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EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY

Identity Automation Partners with Grassroots Community of Experts in the Pathfinder Program to Drive Educational Transformation via Digital Identities

Identity Automation | November 19, 2021

Identity Automation, the digital identity platform for education, today announced that the company is partnering with a community of thought leaders in the education IT space to drive transformation, using the concept of digital identities as the cornerstone to achieve change. The Pathfinder Program is a network of experts who are passionate about education and committed to achieving change that focuses on learners, educators and education communities.

The Identity Automation team connected with Pathfinder Program members at this year's EDUCAUSE Annual Conference, which focuses on higher education IT. The company was a sponsor at the event and showcased its flagship RapidIdentity IAM platform and credential monitoring service called SafeID (powered by SpyCloud). Credential monitoring is a crucial capability that helps education institutions counter the growing threat of ransomware, data breaches and rising insurance costs.

The Pathfinder Program aims to raise awareness of digital identities and inspire educational change by building broad consensus with everyone involved, including IT experts, curriculum leaders and other vendors. Pathfinders believe that digital learning environments should be secure, immediately available and free from technology-related friction. Focusing on digital identity as the core, the Pathfinder Program facilitates collaboration and action on critical issues like:

Interoperability
Personalized learning
Digital Equity
Cybersecurity
Regulatory compliance and governance

"My favorite part about connecting with people at events is the sense of community we all share. They know education is changing, and they're committed to helping learners, teachers and staff make the transition successfully. They're curious about what other organizations are doing, and that's what makes the Pathfinder Program so valuable — it's a forum where people can share ideas and find solutions."

Brandon Levine, Director of Sales Development, Identity Automation

"Identity Automation's mission to empower educators and students with a safe and secure place to learn aligns perfectly with the digital citizenship message to help students stay safe, solve problems, and become a force for good both on and offline," shared Pathfinder Dr. Marialice Curran.

The Pathfinder Program includes people with diverse skillsets, including internationally recognized thought leaders who are frequently tapped as Keynote speakers on the topic of education IT. They share a passion for empowering learners, strengthening digital security and promoting digital citizenship.

"Everyone involved in the education system will have to pull together to achieve the level of digital transformation we need to serve learning communities," said Identity Automation CEO Jim Harold. "Any disconnect resulting from vendors working at cross-purposes hurts students and educators. We're better when we work together, and that's why we're so excited about the Pathfinder Program, which is already generating new ideas about how we can focus on what we do best to benefit students."

About Identity Automation
Identity Automation provides identity and access management (IAM) solutions for K-12 and higher education. Its flagship platform, RapidIdentity, safeguards learning environments, maximizes instructional time, and minimizes the load on Information & Educational Technology teams. Technology leaders turn to RapidIdentity for its best-in-class security capabilities, time-saving automation, and flexible approach to managing digital identities. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Identity Automation is trusted by Chicago Public Schools, Public Schools of North Carolina, University of Rochester, Houston Community College, and hundreds of other institutions.

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TALENT DEVELOPMENT

Melmark Starts Its New England School Facility in Stoughton

Melmark | March 10, 2023

On March 09, 2023, Melmark, a non-profit human service organization, started a new school facility for special education and recreational environment in Stoughton, Massachusetts. It selected Maggiore Construction Corporation with Roth and Seelen, Inc. to design and build this facility. It conducted the groundbreaking ceremony on January 24, 2023. This facility will offer a state-of-the-art and accessible special education learning and recreational surrounding, opening in May. Its New England division presently enrolled about 132 students at its Andover school, and this new facility will educate up to 84 students. It will provide new opportunities for school districts, students, and families deprived of clinically sophisticated educational services. In addition, it would also offer job opportunities with skilled special education leaders. This facility has a license from DESE and helps students aged 3 to 22 with an intensive individualized education approach. This approach and a behavioral framework create the learning environment needed for education. Its students are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and intellectual and developmental disabilities, having secondary to complex behavioral profiles. Melmark New England is also the Massachusetts Association of 766 Approved Private Schools (MAAPS) member. President and CEO of Melmark, Rita M. Gardner said, "This is a poignant time in the history of Melmark, this is a project that was slated to start during the COVID-19 pandemic. We are thrilled to stay focused on the needs of families in our communities. We are collaborating with school professionals, families, and other stakeholders to share information about the opportunities our new school will make available, as we are keenly aware of the critical, growing need for the evidence-based services we offer. The new school building will support spacious, intentionally designed classroom environments with innovative tools for learning and skills building. This growth in MA reflects our mission and strategic goal to serve children in diverse and inclusive communities who need and deserve Melmark's specialized special education services to reach their best outcomes." (Source – Cision PR Newswire) About Melmark Headquartered in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, Melmark, an individual and family services provider, specializes in applied behavior analysis, special needs, intellectual disabilities, developmental disabilities, autism, education, healthcare, approved private school autism and intellectual disabilities, charity and non-profit, and volunteers. It is a multi-state human service provider with special education schools, training, research centers and professional development. It has transformed the lives of individuals with autism, intellectual and developmental disabilities and supporting their families since 1966. It provides evidence-based and behavior-analytic services to them daily.

CORPORATE EDUCATION AND TRAINING

ClassIn Launches its World-Class Teaching and Learning Platform in the United States

Globenewswire | April 18, 2023

ClassIn, a world leader in hybrid, blended, and remote learning solutions, today announced the launch of its globally recognized platform in the United States. The ClassIn platform has been purpose-built for education and based on nearly a decade of research, development, and in-market experience. Through its software and hardware solutions, ClassIn provides the digital infrastructure for the hybrid future of education by building classrooms in both the virtual and physical worlds. ClassIn is the only end-to-end education platform with a full suite of innovative tools and features, all designed with hybrid-first pedagogy at its core. It supports active learning, student flexibility, and various teaching and learning methods. While schools have worked to embrace technology for decades, innovation has been slow and fragmented, and most new technologies have been designed to solve a singular problem. Today, the average US teacher uses 148 different EdTech products and the average US school district uses over 1,400 EdTech solutions. The pandemic exacerbated this issue, as most schools implemented “emergency remote teaching” instead of pedagogically aligned instruction, cobbling together many disparate technologies that were not built or designed for education. “Remote and hybrid teaching brought long-touted but previously out-of-reach, student-centric instruction to life, making room for self-guided learning, flexible schedules, and additional time to explore volunteer, hobby, and work opportunities,” said Sara Gu, Co-Founder, and COO at ClassIn. “We’re at an inflection point. The classroom of the future will be networked, digitized, and intelligent, which means our learning solutions must be built on a solid foundation: based on hybrid-first pedagogy and backed by learning science. With over 50 million students using our solution in 160+ countries, our hardware and software solutions reduce districts' need for the patchwork of over 1,400 different technologies by combining many of those capabilities seamlessly.” ClassIn’s comprehensive suite of tools helps educators and administrators address multiple challenges by: • Helping School Districts Address Teacher Shortages: According to the National Education Association, there is a shortage of roughly 300,000 teachers and staff across the U.S. The teacher shortage is particularly pronounced in rural school districts, where the need for special education teachers and STEM teachers is high. ClassIn allows schools to expand the reach of instruction from more experienced faculties to locations where those resources are scarce. • Encouraging Equitable Learning by Leveling the Playing Field for Virtual and In-Person Learning Modalities: From two-way interactive blackboards to breakout rooms, class polling, real-time interaction, and personalized learning, ClassIn encourages student engagement and interaction and allows teachers to design a classroom that goes beyond successful lectures, incorporating other modalities of instruction and teamwork. • Offering Strategic Hardware Solutions: ClassIn X transforms traditional classrooms into outcome-driven hybrid learning spaces through an IoT hardware package that digitizes the physical classroom. It offers a 110’’ smart board that comes with ClassIn software, an AI-enabled multi-directional microphone that clearly captures the sound in an 800-square-foot classroom, and a stationary face-tracking camera, which makes it easy for remote students to see the teacher’s face and gestures. • Providing Fast, Seamless Technology: Built to handle virtual, hybrid, and blended learning, ClassIn’s technology allows up to 2,000 students to interact in a single classroom, with millions more learners able to view and listen to the livestream in real-time. • Streamlining School & District Administrative Tools: The administration dashboard streamlines school management, enabling batch lesson planning for the entire semester and generating data-rich reports that reflect student participation during and after class. The wide variety of functionality allows schools to handle hybrid and blended learning on their terms in a way that works best for their school district and classrooms. Administrators can also easily review and analyze teacher and student performance through over 40 metrics, including attendance, classroom activity, and test and homework data. ClassIn makes it easy to teach, learn, and build learning communities with minimal friction, freeing up teachers to do their best work, and students to do their best learning—all in an active, supportive, and flexible environment. About ClassIn A world leader in learning environment solutions, ClassIn has pioneered the digital and physical infrastructure for the hybrid future of education. Purpose-built for education based on nearly a decade of research, development, and in-market experience, ClassIn is the only end-to-end education platform with a full suite of tools designed with hybrid-first pedagogy at its core. ClassIn serves over 50 million students across 160+ countries. ClassIn has partnered with more than 80,000+ educational institutions including Oxford University Press, Sony Education, EF, The British Council, Pearson, and Udacity. The Series D company has raised more than $500 million and is backed by Hillhouse and Tencent, among others.

CONTINUING EDUCATION

Universities Around the World Compete to Improve Accessibility using Anthology Ally

PRnewswire | May 08, 2023

Anthology, a leading provider of education solutions that support the entire learner lifecycle, today announced its fourth annual Fix Your Content Day to highlight the need for more inclusive digital learning content. Anthology is inviting higher education institutions that use Anthology Ally to participate. The objective of Fix Your Content Day is to engage colleges and universities globally to make meaningful change in the lives of all students and create more inclusive learning environments. By participating in the competition, higher ed institutions and instructors are doing their part to improve the accessibility of course materials and demonstrate their commitment to inclusivity. "We look forward to participating in the 24-hour global competition each year, which challenges us to continue our journey in creating more inclusive digital learning content," said Coastal Pines Technical College Executive Vice President, Amanda Morris, the 2022 First Place Fix Your Content Day Global Winner. "While Fix Your Content Day is only once a year, our college and the Technical College System of Georgia collectively strives to improve the accessibility of course materials and serve as a champion for accessibility every day. Additionally, we enjoy the friendly competition with other colleges and encourage our faculty and staff to get involved. The challenge is a fun way to review our course content for quality and accessibility." More than 1,500 institutions around the world use Anthology Ally to enhance digital content on their learning management systems (LMS). The result is better learning outcomes for students by improving the usability, readability, and quality of the digital materials in their courses. "An estimated one billion people across the globe experience some sort of physical, visual, hearing, or cognitive disability. Employing solutions to create more accessible learning environments is imperative," said Anthology Chairman and CEO Jim Milton. "However, making content more accessible and providing alternative formats isn't just for a select group of students. Alternative formats generated by solutions like Anthology Ally provide greater opportunities for everyone to access the information they need in the way they want it. We are thrilled to see the enthusiasm of institutions and faculty participating in this global effort." Anthology Ally empowers learners with the flexibility of choosing the most effective way to interact with digital content. By dynamically enhancing learning materials for student preferences and needs, it automatically provides alternative formats for course content, like audio files, translations, PDFs better formatted for mobile devices and more, all without manual intervention from the institution or instructor. "While we've been actively supporting faculty and staff in centering inclusivity in their online courses for years, this will be our first year participating in Fix Your Content Day," said Dr. Hannah Digges Elliott, Senior Instructional Designer at Western Kentucky University. "We're excited about the opportunity to encourage a little competition among our faculty and staff and ultimately continue to highlight the importance of more accessible content." "We're thrilled to be a part of such a global initiative that unites the higher education community around a friendly competition and highlights the critical need for accessible, inclusive, and equitable online learning environments," said Dr. Chris Campbell, Sub Dean of Learning Technology at Charles Sturt University in Australia. "Fix Your Content Day highlights the importance of building equitable learning experiences," said Dr. Margaret Korosec, Dean of Online and Digital Education at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. "It's also a reminder to reflect on how learning experiences are received by students and how choice of access supports their requirements. Equitable access starts with our own awareness of what's possible and working to push the boundaries of what can be done in an accessible way." About Anthology Anthology offers the largest EdTech ecosystem on a global scale for education, recently combining with Blackboard to support more than 150 million users in 80 countries. With a mission to provide dynamic, data-informed experiences to the global education community, Anthology helps learners, leaders and educators achieve their goals through over 60 SaaS products and services designed to advance learning.