft Ships $399 Surface Go Device for Schools

Microsoft has rolled out its new Surface Go, a $399 version of the popular Surface 2-in-1 device. Schools deploying Surface Go will have the option of running either Windows 10 Home in S mode or Windows 10 Pro.

RealNetworks Promotes Free Use of Facial Recognition in Schools

According to the company, its software can recognize faces at varying degrees and distances from the camera, in myriad poses, that are partially obscured, that have different expressions, that are heavily made up or that are captured in extreme lighting conditions.

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