Digital Transformation

A growing program at Illinois State University that combines fine arts and technology will expand to be its own school, with offerings in audio and music production, game design, VR and interdisciplinary studies.

A new virtual reality program, created by Discovery Education in partnership with Edge at Hudson Yards, allows students to explore the skylines of New York City and learn about the work of architects and engineers.

In the past two years, Outcomes Based Contracting worked with school districts in nine states to procure money-back guarantees from online tutoring providers. For 2024, the organization hopes to broaden its reach in K-12.

Fifteen new ed-tech companies were selected among thousands of applicants. They will receive grants, training and networking opportunities to fast-track their startups.

The $418 million allocation includes contracts with Zearn, Ignite Reading and Lexia to help boost reading and math test scores. Elementary and middle school students statewide will have access to the added technology.

University researchers say AI has the potential to help find useful new substances, from better batteries to powerful drugs, if it can enable autonomous labs to perform experiments exponentially faster than humans.

The California School Boards Association recognized several Inland Empire districts for innovative programs related to technology skill-building, virtual training , online communities and environmental sustainability.

First and second graders at Western Primary School in Indiana are piloting virtual reality games created by an assistant professor of computer science and informatics at Indiana University Kokomo.

More integrations, low-connectivity tools, small language models, an avalanche of resumes: This is not a Christmas wish list but a set of predictions for what generative AI will bring to education in the months ahead.

The district used Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) COVID-19 relief funds to buy Avantis Education ClassVR tools for 17 schools. The technology will be available to students this academic year.

More than $210,000 in grant funding from the Indiana Department of Education will help teachers support K-12 families with issues related to educational technology and blended-learning and virtual-learning environments.

Participants in the Modern Classrooms Project’s virtual mentorship program have unlimited access to web-based video recording and editing tools from Screencastify, so their students might learn at their own pace.

Hiring students to help repair school-owned devices is one way districts are ensuring the sustainability of their 1-to-1 programs and extending the lifespan of their devices, especially as students are damaging them.

As part of California's $4.7 billion program to address the teen mental health crisis, Los Angeles Unified School District will make free mental health services accessible to all its K-12 students through Hazel Health.

Students aged 13 and up at Baltimore County Public Schools have free access to the online therapy messaging platform Talkspace, which will give them an assessment and match them with a licensed therapist.

With funding from the National Science Foundation’s AI-CARING program, a Carnegie Mellon professor and two research assistants developed a free, open-source tool for teaching middle schoolers how artificial neurons work.

U.S. Department of Agriculture doled out seven grants across Illinois to help rural schools and colleges to buy equipment that includes distance-learning equipment, classrooms and spaces for mental health treatment.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine says a federal digital literacy curriculum is necessary to address the harmful impacts of social media on youth. The recommendations will be shared with Congress, the U.S. Department of Education, and social media companies.