Tag: digital media

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Virtual Schools: Where Are We Headed?

Ever since they first came on the scene during the twentieth century, virtual schools have taken the nation and the world by storm. Policy makers and reformers have pointed out their potential for lower cost and personalized learning. Students are enamored of the convenience and quick gratification. A few years ago, many were predicting that bricks-and-mortar universities as we know them might even become obsolete.

Is that really happening? Are virtual schools really as great as they seem? What are the benefits? And what are the obstacles to a successful virtual school experience now in the 21st century?

There are several reasons that cyber schools are becoming ever more popular as an alternative to traditional education. Culturally, we have experienced an astronomical rise in the number of students who attend home schools or charter schools. In fact, the number of homeschooled students has increased by 62% in the last ten years, according to research. Online schools allow these students to access coursework that might otherwise be out of reach for them.

Online schools also offer more opportunity for personalized learning, as students can access material at their own pace, sometimes asynchronously. They hold compelling possibilities for both remedial and advanced students who have traditionally been underserved in bricks-and-mortar schools.

Despite all the real and perceived benefits, virtual schools do not appear to have met their full potential regarding benefits to learners. Most studies, including this one from Stanford, show inconsistent benefits to student achievement and learning.

So what can we do to improve this educational innovation to give students their optimum learning environment?

For one thing, the best online schools combine synchronous and asynchronous learning. Students are able to work at their own pace on tasks, but they also have frequent interactions with their instructor and classmates. These interactions should be high-quality, and instructors need to ensure that directions and clarifications are clearly understood by the student.

The quality of the instructors is one of the biggest predictors of successful learning outcomes online as well as in face-to-face classrooms. So it’s important that virtual teachers are thoroughly trained, especially in the specific obstacles presented by the online learning environment.

As technology rapidly infiltrates every area of our lives, it’s not surprising that it is poised to disrupt and rebuild our educational system. But care is necessary to ensure that this burgeoning reform brings about positive results for students.

 

 

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8 Must-Have Holiday Apps for Kids

No parent wants their child to fall behind as the weather gets colder and school days get shorter. Once winter break rolls around, children want only to spend hours playing in the snow, watching television, and forgetting about the math and reading fundamentals they’ve spent the past few months mastering.

So how do we help kids retain information this holiday season while allowing them hours of fun and much-anticipated screen time?

Check out these eight holiday-themed apps. They’re fun, interactive, educational, and perfect for kids who love the holiday season.

  1. Plume’s School — Saving Christmas: If you’ve got a smart toddler who’s ready for some early vocabulary lessons, introduce your tot to Plume’s School — Saving Christmas. The app features Christmas-themed vocabulary games, word games, memory games and ABC basics.
  2. Elf on the Shelf: Fans of the popular children’s book won’t be able to resist the app version! Elf on the Shelf features memory and matching games that become increasingly difficult as users progress. Keep your kids sharp with Elf on the Shelf mind exercises while rekindling their love for the beloved story and their passion for reading.
  3. Brainzy: Brainzy has math games and reading review wrapped in a holiday-themed blanket where kids can alternate between educational activities and fun seasonal games. Kids will learn about the seasons, read stories, sing songs, review concepts that build on each other and test themselves with skill mastery assessments. In between the grind of digital homework, kids will ski lightening fast down snowy mountains and create customized hot chocolate recipes. Virtually, that is.
  4. Santa’s Merry Band: If your kid’s got a knack for music, this app lets young users experiment with the sounds of different instruments while teaching them songwriting basics. The app is ad-free, social media-free, and allows children to create their own melodies. Kids’ universal love for Christmas music is sure to elicit their inner musician.
  5. Tacky’s Christmas: It can be hard to peel kids from a television set or gaming console come holiday season. Tacky’s Christmas keeps kids glued to a screen while reading a fun story that comes to life and keeps kids engaged. They’ll read and watch as Tacky, and his penguin friends save the holiday while riding out silly adventures along the way. Who said you can’t learn new vocabulary and discover the joy of reading all from a portable tablet?
  6. Wubbzy’s The Night Before Christmas: Many parents want to feel included in their child’s online educational experience, especially when it’s the holiday time and family bonding feels natural. If you’re looking for an interactive experience with your child, Wubbzy’s The Night Before Christmas inspires kids to read while presenting users with a ‘Parents Corner’ to prompt thoughtful parent-child conversation post-story.
  7. Santa’s Postman: Inspire kids to write cute letters to Santa. This app brings Christmas to life while helping kids craft digital messages. Help your young learners brush up on their writing skills while knocking off a Christmas tradition. The app also provides users with colored pencils so they can write and fine-tune their artistic abilities.
  8. Hanukkah: The Festival of Light StoryChimes: Instead of retelling stories to your kids, let them read for themselves. If your child is too young for independent reading, this app narrates each sentence to improve their vocabulary. If your learners read all by themselves, let them work through each sentence independently as they sift through colorful illustrations and important Holiday history.

The months of November and December don’t have to mean mindless fun and empty hours. If your kid needs a break from snowball fights, ice skating, and gingerbread, whip out the iPad and suggest a few fun and educational games. Help your kids stay sharp this holiday season with the touch of a button and some digital snowflakes that happen to be shaped like the alphabet. 😉

 

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Artificial Intelligence: Are Computers Taking Over for Teachers?

If you’re an educator, you’ve probably noticed that the profession has undergone significant change in the last few years.

With the growth of the flipped classroom model and the plethora of resources available via apps and websites, teachers are no longer considered the experts. They are moving into the role of facilitator, “guide on the side” instead of “sage on the stage.”

In this context, some are beginning to wonder whether the expertise of face-to-face teachers is on its way to becoming obsolete in our schools.

Are we headed to a brave new world in which teachers are replaced by giant computer screens and a tech coach to assist on the sidelines?

The answer is…yes and no.

Teaching Made Easier

There is no doubt that many of the technological advances we’ve experienced have greatly simplified a teacher’s job. It offers a wealth of tools for personalized learning, grading, and lesson planning, allowing teachers the time to interact with students in a more meaningful way. In addition, they have access to a dizzying repertoire of online videos which expose students to first-hand experiences and content area experts that they would never be able to encounter otherwise.

But these advances are a double-edged sword. As teachers begin to rely more and more on such resources, their own expertise begins to feel less valuable. In the past, they were the ones with all the answers. Now, they are guiding students to find the answers on their own, a job that could just as easily be accomplished by a lowly “techie,” hovering in the background.

Cost-Effective Education

Teachers are expensive.

They require a professional salary and benefits. All these costs for multiple teachers can add up. As schools try to become more economical, some wonder if educational technology could lessen the burden. It seems more economical to connect 50 students with one video lecturer than to connect just 25 with one traditional teacher.

While the teaching profession will never disappear entirely, it seems likely that the need for traditional classroom teachers may diminish. Instead of local content-area experts, we will be looking for “super teachers” who share their engaging, high-quality lessons online.

Why We Still Need Good Teachers

This may seem discouraging to you as an educator, but it’s not all bad news. Let’s face it:  good teachers will never become obsolete.

Students may be digital natives, but they still need help in locating and using digital resources for learning. Teachers may no longer be valued as content-area experts, but they can help students learn how to build knowledge for themselves from the excess of tools and information that exists.

The best teachers care about us and inspire us to do our best. And that will never go out of style.

 

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10 Ways to Use Google in Your Classroom

If all you’ve ever used Google for is email and web searches, there’s a whole world in which you’re missing out. That world is the Google Suite, consisting of a cloud computing compendium that puts all of your instructional tools in one easily accessed location.

So what can you do with Google in your classroom? As it turns out, Google offers a lot. Check out the list of ten ways use Google in the classroom: 

  1. Collaborate with the teachers on your team, in your building and across the district by sharing folders in Google Drive.
  2. Differentiate instruction by creating folders with designated levels of access. That way your GT students can’t find and complete easier assignments, and your students in special populations can access the differentiated lessons they need.
  3. Communicate regularly. Use Google+ to create learning communities and Blogger to keep students and parents up to date on what’s going on in class. Visitors to your blogger site can interact with your blogs and podcasts.
  4. Offer model assignments. Students like to see examples. Use the Google shared drive to store holistically graded essays or an example of a well-written science experiment.
  5. Monitor assignments with Google Classroom. It’s a management tool that allows for customization and communication. Students turn in assignments electronically, and teachers provide digital feedback and grades to students and their parents.
  6. Curate content. Store the projects your students create and house your own specially developed lessons in Google Drive.
  7. Keep the date with Google Calendar. The calendar keeps you and your students current with reminders and alerts.
  8. Create Google forms. Developing forms in Google is quick and easy, so you can make seating charts, grading rubrics and more.
  9. Make it relevant. Take advantage of Google Earth and Google News for those teachable moments when you want to show what’s going on and where it is in the world.
  10. Incorporate the entire G Suite by getting Google Classroom. Google Classroom gives you at-a-glance views of which students are caught up on assignments and which still owe you work, and the suite brings all the Google services together for convenient access.

There are still a few things Google can’t do for you, like make coffee, but using Google in the classroom may affect your life outside the classroom. With Google, you won’t have to keep schlepping bags of work from school to home and back again. All your work is right there at your finger tips.

Google keeps instruction organized, accessible, and useful.

 

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Consider These Six Digital Resources for Your Classroom

By Francy Mitchell

@TechFMitchell

Technology will continue to change how educators teach and how students learn information.  While there are many digital resources that can help educators prepare students for the challenges ahead, it is up to educators to help students acquire the mindset and skills necessary to succeed in our complex world.

The challenge for educators becomes how and where to implement digital resources in classrooms to promote engaged, effective student learning.  One of the easiest ways to integrate a digital resource is to find places in a lesson plan where a concept or content can be reinforced.

Educators are always looking for ways to bring a lesson to life.  Before re-writing your next lesson plan, check out these six, user-friendly digital resources that could appropriately challenge student mindset and inspire growth in your learners. 

  1. commonlit.org

Common Lit is a free website for teachers and students that supports literacy and critical thinking – everything from poetry to short stories to longer texts can be accessed. Discussion questions, short assessments, vocabulary words, and author biographies are organized in a way to help educators build personalized activities.  Need to notify parents of students’ impressive work on a project?  There is even a communication component that can help you convey an inspiring message to parents.  Need something quick?  Texts may be downloaded and printed.

  1. https://newsela.com/

No matter what subject you teach, Newsela categorizes content by grade level, language, type, and standard, so you can accentuate global learning and awareness.  It is a free website that offers many filters to help you find current events or text sets that are age appropriate, with eye-catching images. Students make connections between people, places, and events to help deepen learning about the world they live in.  Definitely look through the text sets, because there are personalized project ideas waiting to be born.

  1. hippocampus.org

A comprehensive, free academic website that provides a variety of content, with no login. Educational institutions such as Khan Academy, STEMbite, or National Geographic categorize content.  Use this website to reinforce concepts or content through free, short and engaging videos.   Topics are explained clearly and concisely.  HippoCampus definitely emphasizes math and science; however, the clips on government and American history are well put together.   I have found a few world history clips as well of science clips to help students go beyond the four walls in my classroom. 

  1. www.listenwise.org

Listen Edition is an award winning listening skills platform that offers a myriad of curated podcasts from National Public Radio, centered around real-world topics that can be used as an additional resource to your lesson plan.  All podcasts include a transcript so students strengthen auditory skills while reading along.  I have used this site as a warm-up activity, as an introduction to a passion based project, as a way to springboard a discussion or debate, as a brainstorming or journaling activity.  The possibilities are endless. 

  1. www.mindmup.com

Do you want to help students facilitate collaborative planning and brainstorming? Try the free version of this user-friendly website. Students can structure and organize their writing.  Students can also save or convert graphic organizers to PDFs or a Power Point.  They can be printed too.  It is a great way to reinforce a skill or help students brainstorm collaboratively or individually.

  1. www.pbslearningmedia.org

This is a free mind map website with a large array of sources with artwork, pictures, maps, artifacts, videos and much more. Gather information by content, grade level, type or national standard.  Students can curate in pairs for images or research documents. Images are appealing and the text is easy to read.

Did we miss any?

 

 

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What Are the Benefits of Learning Analytics?

Learning analytics are web-based measurements and reporting about student learning that is intended to help teachers improve the knowledge and skill acquisition of their students. This maximizes student learning potential while enhancing teaching and delivery methods. Though its application to education is relatively new, scientific disciplines have been using it for over forty years. Expansion into scholarship was birthed by advanced technology, and the data trails learners leave while using the internet. The data provides several benefits to aid educators and students. In this piece, we will discuss those benefits.

Curriculum Mapping and Competency Determination

In curriculum mapping, we identify what we have already taught students and what to teach next. It is a collection process that typically analyzes the processes and assessments employed for core and content by subject and grade level. With learning analytics, we immediately know how effective our instructional methods were for a particular unit before moving on.

Personalized Learning and Interventions

With the data provided, we can analyze how particular students performed based on their own learning patterns, taking into consideration their gifts and challenges, prior performance, and any other factors we care to monitor. We can even use learning analytics to tailor learning to a student’s or group of students’ particular interests. For example, should we see that a particular class of students absorbed and retained the content with greater mastery when other subjects were integrated, or classes were held outdoors, or learning was inquiry-based, we may decide to expand upon those efforts.

Behavior Prediction

Learning analytics helps educators determine how well students have mastered content and through what means, and also can assess student’s risk level. Identifying blocks of students who may have academic or behavioral challenges helps educators to develop the interventions to prevent them while predicting success can help students reach their full potential.

Conclusion

Learning analytics, most simply put, is the scientific data behind the observations educators have done for centuries and begin making immediately with every new student they encounter. While teachers can make predictions and recognize patterns, learning analytics allows them to do a deeper dive into the data, making connections that would be impossible for the average human brain to make. Learning analytics aids educators in the classroom immediately by helping develop curriculum mapping and learning interventions, while predicting behavior and determining competencies and helping personalize learning.

How is your school using learning analytics to help students succeed?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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8 Must-Have Elementary School Apps and Tools

Introducing elementary students to technology can be a great way to bring some fun into the classroom. With the right apps and tools, educational technology can help elementary students learn basic skills or practice math and reading. These are our 8 must-have elementary school apps and tools.

  1. Flocabulary

Flocabulary is a fun vocabulary program for grades K-12. It’s especially useful in elementary classrooms. The hip-hop style songs help kids learn new vocabulary words, and the app has plenty of games and activities to reinforce what students learn. There are also printable activities and worksheets for teachers.

  1. PopGeo USA Geography

This app is perfect for elementary school students learning basic US geography. With PopGeo, students practice identifying states, capitals, and more. The visuals help students familiarize themselves with the map, and features like a high score board make PopGeo USA Geography interactive and competitive.

  1. TeachMe: Kindergarten

TeachMe: Kindergarten contains all the basic skills students learn in Kindergarten in one easy app. Kids practice spelling, letter writing, sight words, addition, subtraction, and more. Parents or teachers can easily view progress. Students earn virtual coins for their work which they can use to purchase virtual rewards.

  1. SpellingCity

A simple app that focuses on just one skill—spelling. SpellingCity has a variety of colorful and fun games that teach kids common spelling words. With over 35 games, SpellingCity will keep kids entertained and engaged for hours.

  1. Story Creator

Though it doesn’t focus on any Common Core skills, Story Creator is a fun, creative app for elementary students. Kids create their own storybooks using photos from their device or the included illustrations. They can share their stories easily by emailing them from within the app.

  1. Sushi Monster

It’s not always easy to make math fun, but Sushi Monster achieves this with fun cartoon characters and games. Geared towards middle or older elementary students, Sushi Monster has several levels and allows students to work on addition or multiplication. Students earn stars and trophies for their work.

  1. Todo Math

For younger elementary students in grades K-2, Todo Math is a great way to practice math skills. With hundreds of games, Todo Math has enough activities to keep kids busy for weeks.

  1. News-O-Matic

A great app for teachers who want to include current events in their elementary classroom. News-O-Matic delivers 5 kid-friendly news stories to readers each day. Plus, teachers can opt-in to receive an email containing Common Core aligned lesson plans that go along with the stories.

Did we miss your favorite elementary school app? Let us know what apps you love for young students!

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The 5 Steps to Implementing an App in the Classroom

Using a new app in the classroom is fun and exciting, but it can also be tricky. Finding the right app, making sure it works and setting it up can all take up time and frustrate teachers. Make implementing new apps in the classroom easier by following these five simple steps.

 Step 1: Finding the right app

Choosing the right app can make implementing a new app much easier. First, think about why you really need this app. Too many teachers use apps simply for the sake of using more technology in the classroom.

Instead, look for apps that add value to your teaching. Tons of apps can make everything from grading to classroom management easier. Consider what you need help with and find an app that will make your life easier, not harder.

Step 2: Talk to other teachers

Once you think you’ve found an app that will work for you, talk to other teachers about it. Have they used this app before? They might have helpful tips, or they may guide you towards a better app for your classroom.

Step 3: Test it out

If you’re going to be using this app with students, be sure to try it out yourself first. As a teacher, you know your students better than any app developer. Figure out if this app is going to work. Find any features that may be distracting or confusing for students.

Step 4: Develop a plan

Now that you’ve found the right app and tested it out, it’s time to figure out how you’re going to use this app. Determine where it fits in your lesson plan and what you want students to do with the app. Come up with rules or guidelines for students if they’ll be using the app.

If your school doesn’t provide devices for students and you want them to use the app, find out what types of devices your students have. If only a handful of students have iPhones and your new app only works on Android devices, you have a problem.

Step 5: Implement and troubleshoot

Even if you’ve gone through these steps, you’re still going to run into unexpected problems when using a new app. You may find that certain features don’t work as expected or that the app isn’t accomplishing what you’d hoped. Be ready to troubleshoot on the spot and come up with solutions to any problems you encounter.

What are your favorite apps for the classroom? How do you implement a new app? Tell us all about it!

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Is EdTech the Future of Parental Engagement?

As educators, we talk a lot about the role that teachers play in the lives of students and debate the best ways to strengthen the classroom experience for students from all backgrounds. There is only so much a teacher can do, though, particularly with large class sizes and limited resources. Even teachers in the best of circumstances are limited when it comes to hours in the day and the amount of material that must be covered. As K-12 academic standards become more rigorous, parents are becoming an even more integral piece of a student’s success.

Asking parents to pick up some of the “slack” for teachers is often perceived as a burden and not as the legitimate parental duty it actually is. This is very unfortunate. No teacher would argue the fact that parents ARE needed to maximize student success – so how can educators, and society as a whole, make it so? Not an easy question to answer, is it? My thoughts: we must find new innovative ways to engage parents, and we must do it fast.

Why does parental engagement matter?

The most obvious benefit of parental involvement is more time spent on academic learning, with direct results in student performance. There are other benefits too, though, like:

  • Parents being aware of what is taking place at the school and getting involved.
  • Parents better understanding where their children may struggle, and not just hearing it secondhand at a teacher conference.
  • Better attendance and participation for kids who follow the enthusiasm and good example of their parents.
  • Parent-child bonding over a common goal (and what better one than education?).

Teachers reading this are likely shaking their heads as their frustration builds. Yes, parents are needed! Yes, students perform better if their parents are involved in their academics!

How edtech is shaping the future of parental engagement

Over the last decade, edtech companies have been experimenting with innovative ways to use technology to increase parental engagement, communication, etc. Thankfully, several of these companies are getting it right and are really doing a great job of helping school districts increase parental involvement. Let’s discuss the three companies that I believe represent the future of parental engagement.

ClassTag

ClassTag is a cloud-based app that helps schools engage parents in their community and improve the quality of family support in education. Teachers and schools can use this product for free, which is an added bonus for cash-strapped districts. ClassTag’s unique approach lies in dissecting key breaking points in parent engagement.

ClassTag realizes how busy teachers are and that is why the platform intelligently automates all follow-ups and reminders for various activities and parent-teacher conferences, and even personalized weekly newsletters. Not surprisingly, teachers love this system!

ClassTag seems to be the first service to support personalized, meaningful, two-way communication with all parents regardless of what devices they use, even if they are entirely offline. With its new release, ClassTag bridges the gap between families using technology and those completely offline to reach 100% of families.

The addition of integrated printing to its multi-channel communication suite gives teachers a simple, one-step process for ensuring that each parent gets relevant classroom information in the format they prefer.  If a family isn’t being reached via email or mobile app, the chatbot-inspired smart assistant will recommend printing a personalized paper copy of announcements, reminders, and schedules to be sent home in children’s backpacks to those harder-to-reach parents. Reaching non-English speaking parents will also become much easier thanks to new translation functionality to be released later this summer.

Another interesting aspect of ClassTag is its stats. Now schools can use the built-in intelligence and analytics to get complete clarity on their parent engagement efforts and measure progress towards their goals.  Reaching 100% of parents is the first milestone towards engaging all parents in school- and home-based activities. ClassTag will show you how effective the efforts are across communications and all the different activities you organize on ClassTag such as parent-teacher conferences, volunteering, events and more.

ParentSquare

As a parent with a kid that is school-age, I know firsthand the challenge of managing all of the different messages that I receive from his school. What if all of those texts, emails, and scraps of paper could be aggregated to one place though? A spot where questions, messages, school needs and other information could live and be easily accessed by parents, teachers, and administrators? This is exactly the task that the creators of ParentSquare sought out to accomplish through their streamlined two-way communication platform for use between educators and parents.

ParentSquare has an easy-to-use interface that gives parents information in one streamlined location. With tabs for messages, events, people, photos, files and other options, parents can log into one system and have all the information they need. In short, ParentSquare makes school-to-home messaging simple, empowering parents to take a more active role in the academic success of their kids. Some of the standout features of ParentSquare include:

  • Two-way messaging options between parents and teachers.
  • The ability for parents and teachers to post information and events on boards that are shared with other families in the same class or school.
  • An instant Spanish translation option, removing this language barrier in homes where it may otherwise prevent parents from being completely in the know regarding their kids’ academics.
  • A people directory that gives contact information for prominent figures at the school and allows for messaging them within the platform.

When it comes to fragmented school-to-home communication, there can be a lot left to chance. ParentSquare combines messaging functions into one simple platform and offers some other intuitive features that encourage greater parental involvement in the schools that use it. Knowledge truly is power – and ParentSquare allows parents to have more of it through an efficient system that ensures stronger lines of communication.

School Messenger

Teachers struggle to connect with parents. Parents struggle to keep up with everything their kids have going on at school. School Messenger is a software as a service (SaaS) notification app that is utilized by school districts all over the United States to communicate with parents, students and staff via voice, SMS text, email and social media. Some of this its highlights include:

  • Can be instantly translated into over 50 languages.
  • It allows its user to post to social media platforms.
  • Includes a lot of interactive features, including a survey module that allows the user to ask an limitless amount of questions through phone and web.
  • Allows teachers to communicate about academic issues.
  • Parents can access School Messenger through several mediums, including the web or phone.
  • Includes a reporting feature that allows teachers to schedule and save reports. Allows teachers to monitor activity in real-time.
  • It includes flexible management tools that support streamlined deployment and support. This is important for districts that have a lot of employees.
  • Allows the user to control how and when messages are delivered to parents and students. This can be a fantastic time saver for teachers.
  • School Messenger also helps with privacy. Teacher phone numbers do not appear on the messages.

Teachers should keep in mind that School Messenger should be used as a supplement for classroom communication, not the sole source. Families have different communication styles. Teachers should consider these as they create their communication plan. It is also important to remember that not everyone has access to the technology necessary to access these messages. Low-income families may not have mobile devices. Some families might live in areas where their cell phone signals might be unreliable or unavailable.

School Messenger is another tool in the teacher’s toolkit. It is a fantastic way to quickly and easily communicate with parents and students. Administrators can also utilize it to communicate with their staff. Communication at all levels improves with mindful use of this tool.

Conclusion

Knowledge truly is power – and the edtech companies that we have featured are ensuring that parents, students, and teachers have an efficient system that provides stronger lines of communication and engagement. Looks like the future of parental engagement is in good hands.

 

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4 EdTech Trends You Should Be Paying Attention To

Every year, there are new trends in EdTech. It can be hard to keep up with all the new and exciting things happening in the world of EdTech. As soon as you’ve caught on to one hot topic, it seems to become old news.

But for all the trends that die out quickly, there are some that stick. After all, EdTech is a quickly developing field. Brilliant new ideas come around all the time and make a lasting impact. These are four of the EdTech trends we think you should be paying attention to:

  1. Virtual Reality

Virtual reality is taking the EdTech world by storm. This trend is thanks in part to Google. Google Cardboard has made virtual reality affordable and accessible. Teachers around the world are using Google Cardboard, and other VR technologies, to take students on virtual field trips and create experiences that would be impossible without virtual reality.

  1. Digital Citizenship

Now that digital technology is a part of everyday life, it’s important for students to know how to use it in a way that benefits society. Just like Kindergarteners learn to share, say please and thank you, and generally be kind to one another, today’s youth must learn digital manners. More and more schools are implementing digital citizenship courses where students learn how to be on their best behavior online. These programs also cover online safety for kids and teens.

  1. Gamification

Making learning fun has been the goal of educators for decades. With technology, it’s easier than ever to turn a boring lesson into something that feels more like play than learning. Gamification turns learning into a video game. Apps like the popular language-learning program Duolingo give students the opportunity to level up and earn badges or achievements as they complete lessons or skill practice. Today’s students have been playing video games for as long as they can remember, so this type of reward system is engaging and meaningful for them.

  1. Artificial Intelligence and Personalized Learning

Artificial intelligence and personalized learning go hand-in-hand and make up one of the biggest EdTech trends right now. This can be seen in the form of programs that measure what students know and offer tutoring tailored to meet the needs of each student. These virtual tutors are far cheaper than actual human tutors and provide highly personalized instruction for every single student. One example is the company Cognii’s Virtual Learning Assistant, but you can expect to see more programs like this soon.

What EdTech trends are you most excited about? Did we miss one here? Let us know!