EdTech
Education Technology is a multi-billion dollar sector of companies innovating in both software and hardware for teaching, learning, and running schools, districts, and state and federal education departments. We document some of the most essential technical innovations and companies that support learning, teaching and more.
Innovation: Creating and Learning in AR, VR
As a long-standing fan of technology and the endless possibilities, any time I learn about a new tool, I either immediately create an account and try to figure it out on my own or I learn just enough about it to get my students started working on something.
Making Data Work Together Is the Key to Better Achievement
By: John LaPlante. In the Youngstown City Schools, a high-poverty school district serving about 5,000 students in northeastern Ohio, our students face significant challenges. Making the most of data is helping us face those challenges.
Equity and Innovation at NewSchools Summit
With a call to leverage diversity for innovations in learning, Stacey Childress opened the 2018 NewSchools Summit (#NSVFsummit) in San Francisco. The national nonprofit catalyzes new schools, encourages better EdTech tools and develops diverse EdLeaders. Tom shares highlights from the summit and more.
10 Classroom-Ready Computational Thinking Resources for K-12
By: Dacia Jones. Computational thinking can help prepare the next generation for the future of work. It teaches students to process information like a computer would. It'll guide students through a series of steps, similar to an algorithm, to solve open-ended problems.
How We Increased Teachers’ Data Use Without Data Overload
By: Debbie Clark and Stephanie Williamson. The problem is not that schools aren’t collecting enough information about student performance. It’s that teachers have too much data. It’s overwhelming for them. They don’t know what data points to focus on—and they don’t have time to be combing through massive amounts of data to figure out what students need.
Data Interoperability: Applying Playground Principles to EdTech
Share. Play nicely together. Get along with others. For most of us, these lessons are imparted at a tender and impressionable age in order to lay the groundwork for our development into successful adults. Why doesn't data work this way?
A Lean Approach to Literacy Technology
By Janine Caffrey - Eric Reis, who wrote the business bestseller The Lean Startup, says there are five principles behind the lean process--each has a correlate that can be adapted to the education community’s adoption of literacy technology. Learn more here.
Tools for Project-Based Learning: The Landscape Today
The spread of access to low-cost devices holds great promise for giving more students high quality project-based experiences, but tech has yet to become a panacea for the challenges of PBL. In this post, we look at the recent history of PBL-oriented edtech, and draw some predictions about where it’s headed.
Leveraging Digital Depth Technologies in Education
Because of the hype surrounding wearable, augmented reality and virtual reality technologies, it is important for educators to have a frame for thinking through the various ways that they might be employed for learning and what the implications of using them might be.
Using Popular Motivational Theories to Evaluate Digital Tools
By Dr. Rachel Schechter - Edtech providers are rapidly developing and launching programs. That is potentially great news, but not when that rapid development reflects quantity over quality. Keeping best practices in mind when deciding on digital tools puts both educators and students on surer footing.