Digital Transformation

With students falling behind over months or years of remote learning, online tutoring has become a popular solution, and certain design principles might help make it effective at scale for millions trying to catch up.

Los Angeles Unified School District will require students who are physically in class to be vaccinated starting this fall, but it’s creating up to six new virtual schools that could enroll 15,000 kids if necessary.

With help from his computer science teacher, a recent graduate of Deering High School in Maine created an app that has caught on in local schools and received a major financial investment from Faria Education Group.

A literacy campaign by the California Department of Education and Wisconsin-based Renaissance Learning has yielded impressive results, leading state Superintendent Tony Thurmond to extend the partnership.

A pair of tech-focused initiatives, the Cal State University system's C-SUCCESS and the CSUF TitanWare program, provide incoming students with tablets, laptops and other devices students need for connectivity.

The software-as-a-service platform is now available across all 50 states, as parents and employers increasingly see flexible child-care options as essential to increasing workforce participation and retention.

To accommodate visitors who want or need to maintain social distancing, the University of Montana Museum of Arts and Culture has created interactive, 360-degree "virtual docent tours" available on its website.

The online tutoring company counts about 100 school districts as clients, many of which are looking to remote academic support to help students make up learning loss as money pours in from state and federal relief bills.

To meet evolving student expectations, the university has created a working group to explore investments and technology that would create infrastructure and a plan for remote learning options and online classes.

The Maryland district has seen waitlists at its schools shrink since last August as vaccines, loneliness or academic struggles motivated some students to stick with in-person classes, but interest still exceeds capacity.

Staff at Carroll County Public Schools in Maryland have proposed expanding the district’s world language offerings by having teachers lead online classes that students at other schools could access remotely.

The Indiana Department of Education’s transparency tool shows how locally developed spending plans are putting to use three rounds of federal ESSER funding, as well as competitive state grants.

Seeing the popularity of its hotline and video chat options last year to help students struggling with homework after-hours, the Ohio school district is contracting with TutorMe for 24/7 support in more subject areas.

Seven years after launching Boom Learning, former attorney Mary Oemig and her husband Eric, formerly a Washington lawmaker, have seen it grow rapidly during remote instruction. The tool is temporarily free for new users.

Operational changes forced by COVID-19 proved schools can shift gears when they have to. Given all that educators have learned about the limits of one-size-fits-all instruction, now is a time for exploring alternatives.

The grant from the Cowlitz Tribal Foundation in Clark County will go toward classroom technology for students and teachers at the Washington district, for which connectivity has been a challenge during the pandemic.

The Minnesota Institute of Technology will build industry partnerships and make technology a programmatic focus for all students, ensuring they're exposed to tools they'll be using in the workforce.

Voters in Washington’s most populous county will soon choose whether to approve levies and bond measures for growing technology needs, special education, school nurses, construction projects and other initiatives.