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Andrew Westrope

Managing Editor, Center for Digital Education

Andrew Westrope is managing editor of the Center for Digital Education. Before that, he was a staff writer for Government Technology and a reporter and editor at community newspapers. He has a bachelor’s degree in physiology from Michigan State University and lives in Northern California.

In a presentation Monday at the National School Boards Association conference in New Orleans, Lawrence Public Schools officials explained how building a private fiber network improved digital equity and saved money.
An experiment in teaching computer science at Winchester Public Schools, featured at the National School Boards Association conference on Sunday, showed the value of consistent, focused professional development.
For schools facing a wave of new technology, student habits and teacher shortages, the Oklahoma State School Boards Association helped develop a free guide to creative teaching with digital tools.
The 25-year-old education nonprofit Michigan Virtual is launching a multipronged research effort to study use cases, policy proposals, ethics and back-end logistics for artificial intelligence in education.
The different needs of technical operation and pedagogy sometimes put school IT and education-technology departments at odds, but leaders can reduce friction with regular open communication and shared priorities.
Eight months after launching LASAR, a bespoke app for students and community members to send anonymous tips about dangerous or suspicious behavior, Los Angeles Unified School District has logged 591 reports.
As artificial intelligence ushers in a sea change that touches all aspects of education, schools might keep up by convening a council of stakeholders to discuss good ideas and get district-level buy-in.
School IT departments could make progress on backlogs of device repairs by availing themselves of student tech-support teams, like those being piloted at the Santa Cruz County Office of Education through Vivacity Tech.
Some legal questions around generative AI in schools have yet to be resolved, but in general, schools must vet their vendor contracts carefully and get parental permission for students to use the technology.
To prepare students for a future in which various forms of artificial intelligence will be ubiquitous, schools will need to impart foundational knowledge about how the tools work and what they produce.