Key points:

• Smart policy decisions are needed to support bilingual education
• 5 practical ways to support English learners in the classroom
• 3 things to consider when designing digital learning experiences
• For more news on learning with edtech, visit eSN’s Digital Learning hub

Millions of students within the United States public school system are non-native English speakers. As this figure continues to grow year over year, true bilingual education is becoming more vital to equitably support student success.

How do we ensure students achieve proficiency with the English language while receiving a rich and comprehensive education? One that affirms and celebrates their identities and helps them learn about and understand others?

Today’s technology presents us with answers. Thanks to computer-driven translation, AI, and advanced classroom tools, we stand to put every student on a path to success with the English language and beyond.

The numbers behind bilingual education

Within three decades, the number of households speaking a language other than English has nearly tripled from 23 million to 68 million. In states like California, Texas, New Mexico, and Nevada, these numbers are even more drastic, with 44 percent, 36 percent, 33 percent, and 31 percent of their populations speaking a different language at home.

As expected, this is reflected in the United States’ student population, which also grew in non-native English learners over the last 10 years. In 2020, one survey found that approximately 5 million public school students were English learners–that’s over 10 percent of students. Again, Texas has about 20 percent of those students, California has 17 percent, 16 percent are in New Mexico and 13 percent are in Nevada.

Bilingual education’s impact

With 1 in every 10 students experiencing a lack of English proficiency, millions are at risk for struggles with reading and writing comprehension, reduced academic achievement, and less rigorous tracks of study, which lead to increased dropout rates, and lowered educational attainment and human capital.

Bilingual education has been shown to not only increase native language proficiency but English proficiency as well, as the ultimate goal should be to build mastery in both languages. If a large contingent of the United States population were to not have English proficiency, they would suffer. Some studies have suggested that non-native language speakers struggle to access effective healthcare, while others have found increases in negative interactions.

It should be recognized that bilingual education lifts all boats. In a world that is now so connected, those who speak multiple languages have much to gain. These speakers are more competitive in the workplace, see more job opportunities, and even are found to have better brain health.

Further and especially in these new days of AI, human-to-human connection, communication, and collaboration have and will only become more paramount.

Where edtech steps in

While the student population speaking languages other than English within the U.S. has rapidly grown over the last three decades, technology has advanced even faster. Now, edtech can support bilingual education in a way impossible before.

Smart investments in technology not only improve education for bilingual and non-native English speakers but also help make educators themselves more efficient and impactful, effectively preparing all students for the future.

Building bilingual materials

It’s uncommon for educational materials to be authored for non-English speakers in the native language of the user. It comes down to a simple return on investment calculation, as the number of users is too low compared with the larger market for a publisher to produce these materials in a cost-effective manner.

Educational content within the U.S. is typically written in English, and then translated into other languages as needed. Largely human-driven, this process is error-prone,  resource-heavy, slow, and costly. Since this process is so intensive, curricula available in languages other than English were typically limited to the most common, specifically Spanish, even though there are far more others that need to be served.

Today’s computer-driven translation and AI translation can translate a text with incredible accuracy in a matter of minutes. Then, human translators can check for accuracy, add relevant context, and run quality control, significantly reducing production costs and increasing the effectiveness of the text.

With cost and resource savings, more time can be dedicated to improving the quality of these texts, ultimately improving how the curriculum in languages other than English flows into and improves English learning, to create truly bilingual students.

Technology can also assist in solving the issue of the limited number of languages available. There are over 350 languages used within the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, making it one of the most language-diverse countries in the world. In fact, 21.6 percent of the population reports speaking a language other than English at home. Outside of English and Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and Arabic are the most common. There are also Native North American dialects like Navajo, Yupik, Dakota, Apache, Keres, and Cherokee.

Because AI and machine learning can translate far more quickly, it is significantly less costly to create content in any given language, adding to the number of curricula offered in languages other than English.

Many make the mistake of believing that bilingual education means that you are separately teaching students in different languages forever. This is not true. Real bilingual education is developing a path that gently brings learners who speak languages other than English down the path to full English instruction, developing proficiency in both languages as their education progresses.

With this in mind, producers of high-quality core curricula are already offering a comprehensive set of resources and strategies to support bilingual education. Both EL Education and Illustrative Mathematics, national nonprofit publishers of K-12 curriculum, include the development of English language proficiency within their curricula.

The benefits of rapid translation go beyond the walls of the classroom as well. Parents and/or guardians, of course, want to be updated on the progress of their children and what they are learning. In the past, limited-English or non-English households may have struggled with understanding assignments, feedback, or grading. Now, not only is the curriculum more accessible, but translation and chat capabilities power direct parent-to-teacher communication in any given language.

Better assessments and educational outcomes

We can lean on technology to do more than recreate texts. Through the use of AI and large language models, it is possible to efficiently generate standards-aligned assessments in foreign languages as well.

As with content, most assessments and standardized tests are simply translated directly from English into another language. Imagine how difficult it would be to try and learn something that wasn’t translated perfectly to your native language, and then try to take a test that wasn’t translated well either.

Again, technology can drive English language translations, leaving the final quality assurance and relevancy check to instructional experts. When both the learning and testing materials are correctly reflected in the right language, with the right cultural context, and delivered in a relevant way, testing becomes far more reliable.

Take today’s state standardized tests as an example. What we’ve learned is that most are not actually testing for a skillset, but really just test how prepared you are for a standardized test. These test procedural fluency and general background knowledge more than skill and ability.

A study found that on average, English-learning students score approximately 46 percent lower on high school reading tests and 31% below on high school mathematics tests. But this is not because of lack of skill; it’s for a lack of proficiency in standardized testing.

Students with experience in standardized testing and general background knowledge typically perform the best, whereas those with a lack of context underperform. True bilingual education equips non-native English speakers with the tools they need to perform on standardized testing. On a macro level, this provides more accurate insights into state, district, and school performance.

More support for educators

Perhaps one of the most important ways technology can benefit bilingual education is by supporting teachers. Educators are burdened enough, and while 62 percent of U.S. schools have at least some English-learning students, not all teachers are properly equipped to provide equitable education.

Thankfully, we are at a place where edtech can significantly reduce the cognitive load placed on teachers. Tools like digital assessments and grade books can automatically grade assignments and assessments, including those in other languages, alleviating the stress of grading across dialects.

Classroom technology provides easier access to curriculum in multiple languages, making it easier to navigate, utilize, and distribute. These technologies can give teachers their time back, reducing their burden and allowing them to spend more time with students.

Digital tools such as digital assessments, grade books, and learning management systems enable teachers to efficiently manage classroom activities and personalize instruction for diverse learners. Moreover, technology-integrated professional development programs empower educators to enhance their pedagogical practices and effectively implement bilingual curriculum frameworks.

But educators still require support, and with savings in materials and time, school leaders need to make an investment in teacher training. The bilingual population will only continue to grow, so the right investments need to be made to support teachers in their roles.

Technology can support here too–with tools that integrate professional learning and curriculum together, educators can become more proficient at teaching the bilingual curriculum, leading to more successful students.

Policy is a key player

Bilingual education will only continue to grow, but we need to look at it as a strength to support and develop. One of the great things about the United States of America is its cultural mix, diversity, and willingness to open its doors to others.

Another great aspect of the U.S. is the partnerships between the public and private sectors. In the case of bilingual education, the private sector has responded. Technology companies have, and will continue to, build products to support classrooms, but ultimately there is a policy call that must be made on the public end.

Effective bilingual education requires a comprehensive policy framework that supports the needs of diverse learners and promotes equity in education. Edtech plays a pivotal role in informing policy decisions by providing policymakers with data-driven insights into the efficacy of bilingual education initiatives.

By leveraging technology-enabled assessment data and analytics, policymakers can identify areas of improvement, allocate resources effectively, and develop evidence-based policies that promote educational equity and excellence. Moreover, partnerships between the public and private sectors enable the co-creation of innovative solutions that address the evolving needs of bilingual learners and educators.

While edtech is currently transforming the landscape of bilingual education, we won’t reach an optimal level of benefit until smart policy decisions are made in the name of bilingual education. Those in decision-making capacities at every level must recognize this as a high need and know that the problem cannot solve itself. Policymakers need to open the door to allow edtech providers to make an impact.

The time is now to make smart investments into the right curricula and tools to support educators and students. Educators need to be unburdened, and students need to be put on a path to success.

Key points:

• Interactive maps make history come alive for students who may struggle with traditional textbooks or lectures
• 3 things to consider when designing digital learning experiences
• Digital tools are sticking around–here’s the right way to leverage technology
• For more news on interactive learning, visit eSN’s Digital Learning hub

As most teachers will tell you, in the post-Covid world, technology is an everyday part of education. It has undeniably transformed the way educators engage students and deliver content.

As an educator with 10 years of experience teaching in diverse settings in the United States and abroad, interactive maps have become a staple in my lessons. While primarily a geography resource, interactive maps can be used across various subjects within the social studies domain. Teachers can integrate maps into lessons related to history, cultural studies, and geopolitics. These maps go beyond traditional static maps, allowing students to investigate, evaluate, and engage with spatial information.  

Interactive maps help students develop a more comprehensive understanding of spatial relationships. It can be challenging for them to grasp distances on a static map. By manipulating an interactive map, they can understand the scale, proximity, and relative locations of various places, allowing a deeper understanding of global contexts. Interactive maps have the advantage of integrating multiple layers of information, unlike traditional maps. This feature allows educators to present numerous datasets simultaneously, which helps students analyze correlations and patterns more effectively. I find this particularly valuable as I seek to differentiate for all learners, ensuring that each student can engage with the material in a way that suits their abilities and strengths.  

Some interactive maps provide real-time data, allowing students to stay informed about current events and changes around the world. This is helpful in demonstrating how historical research is connected to current events. This is one effective way to prepare our students to be global citizens and fosters cross-cultural understanding. 

In addition, interactive maps are a terrific way for students to explore new areas of the world. In general, students are drawn to maps and globes in the classroom and the beauty of the interactive map is that it allows them to zoom in, pan, and click on specific regions or events, which encourages even more active participation and sparks their curiosity.  

There are many digital interactive maps available to today’s educators, but here are my top three choices: 

The Discovery Education interactive map: This resource within the Discovery Education Experience platform is user-friendly and covers a wide range of topics and all continental regions, making it a versatile tool for various social studies lessons. It allows students to explore human geography changes over time with overlays such as Political Boundaries, Political Labels, Landform Labels, Water Labels, Major Cities, etc. and various base maps like Physical, Elevation, Climate Zones, Biome, Predominant Religion, and more. Discovery Education allows for seamless integration with multimedia resources, allowing teachers to supplement map exploration with videos, articles, and images. It saves hours of scouring the internet to find resources because there is such an abundance of quality supplemental materials found on Discovery Education. For what I need in the classroom, the Discovery Education Interactive map fits the bill.  

The National Geographic MapMaker: This is another valuable classroom resource I recommend for your teacher toolkit. This functional tool includes a launch guide for educators and allows teachers or students to create custom maps. MapMaker allows for in-depth research into locations down to the street level. This program allows the integration of real-time data, so students engage with current information. MapMaker also offers interactive learning activities that encourage student participation. Whether it’s creating custom maps, exploring overlays, or analyzing geographical patterns, these activities make the learning experience robust. There is a learning curve with MapMaker and it will probably require more support than other resources, but tech-savvy students will love it.  

Running Reality: Running Reality is a digital history tool that brings history to life in an accessible, immersive, and engaging way for students through a striking visual narrative. It is a remarkably simple-to-operate resource that allows students to see the events that have shaped national boundaries and culture throughout world history. With Running Reality, students can explore historical events and understand how they affected the world as we know it. They can visualize the changes in national borders, watch as empires rise and fall, and understand how diverse cultures have evolved over time. Running Reality uses innovative technology to create a fully immersive experience, allowing students to feel like they are witnessing the events as they unfold.  

These tools are a wonderful way to make history come alive for students who may struggle with traditional textbooks or lectures. By engaging with history in a more interactive way, students are much more likely to retain what they have learned and develop a deeper understanding of the world around them. If you want to teach history in an engaging and accessible way, then these are some incredibly valuable tools for you! 

Key points:

• Startups can improve education through thoughtful and equitable use of data, analytics, and AI
• See article: 3 things to consider when designing digital learning experiences
• See article: Reaching edtech harmony in your classroom
• For more news on digital learning tools, visit eSN’s Digital Learning page

This post originally appeared online and is republished here with permission.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) in early January announced 15 startup companies selected to participate in the inaugural AWS Education Accelerator. Announced in October 2023, the AWS Education Accelerator supports edtech startups who are innovating to enhance the teaching and learning experience and improve educational outcomes.

As education continues to evolve, data-driven decision making is a powerful strategy to transform teaching and learning practices and unlock new opportunities for student success. For startups, this represents an opportunity to change the trajectory of education through the thoughtful and equitable use of data, analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) to power solutions and solve some of education’s greatest challenges.

The participating edtech startups are focused on a wide range of solutions for PK-12, higher education, and workforce education customers. By leveraging AWS to develop the next generation of edtech solutions, these startups aim to address education challenges such as student engagement, financial literacy, student health and well-being, upskilling, and operational inefficiencies.

The 10-week Accelerator program kicks off this week at Amazon’s Headquarters in Seattle. Each of the participating startups will receive up to $100,000 in AWS computing credits, hands-on workshops, an individually curated curriculum, business mentoring and technical guidance, insights from Amazon leaders and teams, networking opportunities with potential investors and customers, and ongoing advisory support. The program will culminate with a virtual Emerging Technology Showcase in collaboration with OMNIA Partners to increase visibility with education customers.

The ultimate goal is for edtech founders to leave the program ready to close new customer opportunities, expand their partner networks, raise funds and fast-track their edtech startup.

Meet the cohort

We’re excited to announce the startups that will make up this inaugural cohort. The cohort members were selected from a competitive field of thousands of applicants and chosen by a diverse committee of AWS startup and education experts based on the strength of their idea, technical readiness, and an extensive application and interview process.

Learn about the startups and the problems they aim to solve:

• Augmental Learning Inc, County of Sussex, DE
  Augmental provides an AI-powered learning platform that empowers educational content creators by offering next-generation personalized learning, intelligent content creation, and data-driven analytics.
  
• Blackbullion, London, UK
  Blackbullion is a financial well-being platform and app equipping students with financial skills. The platform houses the UK’s largest hub of support funds, scholarships, and grants for students.
  
• enlightenAI, San Francisco, CA
  Enlighten AI is creating an AI-powered personalized teacher’s assistant designed to enhance educators’ impact while making their work more sustainable, including grading and giving feedback.
  
• Hilight, New Orleans, LA
  Hilight empowers teachers and school staff to post highlights and share the many small wins happening across their schools and districts every day. Hilight helps users capture the meaningful moments that often go unnoticed to enhance educator satisfaction, well-being, collective teacher efficacy, and retention.
  
• Infini‑D Learning, Provo, UT
  Infini-D Learning has developed an immersive platform that transforms classroom learning by combining story-driven narratives with collaborative problem-solving to help students tackle real-world challenges.
  
• Lessonbee, Mount Vernon, NY
  Lessonbee facilitates equitable student access to standards-aligned health education and provides teachers with tools and resources to help drive health equity in schools. Lessonbee’s whole-school wellness solution provides data to help teachers improve student self-efficacy and well-being.
  
• Listening, San Francisco, CA
  Listening provides a mobile app designed for students and researchers to transform textbooks and research papers into audio, providing insights and note-taking ability on-the-go and helping to streamline the research process.
  
• Oblio, Inc., Murrieta, CA
  Oblio is improving the university admissions process with an innovative AI tool designed to help admissions officers, faculty, staff, and coaches send hyper-personalized emails, streamline communication, and embrace multilingual inclusivity.
  
• OneRange, New York, NY
  OneRange is helping companies to automate the management of individualized learning budgets. Its platform enables discovery and access to the right resources for each individual by leveraging data across all formats of learning, including courses, books, conferences, and more.
  
• Perlego, London, UK
  Perlego is an online subscription for more than one million academic textbooks. It is designed to provide a more affordable and sustainable textbook solution for learners around the world, by partnering with publishers and eliminating the cost of print, distribution, and retail markup.
  
• Praxis AI, Sacramento, CA
  Praxis AI is a digital education and research company powered by generative AI. Their anytime, anywhere solutions combine student-teacher interactions with personalized mentoring, assessment, and support.
  
• Quizard AI, Inc., Dover, DE
  Quizard is an academic app designed to help students study for tests and quizzes. Available in multiple languages, Quizard is making personalized learning accessible to students across the globe.
  
• SchoolBI, San Francisco, CA
  SchoolBI is a user-friendly platform that helps deliver data-driven insights. The platform is designed to reduce traditional inefficiencies, time constraints, and bottlenecks and improve the ability to easily report results across departments.
  
• Sown To Grow, Oakland, CA
  Sown To Grow is a support platform that empowers schools to improve student social, emotional, and academic well-being through an easy and engaging reflection and feedback process. Designed by a team of former educators for practical classroom impact, Sown To Grow is funded by the US Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, Digital Promise, and New Schools Venture Fund.
  
• The Juice, Miami, FL
  The Juice is an interactive learning platform designed to develop students’ reading comprehension, critical thinking, information and media literacy skills, and civics knowledge using fun and engaging original content.

Go deeper on AWS Cloud for data-driven education

Discover how AWS empowers EdTech innovation to improve learning outcomes and secure student data. Plus, learn more about getting support from AWS Education Competency Partners and the education and learning solutions in AWS Marketplace, trusted technology providers, and consulting experts that offer educational institutions a wide variety of cloud-based solutions.

Editor’s note: This story on digital learning originally appeared on CoSN’s blog and is reposted here with permission.

Key points:

• Small design changes when creating digital content can make a huge impact on how audiences ultimately learn information
• See article: 5 essential digital learning reads
• See article: How meta creativity prepares students for the future
• For more news on digital learning design, visit eSN’s Digital Learning page
• Stay up to date on the latest trends about learning in the digital age

Teachers, principals, and district administrators are creating digital content every day for a variety of audiences. From classroom lessons and professional learning resources, to staff guides and announcement graphics, more and more information is being delivered in a visual way. Research shows that we process information presented in visual form more quickly than that presented in writing. However, if digital content is created without consideration of accessibility, visual processing, and basic design principles, the message we are trying to communicate can get lost, or worse, misinterpreted. 

Small changes in the design process when creating digital content can make a huge impact on how audiences access and process, and ultimately learn, information. Here are three things to consider when designing digital learning experiences for students and why:

Consider cognitive load

Cognitive load refers to the amount of working memory being used by the brain, similar to the RAM in your computer. When a computer has multiple programs running and is processing a lot of information, it starts to slow down because the memory usage is high. The same thing happens to the brain when learning. When the brain becomes overloaded with information — a high cognitive load — learning slows down and becomes less efficient, because less information makes it to the permanent memory.

What does this mean for us as designers?

Avoid information overload. Outline all of the information you are providing, and consider breaking large ideas down into smaller parts. Present these smaller parts in an order that is easy to follow, with time to process the information. This method of “chunking and sequencing” content makes information easier to process.

Visual hierarchy

In a world full of visual content, understanding how to control what our audience sees first is crucial. We’ve all seen slides with lines and lines of text, or digital flyers overloaded with images, colors, and fonts. In these moments, our brains are unsure where to look, and our ability to understand and process the information slows down. Visual hierarchy is the art of arranging elements in a design — a slide, poster, webpage, etc. — to guide the audience’s attention and convey information efficiently. 

What does this mean for us as designers?

Creating visual hierarchy starts with identifying what is most important, the information you want your audience to understand and remember. This might be an image, a word or phrase, a date or time, etc. This main element is placed first, so that it remains the focal point. Larger elements draw more attention, so prioritize the important content by making it the largest element in the design. Additional elements like titles, small lines of text, or images and icons should be added in order of their place in the visual hierarchy, being mindful of keeping the focus on the main element.

Less is more. The fewer elements in a design, the easier it is to process the information. Instead of one slide with five lines of text, try breaking that into multiple slides with larger text. Multiple images can be distracting. Try choosing one powerful image with carefully aligned text of different sizes or colors.

Design with accessibility in mind

When creating digital content, a significant amount of time is often spent painstakingly choosing the perfect fonts and colors. In reality, visual design best practices say that fonts and colors should be kept simple and at a minimum to keep designs accessible and lessen cognitive load.

Using loud, decorative fonts or mixing too many fonts together can be highly distracting, and break down visual hierarchy in the design. Script and handwriting fonts have gained popularity recently, but can be difficult to read and should be avoided when creating designs for large audiences. 

Similar to fonts, color can be used to create visual interest and draw attention. Using a few high-contrast colors that work well together supports visual hierarchy while making the content accessible for those with visual impairments or color blindness.

What does this mean for us as designers?

Keep it simple. Choose easy to read fonts as the foundation of the design. Lexend was created with this in mind — to decrease visual stress and increase processing efficiency. Decorative fonts can always be added for visual interest and to draw attention.

Use online tools. Generators from Adobe and Canva make it easy to build color palettes, and the built in accessibility tools ensure color selections are high contrast.

Be consistent. Whether it’s a slidedeck, website, or series of social media graphics, be consistent in your designs. Consistency in layout, fonts, and colors helps audiences anticipate the content and process it more quickly.

References

de Jong, T. (2010). Cognitive load theory, educational research, and instructional design: Some food for thought. Instructional Science, 38(2), 105–134.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-009-9110-0
https://digitalpromise.org/initiative/learner-variability-project/
https://www.lexend.com/
https://color.adobe.com/create/color-wheel
https://color.adobe.com/create/color-contrast-analyzer

Key points:

• Stay up to date on the latest trends about learning in the digital age

Each year, we share our 10 most-read stories. Not surprisingly, many of this year’s Top 10 focused on equity, edtech innovation, immersive learning, and the science of reading. This year’s 3rd most-read story focuses on immersive and interactive learning.

The Museum of Science, Boston is making its first move into the world of immersive online education with its launch of “Mission: Mars,” an educational experience on Roblox, a global platform connecting millions of people through immersive 3D experiences.

Developed in partnership with Filament Games, “Mission: Mars” challenges participants to engage in the Engineering Design Process, developing and iterating on vehicles ready to navigate the mysterious red planet and complete exploratory missions with friends to survive on Mars.

The Museum of Science is the first Roblox Community Fund (RCF) recipient to launch their experience since the fund’s introduction in November of 2021. Through the initial $10M fund, RCF has been offering grants to educational organizations to develop innovative learning experiences and curriculum leveraging the platform in immersive and compelling ways. 

The immersive 3D “Mission: Mars” experience focuses on engaging students of all ages in the Engineering Design Process, providing a high-quality, entertaining, and Next Generation Science standards-aligned digital experience for both formal and informal learning. It enables individuals to step into a Mars survival suit, navigate terrain in a hi-tech Mars Rover, help their team in specific level-based missions to discover past evidence of water, collect samples of water ice, and rescue fellow explorers from certain doom. Participants also design and create vehicles to help them in their missions and will be able to earn experience points and rewards along the way.

Museum of Science President Tim Ritchie said: “The Museum’s entry into the metaverse is part of our aspiration to reach 100 million people in museums, classrooms, and online by 2030, breaking down barriers to engagement and creating greater equity in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education. It’s not enough for the Museum to be the most popular destination for families in New England and to share hands-on curricula with educators and millions of students around the world­–we also want to leap into the metaverse to meet students where they are with top-quality STEM content.’’

Filament Games CEO Dan White said: “The in-game mechanics and environmental design in ‘Mission: Mars’ are all based on true scientific principles, powered by actual data collected by NASA on Mars.’’ 

“The Roblox platform offers developers like Filament the opportunity to deliver the kind of compelling deeper learning contexts that students and educators alike crave when exploring hands-on topics such as the engineering design process,’’ said Rebecca Kantar, Vice President of Education at Roblox. “Mission: Mars is a great example of putting the core learning objective, building and iterating for specific mechanical tasks and conditions, at the center of fun, rich experience design.”

The Museum of Science is also home to EiE®, the award-winning PreK-8th grade curricula division that reaches over 2 million students per year across the country and world. “Mission: Mars” will also include a full suite of instructional materials and supplemental support for teachers to use it for engineering and science education in classrooms, all designed to

• Support both engineering newcomers and experienced engineering educators;
• Highlight the engineering design process within missions;
• Explicitly link gameplay to Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and EiE Habits of Mind;
• Support student analysis of in-game designs through engineering discussion guides;
• And point teachers to outside support for getting started in Roblox and organizing a class.

Please go to mos.org/Roblox to learn more and here to access “Mission: Mars” directly on Roblox.

Related:
Everything you need to know about AI in education
In 2024, education will move to adopt AI—but slowly
For more news on immersive learning, visit eSN’s Digital Learning page

Key points:

• Educators have a unique opportunity to create dynamic learning environments
• Don’t ignore the elements that make social platforms so captivating to young students
• See related article: How to respond to ChatGPT with inquiry-based learning
• For more news on edtech tools, visit eSN’s Digital Learning page
• Stay up to date on the latest trends about learning in the digital age

If you talk to 200 teachers around the country today and ask them to describe their challenges in the classroom, you’re likely to get 201 different responses. And that makes sense–as systemic as some issues facing our education system are, every school, class, and student is unique. Yet through all that, there is perhaps one constant, one shared experience that is as universal as the No. 2 pencil. TikTok. Yes, TikTok has become the new American pastime of millions and public enemy number one of many teachers, parents, and some lawmakers across the country.

Students today are more distracted and disengaged than ever, all while they’re spending an average of 95 minutes every single day on TikTok alone. Meanwhile, 80 percent of teachers across the nation are reporting critically low student engagement, signifying a lack of connection with the material, the methodology, or both. But TikTok, and social media more broadly, continues to capture curiosity and attention, and it’s not all just dance videos–Indiana science teacher @ChemteacherPhil commands an audience of more than 3 million followers on the app. Is there a lesson in that?

Instead of snuffing out the doom scroll at its source, educators should lean into it, learn, and apply takeaways to their curriculum.

No one is suggesting we add TikTok to the back-to-school supply list, but modern curriculum developers are watching and learning from TikTok to produce content that is more engaging–and individual teachers should, too.

In 2021, TikTok proclaimed that “relevance is the new reach.”

That’s what every social media company understands all too well–the more relevant a piece of content is to a user, the more likely they are to consume and engage with it. By integrating real-world content relevant to their students’ lives, educators can bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and its practical application. Students can see and experience the relevance of what they are learning, which can have a profound impact on their motivation and comprehension.

There’s an entire school of thought on this. Phenomena-based learning involves leveraging real-world scenarios and observations in learning to help students better understand their environment and uncover the steps necessary to solve problems and answer complex questions. It can be as micro as a class observing a bag of popping corn or as macro as tying recent weather events to a discussion on climate change. Or, if you’re Maynard Kereke (Hip Hop M.D.), it’s using a viral Rick Ross video as a teaching moment about camels.

But the conduit is just as important as the content.

Variety is the spice of life and its classrooms. If traditional teaching methods reliant on textbooks, lecture, and rote memorization have proven anything, it’s that one size definitely does not fit all. The lesson for educators is clear: to truly connect with our students, we must diversify our teaching methods and keep the learning experience fresh. By embracing a multimedia approach, we not only cater to different learning styles but also tap into the inherent curiosity of our students. We do that by ditching the lectures and embracing experiments, multimedia, discussions, and hands-on activities that resonate with most learners.

Over time, this dynamic instruction cultivates critical thinking skills that empower students to view problems from multiple angles, discern between reality and fallacy, and evaluate the credibility of information from a variety of sources.

This leads to a culture of experimentation, creation, and inquiry.

When these approaches are brought together in the classroom by a teacher, it creates an environment where students feel encouraged to test ideas, make mistakes, and ask questions. Try, fail, learn, repeat. By fostering an atmosphere where trial and error are celebrated as crucial steps on the path to growth, we empower students to become active participants in their own learning journeys. Inquiry-based learning encourages students to ask questions, seek answers, and explore the world around them. It plants the belief that it’s okay to not have all the answers at once, that it’s okay to discover them, to piece them together using fragments of your own understanding and lived experiences. It’s a process of discovery, curiosity, and resilience. That is what it means to learn. 

Let’s be clear – there are serious privacy, safety, and potentially even health issues with nearly every major social media product that require contending with. But to ignore the elements that make them so captivating to young students is to fail to keep up. When we create classrooms where students thrive, learning becomes an adventure. As technology continues to evolve, educators have a unique opportunity to create dynamic and effective learning environments. Taking a page from the TikTok playbook and replicating its best parts in the classroom meets learners and teachers in the middle while encouraging student curiosity, engagement, and success.

Key points:

• Stay up to date on the latest trends about learning in the digital age

Editor’s note: This story on collaborative learning originally appeared on CoSN’s blog and is reposted here with permission.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been around for many years, but the introduction of ChatGPT in November 2022 has generated many discussions of how this technology can impact education – both how students learn and how educators teach. 

While new and emerging technologies can feel like a hurdle at times, there is also much that can be gained by incorporating them into our curriculum. And those benefits are even greater when educators and students learn together, especially as we navigate new tech enablers like AI apps and tools. 

Technology’s effect on teachers

Individuals who struggled to use technology have argued that the incorporation of too much technology is one of the reasons for teacher burnout. Technology use and implementation have been challenging in the classroom, but AI technologies, like ChatGPT, have made it even more controversial. The fear of technology plays a large role in the hesitation of adopting technology in the classroom. This could be due to a combination of many reasons: fear of change, lack of training, effectiveness of technology, pace of learning, and new technology trends, to name a few.  To overcome these obstacles, collaboration and communication are key.

How technology impacts student learning

Current school-aged students have been growing up with technology, and they are often comfortable using the technology. If we want to create learning environments where students can thrive, we need to foster learning environments where students can learn effectively. This does not mean teachers have to be experts in using all technologies, but teachers should be willing to incorporate technology into their everyday curriculum delivery. Fear of technology influences a teacher’s thinking, perhaps thinking that many students have more knowledge of the technology. Most of the time, this is not true. Students may know how to use some technology, but not all. If the teacher and student collaborate and start learning technology together, it would be beneficial for both teachers and students.

Mutual benefits of learning technology…together

Learning together with students can provide several benefits for teachers and students to support the overall learning process. Some of the advantages can be:

Enhanced Learning: There are many educational technologies available including online courses, simulations, virtual reality, and gamification. This would not only allow students to enhance their learning but also teachers to incorporate new teaching methods to support students in different learning environments.

Student-Centered Learning: The incorporation of technology allows learning to be more student-centered rather than teacher-centered learning. Student and teacher collaboration promotes an effective understanding of different concepts. 

Effective Assessment: Digital tools make it easier for teachers to create and grade assignments, quizzes, and exams. It also allows opportunities to increase constructive feedback to students and teachers to modify and adapt different teaching strategies for students.

Accessibility: The use of the internet allows students and teachers to access and research information quickly and effectively to support self-improvement. Access to academic websites, online libraries, and other educational resources provides knowledge at their fingertips.

Flexibility: Learning and teaching with technology provides flexibility since it can take place anywhere. This will promote self-paced learning among students and curriculum resources can be accessed anytime.

Engagement: Gamification tools will make learning more fun and engaging for students. These tools can allow teachers to create dynamic and engaging lessons to motivate students.

Modern Skills: Today’s modern workforce requires digital literacy skills. The use of technology will not only prepare students for this environment but allow them to be proficient in the use of different software, analysis tools, and digital communication.

Data-Driven Decisions: Educational technology will allow us to collect data and generate individual student reports. Teachers can use this information to provide additional support to students who may be struggling.

Lifelong Learning: Students and teachers are encouraged to adopt new technologies together, which promotes adaptation of new tools and commitment to continuous improvement. It also allows students to share ideas with other individuals around the world to enrich their learning experiences.

Moving forward in synch

Successful integration of technology into the curriculum is not possible without thorough planning and ongoing support. Technology should not take over every teaching method, but there should be a balance between the use of educational technology and traditional teaching methods to support varied education opportunities for students. Learning together will promote collaboration and communication among teachers and students, which is imperative as we incorporate generative AI and emerging technologies into the classroom. 

Related: Leveraging the K-12 generative AI readiness checklist: A guide for district leadership

Key points:

• Digital learning is a key part of students’ school experiences
• As technology evolves, so, too, do students’ learning opportunities
• See related article: Is AI the future of education?
• For more news on edtech trends, visit eSN’s Digital Learning page
• Stay up to date on the latest trends about learning in the digital age

Digital learning is a critical component of what happens in today’s classrooms. Edtech tools, connected learning experiences, and 21st-century skills all play a role in preparing students for the future.

But digital learning trends and technologies change so quickly that sometimes, it’s difficult to know where to focus or where to invest funding, time, and resources.

Here are 5 must-read stories about digital learning trends and developments to help your school leadership team determine which digital learning resources and edtech tools can best benefit students:

1. Digital learning requires digital research skills: Right now is the perfect time to start a research project with your students, as it will help them develop skills they will use for the rest of their lives. While your students, who have grown up in the Information Age and think they already know everything, any classroom teacher knows that our students need help more than they think. Our students’ belief that everything they need to know is online can, without the right skillset, leave them prey to misinformation. Let’s teach our students to steer through the online ocean of data to be both effective researchers and responsible digital citizens.

2. Digital escape rooms merge creativity with student engagement and skill development: Escape rooms are engaging for people of all ages–they require durable skills such as creativity, critical thinking, determination, and the ability to work in groups to solve challenges. It makes sense that educators would craft their lessons around the concept of an escape room–and that’s just what high school educator Lynn Thomas has done. In this Q&A with eSchool News, Thomas details how she found inspiration to create escape room learning opportunities and the benefits she sees for her students–and she offers a look at a new ChatGPT challenge she’s created.

3. Esports can engage even the youngest of students, and these programs help students develop critical skills no matter what paths they pursue: Scholastic esports is rapidly growing, and many schools are starting to incorporate esports programs into their curriculum. The benefits of esports make a compelling case for creating a program: Research shows that students who participate in scholastic esports experience social and emotional benefits, increased academic achievement, and higher graduation rates. These positive learning outcomes make esports popular in secondary grades, with both students and educators advocating for the addition and growth of scholastic esports in their middle and high schools. But esports isn’t just for the older kids, and starting an esports program in early elementary school can be an effective way to lay the groundwork for esports participation as students make their way into higher grade levels.

4. In an AI-driven world, how can students maintain their own voices? Now, more than ever, students’ future success in an ever-changing world requires that they learn how to think critically and creatively while collaborating with others to solve complex problems. But the unwritten curriculum of most schools—instilling process perfectionism through rewarding flawless performance—is probably doing more harm than good. Against this backdrop, there’s a lurking concern that AI is just going to help students find mindless shortcuts for cheating their way to good grades. But that’s only a risk if schools and teachers hold a low bar for what they expect of their students.

5. Effective digital learning means educators must know how to leverage digital tools correctly: When properly integrated, AI can amplify the work of teachers, shrink equity and accessibility gaps, and provide unrestricted access to information. But for technology to make a meaningful change in K-12 education, we need to address the true source of the problem: broken instructional models. Even though countless technology tools have been introduced into the market, classroom practice looks eerily similar to how it did a hundred years ago. That’s because educators are still equipped with an antiquated model of teaching that isn’t designed to be responsive to students’ learning styles. By leveraging AI and technology to rethink traditional teaching methodologies, we can level-set our classrooms to more effectively empower educators and personalize student learning.

Key points:

• Technology has become indispensable in the modern classroom
• Smart boards offer increased collaboration and engagement for students and educators
• See related article: Here’s the right way to leverage technology
• For more news on digital learning tools, visit eSN’s Digital Learning page
• Stay up to date on the latest trends about learning in the digital age

In today’s dynamic educational landscape, technology has become an integral part of teaching and learning, but it presents a paradox. While diverse edtech products promise innovation, they simultaneously pose challenges. Educators, learners, instructional technology coaches, and IT/edtech staff are grappling with the complexities of managing an ever-expanding arsenal of disconnected digital tools. It’s important to understand the challenges more closely and how an integrated, interoperable, and effective educational technology ecosystem can meet the evolving landscape of learning for more efficient, impactful, and secure learning experiences.

There are several prominent shifts that are driving the future of learning, therefore making a comprehensive and interoperable ecosystem essential. First is the permanence of a remote and/or hybrid learning structure. Solutions like interactive displays, cloud whiteboarding, screen sharing, and video conferencing tools have helped schools embrace and succeed in this new learning format. Second is the need to create a 21^st century learning environment that is accessible for all students, encourages engagement and collaboration, and can be more easily tailored for different learning levels and needs. For example, smart board tools such as text to speech, translation, or word prediction can help students overcome language barriers and unique challenges. For increased engagement and collaboration, teachers are relying on new teaching methods such as microlearning and gamification. Finally, there’s also a drive toward more community and outreach.

All these initiatives have meant an increase in digital tools and apps that must be properly monitored and managed. What’s more, they need to be interoperable and accessible not only on laptops and mobile devices but also on smart boards. According to Lightspeed’s Edtech App Report, which examined the use of edtech in more than 100 school districts during the 2021-2022 school year, there is an astounding number of apps in use. It found that districts surveyed use more than 2,000 apps and that 300 of those account for 99 percent of use. It also found that much of learning time is digital, with 56 percent of students actively engaged in digital learning for more than two hours per day. This highlights that while beneficial, the digital toolbox has become more complex and essential. It emphasizes the importance for a unified and interoperable ecosystem that can blend these diverse elements into a seamless and effective educational experience.

Another challenge is security. With more and more devices being introduced into classrooms, IT administrators will have to consider how to safeguard them in order to prevent possible security risks and data leaks. Outdated firmware and apps may create security loopholes that are vulnerable to attacks and data leaks. Keeping your system up-to-date is one of the best ways to ensure optimal device performance and data security.

In the realm of modern classrooms, one of the most notable advancements is the integration of smart board technology. Over the years, smart boards have evolved significantly from the early days of interactive whiteboards. However, it’s only recently that we’ve witnessed all-in-one solutions that effectively address contemporary trends in education as well as the challenges associated with managing these tools. Their use has become so significant that they actually lie at the heart of the ecosystem topic.

The key to this evolution lies in the operating systems that power smart boards, equipped with pre-installed software such as whiteboarding apps and web browsers. Some providers even offer the flexibility to download additional educational software from app stores, catering to the diverse needs of teachers. Smart boards have proven to be invaluable tools for educators seeking to foster active participation and enhance learning retention among students, especially with those that are compatible with their favorite interactive apps.

By combining a digital whiteboard with a wide array of educational apps, educators now have the capability to conduct entire lessons using just a smart board. This integrated approach allows teachers to seamlessly access digital content from their cloud storage or local drives, or download materials directly from the internet. Even when faced with non-digitized content, teachers have the option to wirelessly share their laptop screens or connect document cameras to the board. This technology represents a significant shift in modern education, offering educators a versatile and adaptable solution to meet the evolving needs of the classroom.

Smart boards play a vital role in meeting the app management and technology security needs of schools. As educational institutions introduce a growing number of devices into their classrooms, safeguarding these assets and protecting student and teacher data becomes a paramount concern. Smart boards rise to this challenge by implementing a range of robust security measures, ensuring a safe and secure educational environment. These measures include compliance with international data privacy standards such as the GDPR and CCPA, offering regular over-the-air (OTA) updates with the latest security patches, and leveraging secure cloud services hosted on trusted servers like Amazon and Google Firebase.

In today’s dynamic educational landscape, technology presents both promises and challenges. Educators, students, and IT professionals grapple with managing an ever-expanding array of disconnected digital tools, underscoring the need for an integrated, interoperable educational technology ecosystem. This ecosystem is vital to meet the evolving landscape of learning efficiently and effectively. Interactive classroom solutions, similar to smart boards, have the potential to play a pivotal role in shaping the future of education technology by seamlessly combining digital whiteboards with a wide array of educational apps. Educators can conduct entire lessons through such solutions, accessing digital content, sharing screens, and connecting document cameras effortlessly. Furthermore, data privacy and security are paramount, with a focus on compliance with international data privacy standards, timely security updates, and flexible network security options, including multi-factor authentication, password protection, compartmentalized user accounts, and secure user modes.

In the modern classroom, where technology has become indispensable, these solutions empower educators and institutions to navigate the complexities of the digital age with confidence, creating engaging, secure, and effective learning experiences for students.

Key points:

• TED-Ed Lessons are a great way to inject some fun into learning a new topic
• During October, take advantage of creepy decorations and Halloween and use these videos to teach students some new facts
• See related article: 9 TED-Ed Lessons about different holiday origins
• Stay up to date on the latest trends about learning in the digital age

It’s October, and for many students, that means pumpkins, scary decorations, and trick-or-treating on Halloween. What better way to celebrate October than to incorporate some fun and spooky videos to engage students, while also teaching them some fun facts?

Teachers with students of all ages can use TED-Ed Lessons to leverage October’s fun events (Friday the 13th in October, anyone?) and speak to students’ different interests.

The TED-Ed platform lets educators build lessons around any TED-Ed Original, TED Talk, or YouTube video. Once teachers find the video they want to use, they can use the TED-Ed Lessons editor to add questions, discussion prompts, and additional resources.

Use these TED-Ed Lessons and videos for brain breaks, to introduce new lessons, or to give students some fun and age-appropriate spooky experiences into your classroom:

1. Where do superstitions come from? Are you afraid of black cats? Would you open an umbrella indoors? How do you feel about the number 13? Whether or not you believe in them, you’re probably familiar with a few of these superstitions. But where did they come from? Stuart Vyse shares the weird and specific origins of some of our favorite superstitions.

2. Why is being scared so fun? At this very moment, people are lining up somewhere to scare themselves, be it with a thrill-ride or a horror movie. In fact, in October of 2015 alone, about 28 million people visited a haunted house in the US. But you might wonder: What could possibly be fun about being scared? Margee Kerr examines the biology and psychology behind what makes fear so fun.

3. The fascinating history of cemeteries: Spindly trees, rusted gates, crumbling stone, a solitary mourner: these things come to mind when we think of cemeteries. But not long ago, many burial grounds were lively places, with gardens and crowds of people — and for much of human history, we didn’t bury our dead at all. How did cemeteries become what they are today? Keith Eggener delves into our ever-evolving rituals for honoring the dead.

4. What can you learn from ancient skeletons? Ancient skeletons can tell us a great deal about the past, including the age, gender and even the social status of its former owner. But how can we know all of these details simply by examining some old, soil-caked bones? Farnaz Khatibi examines a fascinating branch of science known as biological anthropology.

5. A video that terrifies while it teaches? There’s a TED-Ed Lesson for that: Pick your poison: Blood hungry vampires. Zombies on a mission for your tasty brain. Creepy crawlies. No matter your (fictional or real) fright of choice, TED-Ed has a lesson for all of your Halloween needs. So pick out your favorite candy (more on that later), choose a few videos, and have a very happy Halloween.

Key points:

• To best use technology in classrooms, educators must have new instructional models
• Leveraging AI and technology can turn traditional teaching models upside down
• See related article: 4 exciting ways AI is a game-changer for teachers
• Stay up to date on the latest trends about learning in the digital age

The edtech industry is experiencing explosive growth, especially with the rapid emergence of artificial intelligence (AI), which is projected to hit $3.68 billion in sales by the end of the year. It is increasingly clear that a key question we will all be answering in the coming school year will be: What should the role of technology be in K-12 education? This isn’t a new question, but one that is likely to take center stage this year.

Despite new technology solutions, teachers are still burned out, test scores remain sluggish, and pedagogical innovation is stifled. Many educators are overwhelmed by the revolving door of products and lack the resources and guidance to use digital tools to address students’ needs.

When properly integrated, AI can amplify the work of teachers, shrink equity and accessibility gaps, and provide unrestricted access to information. But for technology to make a meaningful change in K-12 education, we need to address the true source of the problem: broken instructional models.

Even though countless technology tools have been introduced into the market, classroom practice looks eerily similar to how it did a hundred years ago. That’s because educators are still equipped with an antiquated model of teaching that isn’t designed to be responsive to students’ learning styles. By leveraging AI and technology to rethink traditional teaching methodologies, we can level-set our classrooms to more effectively empower educators and personalize student learning.

A new approach to blended learning that benefits teachers and students

Research has found that when compared with traditional forms of teaching, self-paced learning enables students to develop a deeper understanding of academic material, and is correlated with higher achievement. Yet, most classrooms today are still dependent on live lectures and fixed-paced learning. 

In my high school math classroom, I struggled to meet my students’ needs using an obsolete, one-size-fits-all instructional model. Students were falling behind because they lacked the foundational skills to grasp new material, others felt unchallenged and unmotivated because they already understood the material, and some were continually playing catch-up due to chronic absenteeism or other extenuating circumstances.

I decided to embrace digital tools in a way that was opposite of what I – and the majority of my professional peers – were taught in training. I learned how to leverage technology to improve the student learning experience. Instead of employing a rigid, lecture-based teaching model, I utilized edtech to unleash my capacity to engage in more one-on-one and small-group interactions with students to effectively address their needs.

Whole class lectures were replaced by bite-sized recorded instructional videos I created, so my students could watch, rewind, and repeat as many times as needed, whether at school or at home, until they digested the material. To help students better retain information, I embedded guided questions as they watched. Rather than sit passively, students were fully engaged in the learning process.

When I was no longer tethered to whole-class lectures, I could spend class time working with students who required extra support individually or in small groups. In addition, students were able to pace themselves based on their current needs – students who understood a skill could skip ahead or help their classmates, while those who struggled with the material or were frequently absent, had the time and scaffolding they required to master the content.

What made a self-paced classroom so advantageous for students was that the class no longer progressed through content based on the day of the week. Instead, each student built foundational skills and only moved on to subsequent material after successfully demonstrating mastery on end-of-lesson assessments. I was able to clearly define goals for my students, and with the benefits of technology, could focus on the most important elements of teaching: data-driven, one-on-one, and small-group instruction.

Educators understand our students more than any digital solution ever could. While AI introduces a whole new level of functionality to the classroom, great teaching will always be based on building relationships with students and supporting them as they apply new information to complex tasks. AI will help teachers be great, but it won’t replace them.

To unlock the benefits of today’s technology in K-12 education, educators must be equipped with new instructional models that create differentiated student-learning environments, offer the freedom to leave class-wide lectures behind for one-on-one and small-group interactions, and make the teaching profession more sustainable. Only then can teachers truly leverage the advantages of emerging AI and technology.

Related:
Embracing AI for limitless learning potential
Education in the age of AI and smart technology

Key points:

• Stay up to date on the latest trends about learning in the digital age

ISTELive 23 lands in Philadelphia on June 25, and the annual conference promises to be packed with content for administrators, curriculum directors, classroom teachers, and everyone in between.

This year’s conference theme, “Discover Your Next,” celebrates the ideas, partnerships, teaching strategies, and edtech tools that can take learning to its next iteration. Register here, for in-person or virtual access.

With more than 900 sessions, it’s hard to choose a handful to highlight—but here are five sessions that caught our eye:

1. Class Visits: A PD Model for Teachers Growing Teachers

Instructional coaches are frequently asked, “What is everyone else doing in their classrooms?” Learn how our school created a successful PD system for teachers to learn and be empowered by each other by participating in a virtual class visit. Caty Carmendy, the Instructional Coach of Mooresville High School, leads the session.

2. VR and Privacy: Superheroes and Supervillains

Virtual reality technology allows us to engage in futuristic and limitless immersive experiences for education, gaming, collaboration and more. VR devices have an unprecedented superpower setting them apart from previous technologies. Led by Steve Garton, Sr. Manager with the Common Sense Media Privacy Program, session attendees will explore best practices for privacy and security for VR technology for students and children everywhere.

3. You Can Teach Computer Science! A Former English Teacher’s Story and Advice

This presentation will highlight the skills that all teachers already have and discuss how to apply those skills to computer science. There is an increasing need for CS teachers. Good pedagogy is applicable to all content areas, and new content knowledge grows with time and experience. Let’s recruit more teachers! Danna Pearsall, an ISTE Certified Educator and a new computer science teacher with 16 years of experience in education, leads the session. Pearsall made the switch from teaching English to Computer Science after seeing the need to make Computer Science programs more inclusive and diverse.

4. Chart a New Course: Teaching Essential Skills for Tomorrow’s World

The session will share ways to design more purposeful learning experiences to drive student engagement and motivation, promote creativity in learning, model risk-taking and build classroom culture. Walk away with resources to help students develop essential skills through authentic, real-world and personalized learning experiences. The session is led by Rachelle Dené Poth, a STEAM and Spanish teacher, author, consultant, attorney, and presenter. Also an ISTE Certified Educator, Poth is a past president of ISTE TEN, and a recipient of ISTE’s Making IT Happen Award.

5. A11y to the Rescue: A Villainous Escape Room

Can you escape a fairy tale nightmare? Help A11y escape fairy tale villains while experiencing the same obstacles that disabled students encounter in digital spaces. Will you and your teammates successfully solve the escape room puzzles and return to reality, or will you end up as the old hag’s breakfast? Presenter Chrystal Trapani is the Lead Instructional Technologist: Accessibility Architect with Digital Innovation, an adjunct instructor, and a doctoral student at Old Dominion University. She is a Google Certified Trainer and Instructure’s Educator of the Year (2022). 

Related:
ISTE, Dept. of ED target digital equity through improved tech proficiency

Key points:

• Digital classrooms–and their remote students–are here to stay
• School facilities face unprecedented demand for broadband across education sites
• Stay up to date on the latest trends about learning in the digital age

The introduction of always-connected PCs and Chromebooks continues to be the catalyst for digitally liberating many students. Now is an especially exciting time to turn to this idea as PC and Chromebook battery life innovation, as well as performance, speed, audio, and video enhancement, is finally getting to the level needed to handle the digital criteria and learning throughout a school day and beyond.

Hotspots were heralded as the rescue, but often without weighing the pros and cons, especially in relevance to long-term solutions. What’s been overlooked is the substantial amount of learning time wasted just to leverage hotspots for learning. Connected laptops are a streamlined solution as the connection is built in, flexible and fitting into the ever-changing education system without the disruption of time.

Laptops built on Snapdragon bring advanced processor technology that enable mobile features and benefits on these devices. A laptop or Chromebook powered by Snapdragon could provide up to 20 hours of battery life and enable hours of digital learning, providing enhanced performance and greatly improved battery life.

In living our organization’s mission to develop a cutting-edge new generation of always-on, always connected platforms for student devices, our team is purpose-building devices for the most optimum learning. Our focus is to create devices that:

• Uniquely provide considerably longer battery life than traditional student devices, often 15-20 hours.
• Deliver increased performance. We recognize that video conferencing is likely just the first of many processing-heavy experiences that will become the norm for digital learning.
• Offer embedded 4G/LTE connectivity to enable learning from virtually anywhere.
• Reduce the asset management demands of school officials by eliminating hotspots and other complicated connectivity accessories.

Yet, technology alone will not solve these issues. Learning must be relevant to the modalities effective for each child. By simplifying the technology demands, school officials can refocus their efforts on pedagogy and assessments to ensure every child meets their full potential.

Hotspots

The most significant impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic may be behind us, but digital classrooms–and their remote students–are here to stay. To continue advancing students throughout these innovative environments, adopting these technologies could be the solution educators are seeking.

When schools globally needed to connect more students, they leaned on solutions they knew and understood: low-end devices and some means of connectivity. Among the connectivity options available based on affordability and local infrastructure for students, Wi-Fi from buildings and vehicles, as well as cellular hotspots, are becoming more difficult to access given passwords and no longer being available to the public.

Hotspots have been the preferred option in industrialized nations with ample budgets and local cellular coverage, yet even these models often reveal weaknesses as they were not intended for long-term education use. For example:

• Data plans without filtering can expose students to inappropriate content, according to the Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Network. In the U.S., this is a violation of the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA)
• School IT officials are left managing twice the number of devices with a laptop and hotspot per student, creating an asset management challenge
• Schools struggle with lost hotspots and cables, as well as issues related to their charging cycles before battery capacity becomes an issue
• Students seen carrying hotspots face the stigma of being associated with being less fortunate, according to the Urban Institute study, “Child Poverty and Adult Success”

School facilities face unprecedented demand for broadband across education sites, as the number of student devices grew during the pandemic. With school hours and learning demands on students trending up, according to PNAS, relying on the same old architectures and connectivity will very soon hold back tomorrow’s digital education. Concurrently, as more curriculums go digital and incorporate online learning components, the demand will continue to grow for laptop capabilities that extend beyond just word processing.

The Security Factor

With the increasing frequency of cyberattacks targeting K-12 districts, local wireless networks are often targeted to help disseminate the virus to more devices. In recent attacks, school officials shut down their wireless networks, advising stakeholders to not use the network. But having a fleet of devices with built-in 5G or 4G LTE provides a disaster recovery plan, allowing connectivity and digital learning to continue, even following an attack.

Among the greatest challenges that educators face in this post-pandemic world is the ability to supply devices and connectivity to the 1.3 billion children who do not have internet access at home, as identified by UNICEF. Further, the 2020 State of Broadband Report confirms that 46 percent of the world is left out of the online classroom. Further, the recent report from Futuresource LTD confirms that, among the 1.6B K-12 students globally, the universal penetration of school and government-issued devices is below 9 percent.

Digital liberation is the future of the education system. Elementary, secondary, and post-secondary institutions need to think ahead of the game and start dedicating resources and substantial effort to delivering high-quality, efficient technology resources that can keep up with modern society. Children must take these tools and resources and use them for good, otherwise, without liberation, students will not be able to reach their full potential or succeed in their future endeavors.

Related:
Take a peek inside this teacher’s Escape Room learning challenges
5 things to know about ChatGPT in education

Key points:

• Size isn’t the only important part of classroom visual displays
• Brightness, contract, interactivity, and resolution are all critical factors

The transfer of knowledge is an educator’s principal concern–one that has led them, along with researchers, to ask: “What’s the best way to help transfer that knowledge and help students learn?”

Research has shown that students learn better with visuals than words alone. Visual presentations using a projector or interactive display can help to promote a much more active learning environment and more successful outcomes. However, in the last few years, as interactive displays have become more popular, there has been a significant debate on which is the best display type–projectors or interactive flat panel displays–for the classroom.

Some projector companies and organizations insist that projectors are the best for classrooms due to their large image size, while others, including interactive flat panel providers, argue that interactive whiteboards are the better choice. But the truth is: There’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Rather, it’s a critical decision that requires a look at the advantages of each technology and how the room will be used. Let’s take a look at the considerations that go into that decision.

Classroom Displays Depend On More Than Size

Often the thought when it comes to displays is bigger is always better. Of course, projectors have the advantage there. Move the projector farther back, and the image size is instantly larger. However, size is only but one factor–and not the reigning factor that will deliver the best experience. It’s like buying a Lotus for its horsepower when what’s really needed is a minivan or vice versa.

If a classroom is using a projector to deliver a 100-inch image, which is typically recommended for analytical viewing up to 16 feet away, how easy will it be for an educator or student to interact with content where interaction is a priority? Such a large image isn’t a practical solution and may even be the reason interactive projector sales have fallen dramatically in the last few years.

According to Futuresource, less than 2 percent of interactive whiteboards used with projectors were over 90 inches prior to 2020, while about 75 percent of interactive flat panels purchased in 2022 were in the 75” class or greater. We can extrapolate, then, that most screens used in interactive teaching are between 65 and 90 inches, regardless of whether they use a projector or IFP. Size, for many reasons, should be a secondary priority. The first priority should be useability. Useability includes not only features such as brightness, contrast, and resolution, but also interactivity.

Brightness

“Brightness” is a buzz word in the world of displays and specifically for projectors. All projectors are bright, but how do they stack up against smart boards and how can they be compared when projectors are measured in lumens and LCD panels are measured in nits? Using an estimated brightness calculator from Projector Central, one can estimate the brightness of a 5,000-lumen projector on a 100-inch screen. According to Futuresource, over 80 percent of classroom projectors sold in North America were less than 5,000 lumens, while nearly every model of a classroom interactive smart board had 350 nits or higher. What we found is that both 5,000-lumen ultra-short throw projectors and interactive displays in 98 inches and 86 inches deliver similar brightness.

Contrast

So if brightness and size tend to provide an equivalent experience, let’s take a look at another factor: contrast. Contrast is the key to readability of text and graphics, and the indicator where the similarities between projectors and interactive flat panels begin to diverge. Compared to interactive whiteboards, projectors struggle in the contrast department. That’s because classrooms are well lit, whether artificially or naturally. Studies abound that well-lit spaces encourage alertness and productivity and are one of the first hallmarks of the modern-era classroom.

All those bright lights might keep students awake, but they lower the contrast on a projected image, making it harder to read. While projectors need a low ambient light or an expensive projection screen engineered specifically for high contrast, interactive whiteboards hold up in bright environments thanks to their backlit LCD screen. No changes to the room or other investment are necessary. In fact, contrast was one of several motivating factors for Gladewater ISD in Gladewater, Texas, to make the switch to interactive whiteboards for all its classrooms.

Resolution

In addition to contrast, low resolution also impacts readability. Resolution is the measurement of pixels–little dots of color arranged vertically and horizontally on the screen–that are available to create the image it needs to depict. A 4K resolution, for instance, has 3840 pixels vertically and 2160 pixels horizontally, or 3860×2160 pixels, which totals to over 8 million pixels.

In 2022, about 80 percent of projectors sold to schools in the United States had fewer than 1 million pixels. A typical WXGA resolution–1280×800 pixels–projector on a 100-inch screen delivers less than 15 pixels per inch. If that same WXGA projector is used on a smaller 75-inch interactive whiteboard, that’s still less than 20 pixels per inch. A 75-inch 4K interactive display is able to produce 58 pixels per inch. The result is a detailed image that’s easier to read.

Interactivity

We can’t talk about the comparison between projectors and interactive displays without of course talking about interactivity. Active classrooms incorporate movement into the classrooms. While there are several ways to do this, the most prolific today is at the display. Students are incredibly motivated and excited to use screen technology to learn. The best classroom displays enable a teacher or a student to use their finger, a stylus, or even a paintbrush to write on the screen. Some models have up to 40 points of touch so that groups of students can easily write on the screen simultaneously.

While interactivity is available for projectors, finger touch capability typically comes at an extra cost, and the most popular models only enable six points of touch–a significant limitation for a modern classroom. Also, compared to the best zero bond touch displays, the response time on a projector interactive display is much lower. There’s also calibration involved for a projector, which isn’t always exact and can become glitchy over time.

With more and more classroom environments becoming one of activity and movement, it’s highly likely teachers are moving around too or don’t want to be tethered to their desk and computer. This can mean they’ll need to be supported with tools such as wireless screen sharing for those using devices, or to use an interactive whiteboard that integrates a computer system. An integrated interactive whiteboard is built in to enable PC-free and device-free teaching. These displays are their own devices, featuring software, local storage, and the ability to connect to cloud storage services such as Google. Most interactive projectors are passive devices, requiring the connection and use of a separate computer.

For schools that have determined that interactivity is important, the interactive whiteboard tools available to them will be a vital part of that experience. Whiteboarding software with remote collaboration will allow students to contribute from anywhere. Perhaps the school is simply upgrading their interactive displays; in that case, look for displays that enable a teacher to import their old whiteboard files, including those stored in the industry standard IWB file format. This enables teachers to save and share their best lessons with other teachers without worrying about which whiteboard software they are using. This capability is not offered in a standalone projector.

Cloud storage has become the standard, especially those utilizing Google. The top-selling boards enable teachers to instantly connect to their network and cloud-based drives to access lessons and media content with a single tap. This capability is also now available in the latest smart projectors running either Windows or Android operating systems.

For schools that want to record classroom lessons and lectures and make them available for students to review later, an interactive display with onboard microphones and lecture capture software will enable a seamless experience. Educators can instantly record their voice, record the screen, and mix in audio from other sources like YouTube into a single file that can be shared with students afterwards. This isn’t something a projector will offer.

Revisiting Size

While the inherent size of a display shouldn’t be the crowning priority, it does bear significance on interactivity. A 100-inch projector screen with a 16:10 aspect ratio is over 4.5 feet tall and can be as tall as 5 feet high. This can make the upper parts of a projector hard to reach for some children. Many schools have constructed stages in front of those projectors being used interactively, which poses a safety risk and makes the screen off limits to those with physical disabilities.

By contrast, an interactive display uses a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio, which puts the extra

working area to each side rather than on top. This makes it easier for all users to access and for multiple students to work side by side. To create a more inclusive classroom, interactive displays also have the advantage of being mounted on height adjustable stands that can move up and down to accommodate anyone without having to recalibrate the display.

Portable display mounts also introduce another advantage for the flipped classroom model. While it’s nearly impossible to reposition a ceiling-mounted projector in a different area of the room where the activity is happening, with a modern interactive whiteboard mounted on a portable stand, schools can move the display wherever and whenever it’s needed. The cost of these stands is quite affordable, with high-quality models selling for under $500 individually or, when purchased in bulk, for even less.

Safety and Maintenance

The final considerations to make are those of safety and maintenance. Blue light, flicker, and glare are all unique challenges to the interactive display category. Like virtually all mobile devices and LCD monitors, there is risk of increased blue light exposure. Schools that are proceeding with interactive whiteboards will want to select ones certified using EyeSafe^® low blue light filters to protect users from this exposure. Flicker-free technology and anti-glare glass will also help to alleviate any eye strain associated with these displays.

For those selecting projectors, zero maintenance will be key. Today, interactive displays, as well as the best laser projectors, are completely dust proof, thanks to a sealed engine design. LCD projector technology requires filters and regular cleaning. If the filters are not cleaned regularly, a projector can overheat, burn out the bulb, and void the warranty of the unit. The labor costs and time costs involved in projector filter cleaning is recognized by COSN as an identifiable recurring total cost of ownership (TCO) using the Gartner TCO model.

The End of the Display Wars?

Interactive flat panel displays have several advantages over projectors, including better classroom ergonomics, advanced usability and safety features, and higher resolution. Projectors create slightly larger images compared to the largest 98-inch interactive displays. But both displays can create bright images, and the cost of a projector and interactive display is about the same when all the extra costs for mounts, screens, and filter maintenance on LCD models are factored in. The easiest way to compare these different types of displays is to evaluate them based on how your teachers plan on using them. For traditional display use and teaching where the teacher is at the front of classroom, both projectors and interactive displays are very effective. If the desire is to flip the classroom, or have teachers move from one location to another, then interactive displays are a more likely choice. Evaluate the use and then the decision will present itself.

Related:
Why a multiscreen classroom is the next big thing

Escape rooms are engaging for people of all ages—they require durable skills such as creativity, critical thinking, determination, and the ability to work in groups to solve challenges. It makes sense that educators would craft their lessons around the concept of an escape room—and that’s just what high school educator Lynn Thomas has done.

In this Q&A with eSchool News, Thomas details how she found inspiration to create escape room learning opportunities and the benefits she sees for her students–and she offers a look at a new ChatGPT challenge she’s created.

eSN: What gave you the idea to structure learning activities in an escape room-style challenge? 

LT: I was inspired to utilize this fun and challenging activity in my classes upon attending workshops and reading about the benefits and ways to gamify learning, as well as a specific Brightspace workshop about creating an Escape Room through the platform.

What do these challenges look like for students? What do students like best about them and what feedback have you received? 

In my particular case, I opted to create an around-the-world adventure. The narrative begins as follows: “You have been hired by a mysterious organization to complete a series of challenges. The details are all very vague, but you are very intrigued. All you know is that your problem-solving skills are going to be challenged and that you will have to learn along the way because, apparently, it also involves traveling around the world!”

I selected an around-the-world theme because it offers a wide array of subject-matter and material to incorporate into the challenges. This means I can also ensure that there are elements that will appeal to a wide variety of student interests. For example, so far, my escape room, which actually contains multiple “rooms,” includes infographics, narratives, timelines, itineraries, informative videos, a 360-degree virtual tour, and informative articles on a range of topics like the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, mythology, motion sickness, the Great Wall of China, the Terra Cotta Warriors, the Qinghai-Tibet railway, Mount Everest, the Pallas’s Cat, and many more.

How do the escape room challenges accommodate all learning styles? 

Escape rooms incorporate elements of gamification, which has been shown to enhance student enthusiasm for learning while focusing on important student needs throughout the process (Kim et al., 2020). In practice, gamification mirrors student development throughout the learning process. As Chen Jun and Liang Mo noted in their research, gamification promotes good habits of learning and an independent exploration spirit. These are more reliable gauges for supporting learning than appealing to various learning styles because there is no evidence to support the idea that matching activities to a student’s learning style improves learning, as noted by Nancy Chick in her learning guide.

That being said, escape rooms offer multiple modes of communication (textual, visual, audio) to ensure accessibility and inclusivity and appeal to personal preference.

What are some of the features in D2L’s Brightspace that make this possible? 

Brightspace’s release conditions are the biggest feature that make building escape rooms possible. A wide array of options are available to set release conditions on from reading a content page to submitting an assignment to getting a certain range of marks on a quiz and many more. This allows for the “rooms” to be locked and then unlocked automatically upon release conditions being met, enabling the teacher to pace the challenge as well as ensuring various predetermined requirements are met. For example, a release condition can be set for the student to complete a quiz with a grade of 70 percent or higher. The student is given automatic feedback and rewrites the quiz until they achieve the needed grade, so the next challenge is unlocked. In this game atmosphere, students enjoy the challenge and work to reach the goal, even when work needs to be redone. Using the quiz tool is really helpful in this atmosphere as well because it allows for automatic grading and immediate feedback, so students can move on with the challenges without having to wait for the teacher to grade their quiz. In a normal classroom setting, I have many students who would not redo work in this way. This alone shows how gamifying the experience can support better learning outcomes.

I have also incorporated Intelligent Agents into some of the challenges. In these cases, the release condition is set with the Intelligent Agent to automatically email the student when they meet certain conditions. For example, the student completes a task, so the Intelligent Agent emails them a clue or secret message to help them open the next room.

These tools also allow for building escape rooms that can be tailored to each student’s interests. Choices can be embedded in the room and by selecting one over another, the student is taken on a different path to a different room. Just one more way to differentiate for improved student learning. 

Can you share any observations about student learning after you’ve introduced these engaging activities? 

One escape room activity I built based on The Hunger Games was constructed as an end-of-unit review of literary terms. When students were completing this activity they were deeply engaged in solving the challenges, practiced successful collaboration, and persisted despite difficulties they encountered. The increased development of social emotional learning skills shown during the activity coupled with successfully reviewing their understanding of concepts and terminology covered in the unit displayed to me the absolute value of undertaking the development and use of escape rooms and other gamified experiences.

What advice would you give to other teachers hoping to do something similar or hoping to add more engaging activities to their instruction? 

My biggest piece of advice for other teachers looking to implement a new experience for students would be to not be afraid to try something new and possibly outside of your own comfort zone–you just may be amazed at the results!

We hear you’re working on a ChatGPT challenge—feel like sharing any details? This sounds really cool.

In my experimentation with ChatGPT, I have utilized it to alleviate writer’s block – I asked it to write an escape room narrative involving traveling around the world, which got the ball rolling as far as the overall storyline is concerned. I have asked it to compose multiple choice questions based on articles that I used in the escape room, and I have used it in class to study writer’s craft moves and poetry.

In the final case, my student teacher and I asked ChatGPT to write a poem about puppies. The resulting lines were definitely a poem – it had verses, rhyme, and used some figurative language – but the quality was questionable. As a class, we analyzed the “Puppy” poem pointing out the uses of various craft moves and discussing its quality. Students then had ChatGPT write a poem on a topic of their choice. They identified the craft moves and analyzed their effectiveness. Through critical analysis of ChatGPT’s product, students then made recommendations for improvement employing these recommendations in subsequent prompts to see how well ChatGPT could improve the poem. The lesson was extremely successful. Students were completely engaged in using the tool and showed increased focus and critical thinking skills in analyzing the poem that was produced.

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Different students at different schools have different needs. When we analyzed student achievement data from multiple measures and through the lens of student groups, we saw an immediate need to provide additional reading intervention to help students recover from the effects of the pandemic. Yet, due to staffing shortages, we knew we could not provide the level of personalized support each student needed.

Thanks to a data-driven approach to tutoring, we have been able to help our students increase their growth and confidence in reading. In fact, in the fall of 2022, our students who participated in tutoring showed greater growth on the Renaissance Star Reading assessment than students who did not participate.

Here are five strategies we have implemented to create an effective high-impact tutoring program.

1. Use data to design an intentional program.

In 2022, we partnered with Littera Education to design and deliver a tutoring program that would work within our Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework. Working closely with Littera’s Design Services Team, we were able to transform our data analysis practices and evidence into actionable insights. This helped us determine which students would benefit from extra support and the best times to schedule tutoring sessions to impact achievement.

In April, three of our elementary schools began working with Littera virtual tutors and the Tutoring Management System (TMS). Students were selected for tutoring based on their reading assessment data and recommendations from their teachers and principal. Without a tech-enabled solution like the TMS, we would not be able to serve as many students as we do. It gives us the ability to implement a tutoring program in as few or as many schools as needed, while taking care of administrative tasks such as scheduling, tutor-student matching, and program reporting.

2. Implement tutoring at least three days a week.

Our goals with our tutoring program are to help students with skill recovery and provide the intervention they need to meet grade-level standards. We know research shows that tutoring is most likely to be effective when delivered in programs with three or more sessions per week. So, our students receive tutoring at least three times a week for 30 minutes a day during the school day or after school. They meet with their tutor in a secure virtual classroom with embedded lessons, live audio/video, and an interactive whiteboard.

Group size is another important design principle. Our students participate in 1:1 and 1:2 sessions so tutors can deliver the reading tutoring curriculum based on student need.

3. Match students with a consistent tutor.

Our students are paired with the same tutor for every tutoring session. That consistent connection is important. It builds rapport between the tutor and the student. Students get to have one more caring adult in their lives, and they enjoy that relationship. They look forward to seeing their tutors and celebrating their growth.

4. Adjust as needed.

Progress monitoring is also an essential part of our program. As tutors log student attendance, session feedback, and skills progression, we can monitor students’ progress in real-time. This data helps our principals ensure that students stay in the tutoring for the right length of time. We want to provide a research-based intervention, but only for the duration that each student needs that support–not necessarily for the whole school year.

5. Measure results.

We examined our Star Reading assessment to gather insights into our students’ literacy growth in the fall of 2022. On average, students who completed tutoring sessions between the pre- and post-assessments improved their scaled scores by 62.85 points, compared to an average improvement of 33.63 points for students who did not participate in the tutoring. In addition, our students who participated in the tutoring were 16 percentage points more likely to improve their scores, test over test, than students who did not participate.

Moving forward

This school year, three of our middle schools also launched high-impact tutoring to provide personalized support for students in math. At the district level, we appreciate having an intervention we can use and expand, even in the midst of staffing shortages. With virtual tutors and a tech-enabled platform, we can reach more students without having to worry about staffing concerns or the work traditionally associated with monitoring student progress.

Using data to drive our tutoring program, we are able to prioritize students who have fallen behind. We are closing learning gaps and eliminating opportunity gaps. The only thing that would be better is if we had started earlier, but we are making the most of our time now.

Related:
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Throughout my career as a science educator in Colorado, Washington, and now in Florida, I’ve collaborated with many tremendous educators to solve the challenge of engaging students in science. Over time and through trial and error, we’ve learned the importance of engaging students in relevant content that is meaningful to them, engaging them in monitoring their own learning, or engaging them through strategies that make learning accessible.

However, I believe the most important factor in achieving a high level of student engagement in science is providing opportunities for students to participate in active learning experiences. As the K-12 science coordinator in a medium-sized school district in Central Florida, it is a critical part of my team’s work to find and create these opportunities and share them with teachers across the district.

There are five examples of these active learning experiences that stand out as effective strategies to achieve student engagement through relevancy, self-monitoring of learning, and accessible learning for every student:

• Finding current content that students care about or could care about
• Sharing high-interest images or videos paired with an instructional strategy that helps students process their learning
• Allowing students to explore interactives with guiding questions
• Giving students the opportunity to show what they know through different ways
• Chunking experiences so students achieve bursts of achievement and feel successful, not overwhelmed

Having access to digital media allows updates to content much more frequently. An example of a resource that updates content to the most current, relevant, and interesting topics and events is the Discovery Education Science Techbook, which my district has used for number of years. Through news stories, videos, images, and virtual field trips, students can see things they normally would not in their day-to-day lives. Living in Florida, our students don’t get to see polar bears in nature. A virtual field trip to the tundra immerses them in this environment. For students interested in basketball or other sports, there are virtual experiences focused on careers and academic concepts related to athletics. Future marine biologists explore ocean ecosystems, which are brought to life through beautiful imagery. Students will find topics that interest and engage them, or they might even find new topics they love. The world is opened up to students through digital media.

Pairing high-impact instructional strategies that help students process incoming content is critical to student engagement. An otherwise passive experience for students is made much more interactive by pairing a strategy with content. For example, while watching a video of ocean ecosystems, instead of students putting their heads down and paying minimal attention to the video, they are asked to critically think about what they are watching. The AEIOU is an example of a good strategy that pairs with videos. Students are asked to list an adjective that describes what they see or learn (A); describe an emotion the video evokes (E); note something interesting (I); share what is surprising–Oh! (O); and detail what questions they have–Um? (U). This AEIOU strategy gives teachers a simple way to facilitate active learning for students. Students across the district engage in this strategy and share their thoughts about what they are seeing, thinking, and wondering.

Interactives such as the PhET Interactive Simulations give students the opportunity to make decisions, manipulate content, or run a simulation. Created at the University of Colorado Boulder, PhET is a nonprofit open educational resource project that creates and hosts explorable explanations. PhET’s active learning experiences guide students to play and learn simultaneously. These types of activities are also where self-monitoring is continually happening through the feedback from the interactive. Whether it is matching academic vocabulary to its meaning, comparing and contrasting types of cells, or dragging and dropping a pollinator to a plant, students are in control and process the content they are learning as they are playing. Intentionally placed guiding questions can be integrated into the interactive, making sure students are understanding why they are doing a certain activity and how it connects to the content they are learning. Simulations, through both PhET and Pivot Interactives, also give students an animated view into how a concept works. For example, force and motion and natural selection are explained through simulations and can help these concepts come to life. Students have a visual in motion to reinforce their understanding. Again, asking questions throughout their learning will help focus on the intent of the interactives.

We all know that assessing student learning in only one way does not give all students the opportunity to show what they know. There are multiple ways to engage students in the process of demonstrating their knowledge of a concept. Giving students the option to choose provides a sense of ownership for students in this step of learning. Claims, Evidence, and Reasoning is a solid framework for science and can guide students as they communicate their understanding through the lens of a scientist. Students can create a model, a video, or a skit that shows their scientific explanation. They can communicate their understanding through a visual presentation using images, videos, data, and other evidence. Developing games, comics, web pages, and more can all also engage students in explaining what they know. Kahoot and Quizziz both provide digital options which allow each student, or team of students, to answer questions about the content. This can be used to formatively assess students while providing either a jumping off point, or a mid- to end-point in a lesson and is used to plan instruction for follow-up based on student understanding.

Students need to feel success in school so they don’t shut down. We can help them navigate academics, especially difficult concepts within a course, by chunking the learning experiences. Instead of navigating through a long unit, smaller and accessible experiences are assigned. Students complete the experience, which will encourage them to continue to the next section, building their understanding as they go. The 5E instructional model, which consists of five phases: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate, is an example of how learning can be chunked, taking advantage of a highly effective and engaging pathway for learning. Within the Explain, for example, text can be broken up by images and videos where students can process their learning through an instructional strategy that summarizes what they see or hear (6-word story, 3-2-1, or concept circles). Reflection questions can be offered that challenge students to record their answers in their science notebooks.  These are just a few of the possible strategies that can be employed.

It is important to engage students, particularly in the current educational environment. Exploring how science relates to their lives is a great step in guiding them forward. Using strategies connected with content, thoughtfully integrating edtech into instruction to create throughout active learning experiences, chunking the content in a pathway through difficult concepts, and giving students a choice in how they are assessed will encourage engagement, ownership, and ultimately success.

Related:
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5 digital tools to enhance your social studies instruction

Key points:

• Stay up to date on the latest trends about learning in the digital age

Digital learning has not always been as ubiquitous as it is today–in fact, a decade ago, the concept made many educators uncomfortable. But today, digital learning resources are embraced as tools that highly-skilled educators can use to boost student engagement and connect classroom lessons to the real world.

Digital Learning Day celebrates this evolution and highlights how educators across the country are using digital learning tools to create authentic connections and personalized learning opportunities for every student, everywhere. Check out All4Ed’s Digital Learning Day resources to find digital learning tools, hear from fellow educators about their digital learning strategies, and more.

Here, five educators share the digital learning tools and resources that have proven successful in their classrooms and in their schools.

1. Specialized digital content can support students as they learn specific and individual skills. While digital science content is abundantly available, digital science content that supports and focuses on lab skills is more difficult to come by. Cristi Watkins Sims, department chair and AP Biology teacher in Arizona, shares her three favorite digital resources that can help support ALL science teachers teaching science lab skills.

2. Mixed reality glasses can help struggling readers. Hear from two East Carolina University educators and researchers about how they created a science reading experience for 5th grade students using the Microsoft HoloLens, a mixed reality technology that merges the real and virtual worlds to produce something entirely new. Young readers wore the mixed reality glasses and then looked at a page of scientific text in the real world. The HoloLens was programmed to deliver supplementary content in the virtual world that could only be seen and heard within the glasses. Because abstract concepts can be intimidating for young learners, the focus remained on supplying additional information for difficult scientific concepts. When the students’ eyes paused on a particularly difficult word or phrase, the glasses would deliver audio-visual information to supplement the reading.

3. Social studies is critical to students’ lives beyond the classroom–educators should use every possible tool to engage students in this critical discipline. Stacey Higgins, a fourth grade team leader at Forest Lake Elementary School, engages students with a host of exciting digital resources that help students connect their lessons to the real world. Those digital social studies tools help Higgins enhance her delivery of instruction and expand students’ knowledge of the country’s history.

4. Minecraft Education is a perfect example of taking a digital resource students already love and using it for learning. “When kids use Minecraft in the classroom, they’re so engrossed in what they’re doing that they forget they’re actually learning,” said technology specialist Kristen Brooks of the Cherokee County School District. “Students excel in their learning when they’re encouraged to create projects in a style or format they prefer.”

5. Virtual reality and 3D can be instrumental in helping students develop durable skills. Once a novel technology, the current mindset seemed to be that VR was just another toy used to consume games and other media. Megan Bateman, a technology/media literacy specialist, art specialist, and data/intervention specialist in Minnesota was not looking to use VR to gamify her classroom. She wanted her students to be able to use virtual reality as a medium for developing the higher-order thinking skills that are critical for thriving in today’s digitally connected society. To push students past the consumption mindset, she developed an immersive design adventure that awakened and inspired the 4Cs of learning: creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication.

The metaverse is a tool that blends experiences typically associated with either the virtual or physical worlds. It can deliver greater immersive learning for students while also creating some new and exciting teaching opportunities. For educators, it is crucial to not only understand what the metaverse is and its uses within education but to also realize the benefits of immersive learning with the metaverse.

The metaverse is an emerging technology that is gradually becoming more mainstream within education, in part because it delivers immersive learning experiences for students. Essentially, the metaverse allows academic institutions and educators to create engaging experiences that teach valuable information, which encourages exploration and experimentation. What’s more, the metaverse itself can be accessed using a variety of devices.

With that being said, metaverse learning is a relatively new concept and one that many educators are still getting to grips with. At the same time, because the metaverse is also being used in areas like social media and the creation of video games, its use as an educational tool has not necessarily been fully understood by all.

In this article, we will cover the topic of the metaverse and its relation to immersive learning in more depth while also highlighting six specific benefits associated with teachers using the technology for this purpose.

Understanding Immersive Learning and the Metaverse

One of the very best ways to teach students and guarantee they understand and retain information is by ensuring they are immersed in the lesson. This is the basis of immersive learning as a concept. However, true immersion is not guaranteed, and issues, such as accessibility, are always important to consider. Thankfully, the emergence of the metaverse has helped to overcome some of these problems.

Broadly, the metaverse refers to the creation of virtual worlds or spaces in which social interactions can occur. The metaverse is most commonly associated with extended reality technology (virtual reality and augmented reality), as well as with social media capabilities and the use of digital avatars controlled by users.

As an article for the Digital Learning Institute explains, the metaverse has been a game changer for immersive learning because classes can both be delivered and accessed in a virtual setting. Additionally, the use of avatars within the metaverse delivers something akin to student-centered learning. This is because there is a degree of learner autonomy and independence associated with it, and students take on more responsibility for more of their own learning.

The Impact of Education’s Digital Transformation

In recent years, education has undergone a digital transformation, and this will be apparent when you consider the average classroom today compared to the average classroom 20 or 30 years ago. For instance, chalkboards have mostly been replaced by digital whiteboards, and most learning environments now utilize computers and various types of software. 

This digital transformation has had a positive impact in many areas, helping to provide accessibility, preparing students for the modern and digital world, and making life easier for teachers who wish to share information. However, it has also meant that students are expected to have more agency when it comes to controlling their own learning.

The metaverse and its ability to offer immersive learning could serve as another means of helping both students and teachers to create a successful learning environment that meets contemporary educational standards and prepares students for modern life.

Benefits of Immersive Learning with the Metaverse

Equipped with an understanding of what the metaverse is and how it works within the field of education, it is worth taking some time to explore some of the specific benefits of using this technology to deliver immersive learning experiences. In the sections that follow, we take a closer look at six of these benefits:

1) Immersive learning is very similar to experiential learning

Experiential learning is the process of learning through direct experience. As a definition published by Boston University explains, it is an example of “learning by doing,” and some of the related activities can include field trips, laboratory experiments, and studio performances. To provide an example, a group of students learning about space and the stars may be able to learn through the experience of going outside and looking at stars through a telescope.

Immersive metaverse learning can help students and teachers to achieve similar benefits without the need to physically experience things in this way. This means that similar learning outcomes can be achieved at any time, even if the conditions are not ideal and if observing something or traveling somewhere is not possible. In some cases, the immersive learning experiences made possible through the metaverse could provide the same benefits as experiential learning.

To stick with the same example, a group of students learning about stars through the metaverse could go into a virtual recreation of space, use an avatar to move around, see stars in close detail, and learn other related information at the same time. For instance, their avatars could be impacted by the effects of gravity, or their avatars could need protective equipment when exploring a specific environment in space.

Immersive learning makes it possible for students to reach learning objectives by activating their curiosity, and engaging with their questioning and experimentation, which ultimately helps in the development of useful problem-solving skills.

2) Immersive learning with the metaverse can be a tool for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I)

As the term ‘immersive learning’ suggests, the primary aim of this type of education is to immerse students in the learning experience as well as their environment. However, making this kind of immersion accessible for everyone, regardless of their circumstances, is a major barrier that must be overcome. Using the metaverse can assist greatly with this by providing the opportunity to invite students with different needs to participate in positive and engaging learning experiences.

Many immersive learning experiences are difficult or impossible to access for students with physical disabilities or impairments. For instance, imagine a class trip to study mountain ranges. The physical act of scaling the mountains or accessing the surrounding area could be impossible for a student in a wheelchair. If this lesson is moved into the metaverse, far more students will be able to participate and experience the mountain environment. 

This is a key reason why digital accessibility has become such a hot topic. The purpose of accessibility is to make educational experiences available to students, regardless of issues like impairments, disabilities, neurodivergence, and economic status. Crucially, equity can be achieved through metaverse learning because the obstacles faced by those with the greatest needs can be overcome, and these students can be immersed through extended reality technology.

This technology can also cater to a variety of other needs too. For example, subtitles or speech-to-text technology could assist those with hearing impairments, and the ability to control a metaverse avatar could aid students who may struggle in certain social situations and even those who have difficulties with anxiety-inducing behaviors. 

3) Versions of the metaverse are accessible on many different types of technology

Immersive learning with the metaverse provides many of the advantages associated with concepts like virtual learning and eLearning, such as the ability to access relevant content on a variety of devices. While there are still challenges associated with the digital divide and access to technology, this gap is shrinking all the time, especially with smartphones widening access to digital content and software.

As a result of these two trends, it is fair to say that widespread access to the metaverse is now possible, and this access is only going to increase in the future. This means that immersive learning through the metaverse should be accessible to a much larger number of students all around the world, and this audience will be ever-growing.

Using the UNIVERSE by ViewSonic metaverse platform as an example, the relevant software is already available for devices running Microsoft’s Windows or Apple’s iOS operating systems. Support for macOS and Android will follow, meaning it will be able to be used on desktop or laptop computers and smartphones or tablets without the need for any other accessories. Support for virtual reality headsets will also be available, providing optional extended reality experiences.

All of this means that immersive, metaverse learning is already accessible to people with computers and smartphones, and the range of options is only going to grow. Students who have access to these devices at home will be able to participate from anywhere that suits them, while other students can be provided access to technology at school.

4) Collaborative learning can be enhanced and made easier

Collaborative learning is already an important educational trend, but it is going to become an even more significant trend in the future. We are already seeing a greater number of schools taking an interest in student-centered learning, as well as active learning, and collaborative efforts can assist with this.

As with other forms of learning, collaborative learning can be made better by immersing students in experiences that they care about and gain enjoyment from. To take the previous example about learning about stars and space, the power of the metaverse means this can be turned into a multi-learning opportunity with different objectives. And it provides the possibility for students to work together in order to achieve some of those objectives, too.

The metaverse can also help collaborative learning to feel more realistic. To offer up another example of this, imagine a group of medical students learning important techniques for surgery. It is fair to say that experience in the field is essential, but sometimes this can also be difficult to deliver on a regular basis. With the metaverse, a team of medical students could work together in a virtual recreation of a surgery room and apply their collective knowledge.

Ultimately, all of this means that collaborative learning can be enhanced through the metaverse but also made easier and more accessible. There would no longer be a need to wait for facilities to become available or find the ideal time to meet up because physical meetings and collaborative sessions are replaced by virtual meet-ups.

5) Modern students can learn expected future skills in a relatable environment

The overwhelming majority of modern students are extremely tech-savvy and are often described as digital natives. This is because they have grown up in an age where computers and the internet are readily available. Whether they spend time on apps like TikTok or are interested in esports, these students are constantly making use of digital technology. So, it makes sense for educators to capitalize on this shift and meet students where they already are.

The idea of ‘edutainment’ is certainly a growing trend and an area that the metaverse can help to cater to. Nevertheless, in order to maximize learning outcomes, other elements like social interaction must also be factored into the equation. In general, the current generation of students is more likely to engage with gamification elements or with social media platforms. Thus, recreating relevant features for learning can have a positive impact.

When metaverse platforms are carefully designed, they can provide a great way for students to learn skills that they are expected to learn while operating in an environment that feels familiar and relatable.

Overall, immersive learning delivered through a metaverse platform, like UNIVERSE by ViewSonic, is able to provide a much more engaging space for learning. In this virtual world, students are able to experiment and learn safely in an environment that allows adaptability to their needs and comfort.

6) Immersive learning with the metaverse could be the future of workforce learning

When exploring educational needs, a big topic of discussion is related to workforce training and ensuring that students leave school with the required skills to succeed in future employment. One area where immersive learning through the metaverse could offer real potential is by helping to standardize learning across education and employment.

It is already the case that some human resources (HR) departments and other corporate teams, such as marketing, have started to turn to online training for the onboarding of employees and training in new systems and software. That’s because this allows companies to onboard multiple new recruits and train many employees at the same time. The current generation of students is already used to online learning from school so they may find this easier to adapt to.

The concept of online onboarding in the workplace is also likely to follow the pattern of online learning and move into the metaverse space. This is especially likely, given the rise of remote working models and the challenges of online onboarding—as pointed out in an article published by the Harvard Business Review.

Therefore, it is fair to say that metaverse learning in schools could help to prepare students for employment because skills learned through the metaverse, including collaboration, will carry over directly.

Final Thoughts

The metaverse is one of the latest developments in the digital transformation of education. Its ability to provide immersive learning experiences using digital devices and the internet means that students can enjoy more engaging lessons and greater autonomy, while the technology itself also offers significant accessibility benefits. Read more about accessibility in the classroom, or how to teach tech-savvy students using metaverse avatars, or if you haven’t yet, visit UNIVERSE by ViewSonic. 

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Many educators have left the school environment to join edtech companies, seeking new ways to serve students while solving for the shortcomings they felt in the school-based workplace. How has it worked out, and what have we learned?

The experience has shifted the equilibrium in the corporate world, as edtech companies tap into a larger talent pool and it has been eye-opening for former educators as they bring their expertise to the table in new ways. It has also provided valuable insights for school administrators seeking to improve their retention of teachers.

Insights for school administrators

Educators left schools in larger numbers this year because they were seeking solutions to some of the fundamental challenges they perceived in their school careers. They turned to edtech companies with the hopes of finding greater opportunities for career progression, flexibility, and support for their personal well-being. School administrators have the opportunity to turn around retention challenges by providing solutions to these areas that educators are saying matter most to them.

School-based educators have transparent paths to salary increases based on experience, but typically have limited paths for advancement, perhaps moving between grades, obtaining certifications, or earning advanced degrees to enter into a leadership position. The corporate world offers a broader variety of paths, whether in sales, product development, marketing and more. A former special education teacher reflected after making the move to edtech, “After 10 years of teaching, I didn’t think I had the option to do anything else. Now, I have the ability to grow by moving into different roles.”

Washington, DC teachers rated ”flexible scheduling options” as the most impactful action that the district could take to reduce turnover. Many educators are seeking more control over their day-to-day, or even their minute-to-minute, work lives. The school day tends to be reactive, steered by unexpected problems to solve and excess work to cover, for instance when a colleague is absent. The appeal of choosing how to prioritize their time is strong for educators who are considering a corporate environment after years of putting the priorities of others ahead of their own in schools. A former classroom teacher thinks of it this way: “Remember that you have to put your own oxygen mask on first. You can still act on your heart of service without being in the traditional classroom. But with the transition to the corporate world, you will also have the ability to do things like sit down and go to the bathroom when needed.”

The National Education Association recently reported that 90 percent of teachers surveyed expressed burnout as a serious concern. Teachers are directly faced with the everyday challenges students are experiencing in the classroom. One middle school social studies teacher from Pennsylvania made his decision to make the leap to a corporate role after breaking up fights in the hallways became a near-daily activity. He recognized that there was more going on in the lives of the students and wanted to offer support, but through a different lens.

Educators are mission-driven individuals who want to be engaged in work that makes a difference in the lives of children. But this passion can become overwhelming when living a close-up view to the challenges day-in and day-out. Working in edtech still offers them a multitude of ways to contribute to a meaningful mission, but with less personal exposure. In the best case scenario, it can even bring broader impact. “Working in an edtech company has been extremely fulfilling. Today, this former teacher helped ensure 20 students were able to get the service they needed,” shared a recent transplant from the classroom.

Career change considerations

As hoped, shifting to work in the corporate setting has been a refreshing change of pace for former educators, especially when working remotely. The ability to control the workday and how they spend their time is the dominant “plus” that former teachers cite when talking about their experiences in the corporate world. They feel they are now able to decide what they work on, and tune out emails when they need to focus–a world away from the interruptions and distractions of working in the classroom.

However, moving from the classroom to corporate work still has its challenges. Learning new expectations for business deliverables and developing self-discipline to use independent time productively are among the greatest challenges cited by edtech transplants. Teachers are used to having structure and a preset schedule in a classroom. It can be a challenge to move into a corporate role where the bell doesn’t release you.

The impact on edtech companies

Edtech companies are finding particular benefit in leveraging the highly transferable skills former teachers are bringing from key areas. In presentations and public speaking, comfort in front of the class translates to confidence speaking in front of groups, valuable for all kinds of work in a corporate setting, particularly in sales. Selling to K-12 customers has been a natural fit for many educators who find it easy to connect to and understand the needs of those they are serving. Training and instructional design roles have also proven to be a great use of education skills to design learning paths for employees and customers.

Who better to innovate for edtech companies than the teachers who have spent time in the K-12 classroom? The depth of experience and empathy for school-based professionals can be of tremendous value to edtech companies, who typically rely on building relationships with K-12 administrators to successfully grow their businesses.

Related:
What if we gave every teacher a work from home day?
How staff absences impact educator burnout