Digital Transformation

In the four months since Orange County Public Schools in Florida banned students from using cellphones at school, teachers and staff have seen positive changes. Some students are irked they can't use phones at lunch.

A panel of educators on Thursday said professional development and putting technology at the center of instructional design are two important aspects of building successful online learning programs.

Thirteen school districts near the Mexico border will use U.S. Department of Education GEAR UP grants to buy ClassVR headsets from Avantis Systems, which come with access to a library of educational media.

Having ended its agreement for home Internet access through the Verizon Innovative Learning Program, Houston Independent School District will pay for individual hotspots that cost $15 per student per month.

In order to become “ultra-intelligent institutions” that harness data to improve all aspects of their operations, colleges and universities must make their disparate data sets accessible, searchable and analyzable by AI.

Marion County Schools in West Virginia will expand its use of facial recognition technology to cross-reference photos of school visitors with photos pulled from the West Virginia State Police's sex offender registry.

The Global EdTech Testbed Network boils down the process of trialing ed-tech innovations to four “I’s” — inclusivity, innovation, infrastructure and impact — while also calling for more resources and institutional support.

Houston Independent School District ended its agreement for free laptops and Internet access from Verizon over a disagreement about professional development. Now lawmakers are saying students will be negatively impacted.

In Ohio, Akron Public Schools have invested in magnetic locking pouches for students to store phones during the day, while Beachwood City Schools give high school teachers discretion over how to regulate them.

With the addition of Soapbox Labs’ voice engine, Curriculum Associates has new language and literacy-focused tools in its portfolio that can recognize age-specific regional and cultural dialects.

The new Extended Reality Technology Center will bring together researchers from computer science, engineering, IT, fine arts and humanities departments to create new technology and curricula.

Instead of only training AI speech-recognition tools on near-perfect diction, researchers at the University of Illinois want to train them to understand people with motor disabilities like Parkinson's disease.

Teasing an ed-tech conference in Austin later this month, Texas' Commissioner of Higher Education Harrison Keller said students are already using AI, and more tutors and assistants are coming.

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.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis' RISE grant helped fund nursing simulators and a renewable energy certificate at Northeastern Junior College, as well as a renewable energy mobile lab for high school students.

In order to get the most out of virtual reality tools, schools and universities need to train educators how to use them and address accessibility concerns that may come with adopting related programs.

At Syracuse University, professors from two different academic departments are developing an AI-powered treatment method they hope will weaken heroin or oxycodone cravings caused by neurophysiological stress.

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.