Journalism classes at Junction City High School in Kansas—100 miles west of Kansas City—use the short-lived social media app Snapchat to learn long-lived lessons of storytelling. The students in those classes use "snaps"—which are either pictures or 10-second videos taken with their smartphones that are saved for 24 hours—to report on Geary County Schools' events […]
When Polk County Public Schools started its wellness program back in the late 1980s, the district hoped to get employees moving with weekend fun runs and weight-loss challenges. "Everybody thought it was fluff" says Debbie Zimmerman, who today manages the wellness program for the 96,000-student school district in Central Florida. "How are you going to […]
"Lights, device, action!" This is what's going on at New Rochelle High School, about 20 miles north of New York City, where students use smartphones and tablets to create short movies based on classic works of literature. The school's writing and filmmaking program, which heavily employs mobile devices, works in conjunction with the English high […]
When STEM3 Academy built its first innovation lab in 2014, one of the first pieces of equipment installed in the space was a 3D printer. "We saw that it could be a very useful tool to integrate into the curriculum" says Dr. Ellis Crasnow, director of STEM3 Academy. "We began immediately teaching 3D modeling and […]
The ever-increasing pace and variety of technological developments continues to be a challenge for K12 assistive technology products. As education content becomes available in more digital forms—videos, software programs and apps—adapting platforms for student use is critical to help those with special needs access information as easily as do their classmates. In addition, with more […]
The amount and variety of payments that come into a district can be overwhelming to those who manage school funds. Fees are collected for different purposes and are routed to different places, and many districts still accept only cash or check as payment. There can be a large administrative burden in keeping these varied funds […]
Prior to summer 2015, the process of putting board meeting agendas in the hands of the board members of Mohawk Local Schools in Sycamore, Ohio, was entirely manual. Administrative Secretary Jackie Messersmith would type up agendas and file them in large binders, which also held agendas and minutes from previous meetings. The binders were then […]
New teaching techniques and learning technology top the agenda at this fall's conference of the National Council for the Social Studies. Technology is quickly becoming a popular tool in social studies classrooms as teachers find ways to make history come alive for their students, who simultaneously learn about content and improve their technology skills, says […]
As smartwatches, wristbands, headsets and other wearable products become more sophisticated, expect to see classroom networks of these "ultramobile" devices interacting with each other and enabling students and teachers to share digital information as never before. Teachers, for one, will receive immediate feedback on how students react to particular lessons. "Imagine a campus where the […]
A third-grader studying the Spanish settlement of California found a virtual tour online and shared the trip with her classmates by slipping a smartphone into a Google Cardboard viewing device. Such limitless online resources represent a big, blended leap beyond the essays students in Coalinga-Huron USD in Central California used to write. Blended learning for […]
