Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

AI-Enabled Personal Professional Learning MicroGrant Announced Targets Teachers and Coaches (K-6)

North Carolina based QoreInsights announced today the launch of a MicroGrant program where they will award three schools with free site wide licenses for unlimited use of their AI-enabled personalized professional learning platform, The Classroom Education Plan© (CEP). The granted award will begin in fall 2024 and extend until the end of the 2025 school year. It includes support for on-boarding and professional learning to ensure the success of the initiative. The total approximate value of the three awards is over $30,000.

The Classroom Education Plan© (CEP) supports teachers and coaches helping them to improve their core instructional practice. CEP uses a job-embedded professional learning approach, coach-support that utilizes AI to guide
every teacher to targeted evidence-based instructional strategies, tracks impact, and enables real-time insights into student progress and well-being. “Millions of educators across the nation echo the same need: to provide teachers with high-quality professional learning that translates to measurable improvement in student achievement, engagement, and well-being,” said Dr. Toni Shub, Founder and CEO of QoreInsights. “We developed CEP to create equity for both teacher and student learning. CEP uses learning engineering and a decision support system to equitably guide every teacher to the most impactful evidence-based instructional methods for their specific classroom to address whole-child student needs, including feelings of safety and internalizing behaviors.”

Three elementary schools will be selected to become QorePremium Partners and will receive CEP licenses for all general education K-6 teachers at the awarded sites (administrators and coaches are free). Schools will be able to award teachers up
to 36 job-embedded continuing education credits!…Read More

Scribbles Software Announces “Mass Lottery” Feature to Help Schools and Districts Quickly Manage Complex Lotteries

Charlotte, North Carolina – Scribbles Software, a leading provider of K-12 records and enrollment software, announces significant updates to streamline and improve lottery management for schools and districts – especially for those managing complex lottery systems.

Managing lotteries – the process in which students apply for high-demand specialty programs or schools – is challenging. It requires processing incoming applications, assigning students to programs or schools, and managing waitlists.  The larger and more complex a school lottery system is, the more challenging it is to oversee.

Scribbles Software has helped districts and schools streamline and automate lottery management processes for more than a decade with its ScribChoice lottery management software. The new mass lottery feature allows districts and schools to automatically configure multiple lotteries of any size and level of complexity.…Read More

Certiport Names 2023 Adobe Certified Professional US National Champions

Orlando, Florida – Certiport, a Pearson VUE business and the leading provider of performance-based IT certification exams that accelerate academic and career opportunities for learners, announced the winners of their 2023 Adobe Certified Professional US National Championship.

The Certiport Adobe Certified Professional US National Champions are as follows:

  1. Andrew Jarnac, North Carolina
  2. Kayla Crossen-Zawila, Oklahoma
  3. Lena Sedlmayer, Georgia

Across the US, more than 31,000 students ages 13 to 22 qualified for Certiport’s Adobe Certified Professional US National Championship by earning an Adobe Certified Professional certification in Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign. Certified students entered original design creations and 40 were selected to compete at the Hilton Orlando Lake Buena Vista – Disney Springs® area hotel from June 26-28, 2023.…Read More

Schools and Districts in Eight States Make Big Investments in Lexia Aspire Professional Learning

BOSTON – Months after the launch of Lexia Aspire™ Professional Learning, schools and districts in California, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin have invested in  licenses to make the self-paced digital solution available to teachers. Offered by Lexia, a  Cambium Learning Group company, Lexia Aspire Professional Learning is a new flexible, professional learning solution that is grounded in the science of reading and helps educators accelerate literacy skills in all learning among students in grades 4-8. Equipping educators with the knowledge and skills they need to apply science-based strategies in a classroom that supports varying levels of literacy competencies is central to the design of Lexia Aspire Professional Learning.

Eight new schools and districts have invested in their professional learning opportunities for teachers including:

●      Capitol Hill High School in Oklahoma…Read More

Scribbles Software Selected as a Finalist for the 2022 NC TECH Awards

Pineville, NC – Scribbles Software, a leading provider of K-12 records and enrollment software located in Pineville, NC, was selected as a finalist for the NC TECH Awards, presented by the NC TECH (North Carolina Technology Association).  The program is North Carolina’s only statewide technology awards program recognizing innovation, growth and leadership in the tech sector. Scribbles is a finalist in the NC HQ Tech Company category, which recognizes North Carolina-based technology companies that have outstanding performance in revenue, market penetration, sales growth, and employment expansion. Winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on November 29th.

“For over 20 years, NC TECH has celebrated companies, organizations and individuals for outstanding achievement at the NC TECH Awards. As a finalist this year, Scribbles Software has distinguished itself as one of the state’s innovative and emergent leaders,” stated Brooks Raiford, NC TECH’s President and CEO.

Scribbles Software helps K-12 districts and schools across the country serve students and families through accessible, cloud-based records management and enrollment solutions. Throughout North Carolina, Scribbles serves more than 100 districts, private schools, and charter schools, including Wake County Public Schools, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Guilford County Schools, and Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools. Nationwide, Scribbles serves more than half of the top 50 largest districts.…Read More

North Carolina Education Corps and Littera Education Partner to Improve Reading Achievement for North Carolina K-3 Students

New York — The North Carolina Education Corps (NCEC) will partner with Littera Education to support and improve reading outcomes for thousands of North Carolina students who need to get back on track after more than two years of learning interruptions.

Launched as a joint project of the North Carolina State Board of Education and the Office of the Governor as a response to the pandemic, NCEC now works with state-level agencies and local school districts as an independent 501(c)(3) not-for-profit to recruit, train and support part-time literacy tutors. This year, Corps members will deliver high-impact tutoring to K-3 students in over 30 districts and charter organizations throughout North Carolina.

The partnership with Littera will give NCEC unmatched ability to track and assess the instruction. Littera’s Academic Support Platform simplifies scheduling and matching tutors with students; it also enables easy data aggregation, including what skills students covered and the length of sessions. A new mobile app allows tutors to instantly log feedback and session data from their phones, giving program coordinators continuous feedback as they support over 500 Corps members serving students across the state.…Read More

3 tactics to center educator wellness

I’m currently a 4th grade teacher at an elementary school in North Carolina, a Post Master’s student at the University of North Carolina – Greensboro, and a Science partner with Next Generation Academy. I have been in the profession for nearly two decades. So much has changed over the years: from overhead projectors to online collaborative tools–not to mention the internet as a teaching resource, district leadership, teaching standards… the list goes on.  

But one lesson that’s grown more important as the years pass is the importance of wellness. The pandemic has shown, clearly, the impact wellness has on students: the U.S. Attorney General recently reported a 40 percent increase in student sadness or hopelessness while Mental Health America shared that 2.5 million kids live with severe depression. 

While we correctly center students in the education conversation, we also need to discuss educator wellness. The 2021-22 school year is notable in that it’s marked by a  shocking staff shortage that continues to grow. One reason most likely is the extreme measures that teachers take to ensure students get a great education (think stuff like giving up lunch time, planning periods, and days off, professional development on their own time). This means 48 percent of teachers think of quitting, and that number could be growing. …Read More

Addressing students’ pandemic ‘learning loss’

A new phrase as a result of the pandemic, “learning loss,” captures the concern that students’ learning has been compromised over the past year and a half. However, before the strategies for addressing the concern can be identified, it’s important to define and articulate what is meant by learning loss.   

The observation is true that many students aren’t at the same place in their subject mastery as similar pre-pandemic students. For example, in North Carolina, where I serve as a Superintendent, a recent report revealed that just 45 percent of public school students could pass state standardized tests, down from 59 percent two years earlier. (Testing was waived for the 2019-2020 school year).  

The question then for many is how do we help these students catch up? That question, however, assumes that the standard by which students were assessed two years earlier is the appropriate assessment tool for students today.  …Read More

Lexia Nationwide Report Finds 80% of Students Using Lexia Core5 Reading Did Not Experience Literacy Learning Loss During Remote and Hybrid Learning in the 2020-21 Academic Year

BOSTON (Sept. 23, 2021) – Lexia® Learning, a Cambium Learning® Group company, today released new research titled “Using Lexia Core5 Reading to Address Learning Loss and Accelerate Learning: Insights from a 2020-21 Nationwide Study.” The study examines the literacy impact of elementary students using Lexia® Core5® Reading (Core5) in fully remote and hybrid instructional environments during the 2020-21 school year.

Lexia researchers tracked the progress of approximately 13,000 students in grades 1-5 across 35 schools in California, Michigan, and North Carolina. To gauge students’ progress, the schools administered the Measures of Academic Progress® (MAP) Growth Reading assessment, which measures grade-level reading achievement and growth, during the 2020-21 academic year.

Key findings from the report showed that most students who used Core5 demonstrated steady learning progress, with the majority meeting their projected growth targets in Reading:…Read More