Digital Transformation

While VR hardware costs remain a major adoption barrier for K-12, experts say the technologies could provide an outlet for students with autism or social anxiety to practice social and emotional skills.

Students are using apps such as Tor, Psiphon and Proton VPN, commonly marketed as “censorship circumvention tools,” to bypass school content filters. Schools need multilayered security strategies to meet the moment.

State Sen. Adrienne Southworth said schools should balance teacher-student interaction with digital instruction. Her bill also calls for regulation of third-party ed-tech tools that access student data.

Missouri's statewide "Close the Gap" program offered low-income students up to $1,500 each through an online marketplace with hundreds of vendors, but it was stymied by technical glitches, price gouging and lack of inventory.

Legislation requiring computer science instruction in California was referred to an Assembly committee last week. At a time when tens of thousands of computing jobs are available, most schools in the state don’t offer a single computer science course.

The tool, dubbed “GovScan,” allows policy analysts to scan large documents and data sets to research and find relevant information for policy proposals, cutting the hourslong process down to a matter of seconds.

Ahlan Simsim, the largest-ever humanitarian intervention specifically intended for small children’s development, found that 100 percent remote learning can help young children in crisis situations.

Money for the Emergency Connectivity Fund is expected to run out June 30. The Federal Communications Commission will continue reviewing public input on the proposal until a determination is made.

Discovery Education's Experience program will connect educators and students to a collection of digital lessons, intuitive quizzes, activity-creation tools and professional learning resources.

For aspiring art students, a partnership between Skillshare and Procreate has produced a series of online videos demonstrating how to merge the earliest cartooning concepts with the latest digital drawing tools.

The addition of SchoolNow marks the company’s sixth acquisition since October 2021, with a long-term goal of building an “all-in-one system” to communicate with families and reduce chronic student absenteeism.

Colleges and universities are increasing investments in new supercomputer infrastructure for both research and classroom applications, especially in physics, astronomical sciences and communications.

With help from a community foundation grant, a middle school in Wisconsin purchased 30 pairs of virtual reality goggles to take students on virtual field trips to faraway places and times in history.

Pearland Independent School District has proposed a $105 million bond election in May for infrastructure and technology, including wireless access points equipment, network updates and new devices.

A Washington school district is putting $47,000 in state grants toward mobile translation devices and community classes for families on how to navigate the Internet and specific technology tools.

The Network of Academic and Scholastic Esports Federations has 3,500 clubs across 50 U.S. states, with members in 70 countries. Some colleges provide scholarships so students can play while majoring in STEM subjects.

Roughly three-quarters of essay answers on the STAAR test, the standardized achievement test in Texas K-12 schools, will be assessed by an automated scoring engine programmed to emulate how humans would score an essay.

PlayVS is the official platform of North Carolina's Varsity Esports and STEM League, organized by the STEM education and esports company Stiegler EdTech to incorporate educational competitions into the esports calendar.