THE Journal – Transforming Education through Technology
Saisei Debuts Net Neutrality in a Box
Saisei, a company that develops network analysis and control software, has introduced Net-Neutrality-in-a-Virtual-Box, a simplified version of its FlowCommand network performance enforcement software.
Report: Schools Should Focus More on Soft Skills
A new study from Wainhouse Research finds that a large minority, 39 percent, of education stakeholders say their schools should be doing a better job of preparing students for the workforce.
Colorado District Deploys Fiber Optic WAN
Colorado’s Fountain-Fort Carson School District 8 has deployed a fiber optic wide area network (WAN) connecting 15 facilities and offering speeds capable of 10 Gigabits per second or more.
LifeJourney Partners with CyberTech on STEM Mentoring Platform
LifeJourney has partnered with CyberTech in an effort to bring its STEM career platform to more schools.
5 Key Ways To Stretch Your Tech Budget
Chet Bembenek, technology manager for a small district in Wisconsin, shares his tips for making the most of the typically limited technology budgets schools have to work with.
8-Year-Old Wins Tech Portfolio for Her School
The essay by a third-grader won thousands of dollars of equipment and software for her East Los Angeles elementary school.
U Akron To Host STEM Career Day for Middle, High School Students
The University of Akron will host a STEM career day featuring a challenge asking students in grades 6-12 to build a Rube Goldberg machine in competition for $15,000 in prizes.
Xamarin Expands Free Program for Student Developers
Xamarin, a mobile development platform for building, testing and monitoring applications on multiple operating systems, has expanded its Xamarin for Students program and joined the Microsoft Imagine program for student developers.
3 Tips To Caffeinate Teacher and Student Presentations
An award-winning teacher and author shares her secrets for transforming slide shows into interactive learning experiences.
McGraw-Hill Education To Enable Personalized Learning Experiences
This fall, McGraw-Hill Education will launch new technology in conjunction with Microsoft that will allow educators to build their own “compound learning objects” that can be adapted to individual classes or even students.
Saint Paul Schools Adds Communication Tools To Improve Parent, Community Egagement
Minnesota’s Saint Paul Public Schools has adopted a new set of communication tools in an effort to more effectively engage with parents and the community.
10 Florida Districts Crowdsource Assessment Tools
A group of 10 rural school districts in Northeastern Florida are joining forces to “crowdsource” their assessment tools.
ED Debuts Tech Developer’s Guide
The United States Department of Education has released its first guide for developers, startups and entrepreneurs.
Aerohive Updates HiveManager with Simplified On-Boarding, Troubleshooting
Aerohive Networks has released a new version of its cloud-enabled network management system, HiveManager Next Generation.
NCLB Draft Rewrite Reduces Stakes of Standardized Testing, Brings Major Changes to Federal Ed Policy
The proposed law would require states to create their own accountability systems and bar the federal government from incentivizing states to adopt specific standards, such as the Common Core State Standards.
Report: Most Americans Support Concepts Behind Common Core
Most Americans support the basic concepts behind the Common Core, even if many do not know what the Common Core State Standards are, according to a new survey from the Leadership Conference Education Fund.
Hack Reactor Opens New Programming School in Los Angeles
The Hack Reactor collective of programming schools plans to open a new campus in Los Angeles through its Austin-based partner, MakerSquare.
Students Set for Launch in NASA Rocket Fair
More than 30 middle school, high school and college teams of student scientists will compete April 10 and 11 in the National Aeronautic & Space Administration (NASA) Student Launch event near the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL.
All-in-One Service Caters to Schools Needing Wi-Fi Networks
A telecom and business communications company has released a new set of services intended to provide schools and districts with access to wireless technology.
Exo U Launches 1:1 Management Platform
Exo U has launched the Exo U Digital Education Platform, a tool designed for management of 1:1 and BYOD initiatives.
Amazon Launches STEM Toy Store
Amazon has launched a new store dedicated to STEM toys and games, according to a report in Tech Crunch.
Discovery Ed, Nutrients for Life Partner on Virtual Agricultural STEM Field Trip
Discovery Education has partnered with the Nutrients for Life Foundation to offer a virtual field trip designed to look at STEM topics through the technologies and science associated with planting and harvesting seasons.
NEA Campaign Aims To Shift ESEA Away from ‘Testing, Labeling and Punishing Schools’
A new multi-pronged campaign from the National Education Association will try to shift the focus of federal education policy away from high-stakes testing and back toward students, with a special emphasis on “children living in poverty, students with disabilities and English-language learners.”
4 Super Sustainability Apps for Students
Common Sense Media’s service Graphite, which offers independent ratings and reviews of learning apps and websites, has compiled this list of the best apps to teach students about sustainability, biodiversity and ecosystems.
New Educational App Review Site Pairs Apps With Instructional Ideas
App Ed Review is a resource created by two professors to support teachers’ integration of tablets into their teaching practice.
North Carolina Signs Statewide LMS Contract
The North Carolina Department of Education has signed a statewide contract with Instructure to provide negotiated pricing for the Canvas learning management system (LMS) to all local education agencies (LEA) and charter schools.
K-12 Canvas Grants Aim To End ‘Lossless Learning’
Instructure has given its 2015 Canvas Grants to 10 K-12 educators who demonstrated in their submitted proposals the best ways to develop innovative programs and improve education.
Will Pearson’s Social Media Monitoring Damage Common Core Adoption?
The recent revelation that Pearson has been monitoring social media to find students sharing Common Core assessment items has set off a firestorm, but will it disrupt the adoption of Common Core State Standards and assessments? Is monitoring social media an invasion of student privacy, or just a means of protecting intellectual property? THE Journal talked to some education policy experts to find out.
Student Financial Savvy Lacking
This year’s ” Money Matters on Campus” survey questioned 43,000 college students across institutions in the United States about their money practices for the third year in a row, and the results were eye-popping.
Startup Creates Touch School Desk for Learners with Disabilities
A Massachusetts startup has built a 32-inch multi-touch table intended to be used as a school desk by students with intellectual, learning and motor disabilities.
New Steelcase Thread Power System Runs Under Carpet
A new power system from Steelcase transforms any carpeted floor into a power-ready space.
Showbie Classroom Assignment App Updated to iPhones and Web Browsers
classroom app that allows teachers to assign, collect and review student work has been updated.
Delaware Promotes Statewide LMS
The Delaware Department of Education has signed a contract for a learning management system that all schools and teachers in the state will be able to use to personalize instruction, provide students with access to standards-aligned content and share lesson plans with other teachers.
McGraw-Hill Education Revamps ALEKS Adaptive Learning Platform
McGraw-Hill Education is revamping its ALEKS adaptive learning system, introducing a new interface designed for tablets as well as a redesigned learning experience for students.
California District Chooses Zero Clients for Labs
A California school system will shortly deploy a final wave of new “zero client” displays in its computer labs to replace legacy computing equipment.
New High School Study App Now on Android Market
Brightstorm has released a new mobile app, Studystorm, with 5,300 videos to help high school students study for tests and college entrance exams.
The 4 Cs of Technology Integration
An instructional technologist says that mobile devices in the classroom should help students with creation, consumption, curation and connection.
Adobe Debuts Free Multimedia App for iPad
Adobe has unveiled Slate, a new tool for iPad that allows students and teachers to produce multimedia presentations that are viewable on any platform.
CTL Introduces New Chromebook for Education
CTL has partnered with Google to launch a new Chromebook for Education, which is available in two models, the CTL Chromebook J2 and the CTL Chromebook J4.
In order to deliver personalized education, districts have to gather and share students’ statistics. Here’s how the strategic use of data can boost teaching and learning.
The latest update includes features designed to help educators with classroom management, enrollment of new Apple devices and purchasing of apps and e-books.
Hawaii Department of Ed Adopts Statewide SIS
The Hawaii Department of Education has selected a student information system to manage student data across its entire system.
Research: Video Gamers Learn Visual Activities Faster
Score one for gamers. An experiment at Brown University has found a correlation between people who frequently play video games and their ability to retain learning about two quickly learned visual activities.
Clintondale High Turns to Flipped Learning Platform for After School Coding
Clintondale High School is launching an after school coding program in hopes that the rest of its district, Clintondale Community Schools, will offer similar programs beginning next fall.
Adult Education Lagging Way Behind in Tech
While schools have placed a great deal of attention on technology in the classroom, one instructional segment that has been left behind, it appears, is adult education. Although 86 percent of adult education administrators and practitioners said they believe that technology solutions can “effectively support” adult education, only 54 percent of students in those programs always have access on site to computers for instructional purposes. Another 36 percent have only “occasional” access, and the bulk of the remainder have even less, according to a new report from Tyton Partners.