K-12

A popular TED talk describes ways in which schools inhibit creativity by training students to be grade-focused and risk-averse. Some educators say creativity, being essential for innovation, needs more encouragement.

As Minnesota works to incorporate computer science into every subject as part of a review of its standards, about 70 educators this week attended professional development at CS4DLH, or Computer Science for Duluth.

A senior at Ionia High School in Michigan spent much of the fall coding a math app, "Math Mage Mayhem," which is available online through Scratch and may be put on display in the U.S. Capitol Building for one year.

At Career Academies of Decatur in Alabama, students in Bob Grissim's drafting class are learning about renewable energies and vehicle assembly by building a custom green-energy car in exchange for college credit.

In partnership with Amazon Web Services, Washington public schools are launching a statewide effort to train 2,500 K-12 students in cloud computing and related subjects over the next three years.

Tacoma Public Schools in Washington sent employees an email designed to look like a phishing scam to see who would click on it. The district intended it to be an educational exercise, but some felt was in poor taste.

In and around Augusta, Ga., schools are incorporating cyber skills into curricula while programs such as CodeFu and Brown Girls Code offer workshops, guest speakers and skills training for all ages.

With a contribution from DuPont, the state will use Discovery Education’s digital learning platform to build an interest in science, technology, engineering and math careers that are in high demand.

For thousands of students and employees of Broward County Public Schools in Florida whose personal data was exposed by a cyber attack, experts recommend new passwords, credit monitoring and identity theft protection.

An analysis by AL.com found that smart use of student data helped 43 Alabama schools improve grades and test scores, for example by grouping students by skill level and informing personalized learning plans.

Using data from an annual report, the Tennessee Department of Education's online dashboard reflects student demographics, standardized test proficiency, teacher salaries, per pupil funding and other metrics.

Ransomware incidents at other Pennsylvania schools prompted Hempfield Area School District to pay for an audit and vulnerability assessment of its infrastructure, set to begin when students leave for the holidays.

The nonprofit has created online training courses to teach K-12 educators about data management and literacy, so they can implement industry data standards that will make student performance metrics more useful.

Napa Valley Unified School District voted this week to continue meeting virtually for another 30 days, citing accessibility and state and local health recommendations while some parents responded with profanities.

Tennessee Tech University students brought lesson plans involving robots to Willow Brook Elementary School in Oak Ridge this week, learning teaching skills while sharing STEM technology with early grade levels.

Manchester School District in New Hampshire is co-funding an initiative from the National Collaborative for Digital Equity to deliver refurbished laptops to students and teach them about hardware, software and functions.

After initially saying it was unaware of personal information being exposed by a ransomware attack months ago, the district is now sending written notifications that names and social security numbers were exposed.

Mark Galassi, an astrophysicist and computer programmer at Los Alamos National Laboratory, runs an extracurricular system that starts with chess, ventures into computer coding and culminates with a research internship.