School violence and teacher strikes dominated education news during 2018. But last year also saw empowered students voicing their frustrations: Youth activism surged around gun control, safer schools, immigration, voting and LGBTQ issues.
This year, the media has exposed a string of harms to individual privacy by the technology sector’s leading firms. But policymakers must intervene specifically to protect the most vulnerable people in our society: children. Their behavioral data is continuously suctioned up by technology firms through tablets, smartphones and computers and is at risk of being […]
Intelitek made several updates to CoderZ, its online learning environment where students in grades 5-12 learn STEM by coding real and virtual 3D robots. Additions include the Cyber Robotics 101 course and a new heatmap tool. Smart Blocks allows users to create functions/subroutines using a Blockly visual code editor. Following the recent success of its […]
The more education goes digital, the more important it is to safeguard digital assets and data. But security and privacy issues are more critical and complex than ever. With budgets stretched to the breaking point, how do you implement a privacy and security strategy that makes the most of scarce resources? Intel Education can show […]
The FBI has issued a warning to schools: Protect student data on edtech and other online platforms, or risk having it stolen and sold on the dark web. Instructional and administrative edtech products collect extensive data including: – personally identifiable information (i.e., names, Social Security numbers – biometric data (i.e., fingerprints) – students’ geolocation – […]
When securing edtech infrastructure, district leaders must concentrate on six “layers”: physical, network, applications, content, endpoint and cloud/data centers, according to a 2017 report by the Council of the Great City Schools. “More than ever, schools are a ‘wink-wink’ among the industry when it comes to cybersecurity vulnerability” says Robert Dillon, director of innovative learning […]
Whether school system leaders realize it or not, voice-activated, artificial intelligence devices such as Alexa and Google Home are becoming a part of classrooms. “I know of a lot of school districts where teachers use it, and in some districts the [school administrator] knows about it, but in other districts they don’t” says Eileen Belastock, […]
When Tiffany Anderson took over as superintendent of Jennings School District near St. Louis in 2012, she faced high poverty and low academic achievement. As part of the turnaround effort, she focused on building supports for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, particularly those in foster care who struggle with social-emotional trauma and frequent changes in […]
Something as simple and as inexpensive as a few minutes of deep breathing can help children better control their emotions—and their behavior. But this only works if students practice mindfulness daily, and at McKinley-Brighton Elementary School in Syracuse, New York, they do—for 30 minutes at the start of each day of summer school. “When you […]
