EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
Bark Technologies | September 06, 2021
Online safety company Bark Technologies today announced the addition of Microsoft Teams to the list of platforms it monitors at schools nationwide. Bark is the latest company to offer this level of protection on the popular Teams platform.
Currently, Bark monitors more than 30 of today's most popular social media platforms and apps, as well as text messages, chats, emails, and Microsoft OneDrive files. Bark also monitors images, text within images, audio, and video that can be attached to Teams channels and chat messages as part of its suite of safety solutions. The addition of Teams monitoring in schools reinforces Bark's commitment to protecting more than 5.6 million children across the U.S.
Throughout the pandemic, Teams has been one of the most heavily relied-upon platforms for educational institutions, growing exponentially as schools switched to distance and hybrid learning. Even as students return to the classroom this fall, more than 230,000 educational institutions rely on Teams to communicate and collaborate online.
Using highly sophisticated AI, Bark detects and alerts families of concerning behaviors in a variety of categories, including cyberbullying, depression, suicidal ideation, violence, and online predation. Throughout the challenging months of 2020 — the hardest year for families in recent memory — Bark analyzed more than 2 billion online activities from teens and tweens across the U.S., noting a significant uptick in behaviors including self-harm and suicidal ideation. Kids faced a pandemic, social unrest, and virtual learning, and through it all, they relied heavily on online communication to stay connected with family and friends.
"With more than 100 million students currently using Microsoft Teams, there has never been a greater need to ensure their safety when communicating and collaborating on school platforms," said Brian Bason, CEO of Bark. "We are thrilled to add this extra layer of protection by adding Bark's monitoring services to Teams."
"We're happy to see companies like Bark joining the Microsoft Teams ecosystem and adding value by integrating their safety solutions with Teams Graph APIs," said
Yaron Hezroni, principal program manager for Teams Ecosystem at Microsoft. "The added safety measures Bark brings to Teams helps ensure that students are protected and in the best position to succeed."
About Bark
Bark helps families manage and protect their children's digital lives. The award-winning service monitors 30+ of the most popular apps and social media platforms for signs of issues like cyberbullying, suicidal ideation, online predators, threats of violence, and more. Bark's web filtering and screen time management tools empower families to set healthy limits around the websites and apps their kids can access and when they can visit them.
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ONLINE EDUCATION
TutorMe | February 10, 2022
TutorMe, the online tutoring solution of the future, today announced a partnership with Ferguson-Florissant School District to provide more than 11,000 K-12 students with access to TutorMe's online, 24/7 tutoring service. TutorMe will be available to students at no cost to them for the 2021-2022 school year.
With over 15,000 tutors available anytime to help with hundreds of subjects, TutorMe provides on-demand expertise whenever students need it. TutorMe's award-winning lesson space features a virtual whiteboard, text editor, audio/video chat, and screen sharing where students connect live with a tutor. All lessons are archived for future reference. Students also have access to the Writing Lab to submit their essays, papers, and other writing assignments and receive feedback from a writing tutor within hours.
"Our partnership with TutorMe will allow our students of all ages to have on-call help when needed, and give each student the opportunity to thrive in any subject matter with no cost to their family," said Kevin Voepel, Secondary Math and Professional Development Coordinator. "The pandemic has made it difficult for students to seek out extra help. This new tool will hopefully bridge that gap and I look forward to seeing the positive improvement across each classroom."
TutorMe's virtual classroom provides interactive features including a text editor, code editor, two-way audio/video chat, screen sharing, and a virtual whiteboard for engaging and enriching education. Each session is archived so students can conveniently access past lessons to help them with coursework and studying.
"TutorMe has been on the frontline of online education assistance well before the pandemic arrived, providing top-notch tutors and on-demand academic support to ensure students never feel lost. The community of students, staff, and families at Ferguson-Florissant School District can rely on TutorMe to provide 1-on-1 learning during critical times of need and beyond."
TutorMe's Co-founder and CEO Myles Hunter
About TutorMe
TutorMe, a subsidiary of Zovio, provides 24/7 high-dosage tutoring to over a million students in thousands of school districts and higher education institutions coast to coast. As the leading online tutoring solution since 2015, TutorMe helps achieve equitable education by giving learners access to 1-on-1 live support in hundreds of subjects and expert essay reviewers for in-depth feedback on papers. For its excellence in education technology, TutorMe has been named one of FETC®'s Top Ed Tech Products of 2022 and Best Tech for Good Winner in the Timmy Awards. TutorMe is headquartered in Los Angeles with a fully remote team of talented individuals working together to democratize quality academic support.
About Zovio
Zovio is an education technology services company that partners with higher education institutions and employers to deliver innovative, personalized solutions to help learners and leaders achieve their aspirations. The Zovio network, including Fullstack Academy and TutorMe, leverages its core strengths to solve priority market needs through education technology services. Using proprietary, advanced data analytics, Zovio identifies the most meaningful ways to enhance the learner experience and deliver strong outcomes for higher education institutions, employers, and learners. Zovio's purpose is to help everyone be in a class of their own.
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prnewswire | September 09, 2020
Savvas Learning Company, a next-generation learning solutions provider for K-12 education, announced today the national launch of Three Cheers for Pre-K, a ready-to-go pre-kindergarten curriculum that provides a balance of academics and purposeful play to successfully pave the way for kindergarten readiness. Three Cheers for Pre-K, which has been recommended for adoption in Texas, has been thoughtfully designed to support social-emotional and culturally responsive learning through instruction tied to nine developmentally appropriate themes. The program fosters the development of key skills and concepts in the core disciplines of literacy, mathematics, science, and social studies, as well as in other subjects, such as health, technology and the arts — all of which are integrated into weekly instruction.
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