As school districts continue to amass large amounts of data about students, teachers, and educational resources each year, using the data in ways that lead to effective decisions and inform stakeholders has become increasingly important.
What happens when a state has a professional learning mandate for teachers but no funding to offer them? Or taking any professional learning seminar requires hours of travel with no viable substitutes to cover the class? And what about adult learning in general, when the majority of workers in need are low income and marginalized?
During the pandemic, school communities flexed resiliency, creativity, collaboration and flexibility to adapt to unforeseen challenges quickly. Video emerged as a crucial, game-changing tool in this adaptation, enabling K-12 teachers to provide students with the best possible learning environments despite the crisis.
Throughout the pandemic, we were all part of a live virtual experiment on how to make it work, said Dr. Julie Evans, CEO of Project Tomorrow. During the Speak Up 2021 Congressional Briefing: Release of the National Research Findings, Dr. Evans, along with a panel of K-12 student voices, discussed findings from this year’s Speak Up Research Project. Focusing on student engagement, student empowerment, and equity in education, they shared key lessons educators learned during the lockdown.
The growing concerns about security among families, school systems, and legislature increased teacher and student reliance on internet accessibility. As a result, school cybersecurity is subject to more scrutiny than ever. Yet, alarmingly, many school systems are not sufficiently aggressive in getting ahead of cybersecurity. In a recent edWebinar, sponsored by ClassLink and co-hosted by CoSN and AASA, three district superintendents discussed the impact a district cyberattack has on school communities and strategies to mitigate future attacks.
Cyberattacks in schools across the nation are growing, from Zoombombing to ransomware that takes down entire districts. As a result, K-12 learning environments need more robust policies and practices to stem intrusions and build cyber resilience.
In this edWebinar, the Georgia Department of Education (GaDOE) Social Studies team, made up of regional and district leaders, describe how their virtual learning communities on edWeb.net helped them support educators, and their students and parents, during a time of crisis.
While educators and school district administrators have grown used to reviewing assessment results and other forms of student data, they may not yet be looking at newer and increasingly important metrics such as online engagement, trending use of apps, and the return on investments in software.
Schools and districts can continue to benefit from the federal government’s stimulus dollars through the American Rescue Plan (ARP) of 2021, the third iteration of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER). These monies could drive the design of transformational initiatives with the potential for long-term impact.
Many school districts are now going through a process of determining which pandemic-related practices should be kept, improved, or discarded, and the use of remote and blended learning technologies is frequently being raised during these types of discussions.