Talent Development
PRnewswire | July 19, 2023
Lincoln Learning Solutions announced today the release of its Lincoln Content Bank, a multi-modal, educational content library designed with Amazon Web Services and intended to equip teachers with nearly 110,000 rigorous learning assets they can configure and assemble to meet the needs of their students.
"Educators working with pre-K through 12th-grade students need an easy-to-use tool that allows them to personalize learning opportunities," Lincoln Learning Solutions CEO, Bob Clements, said. "Our Lincoln Content Bank gives them the ability to quickly and simply search a huge variety of content to determine the best fit for individual students, small groups of students, or entire classrooms."
The Lincoln Content Bank features a robust search tool allowing teachers to harvest information based on searches of keyword, topic, standard, subject, grade level, modality, and more. Approximately 110,000 learning assets are at their fingertips ready to be incorporated into their courses in Canvas, according to Clements.
Designed by teachers for teachers, the content bank allows them to populate and preview on the same screen and intuitively makes recommendations based on previous searches. It gives teachers the luxury of saving the searched-for educational material in collections for easy retrieval at a later time.
Teachers who provided Lincoln with feedback in the early stages of development said the content bank would go a long way toward helping them close learning gaps, challenge students, ensure alignment with IEPs and 504 plans, and obtain standard mastery, all issues they face regardless of their learning environment.
"A lot went into this launch," Clements said. "The payoff for working with AWS to create this leading-edge teaching tool will come in the form of student success, which is always our top priority.
AWS is proud to have collaborated with Lincoln Learning Solutions on the development of the Lincoln Content Bank," said Annmarie Lehner, K-12 Business Development & Strategy Leader at AWS. "We look forward to seeing how K-12 school districts leverage the tool to personalize student learning in leading Learning Management Systems to improve student success."
LLS designed the tool with AWS so that it seamlessly integrates into the Canvas learning management suite and equips teachers with seemingly limitless access to an immense repository of educational content. Available in Canvas and in the AWS Marketplace, the Lincoln Content Bank will, among other things, provide teachers with: • Perceptive and rapid searching and browsing features • Customizable material for full classes or individual students • Myriad options for supplemental learning • Streamlined access to and application of learning objects targeting different learning modalities • Cross-curricular learning opportunities
School administrators will appreciate the content bank for its ability to streamline and standardize course creation across subjects while allowing individual departments to retain a level of ownership in the scope and sequence of their courses.
About Lincoln Learning Solutions
Lincoln Learning Solutions is a 501c3 nonprofit organization dedicated to collaborating with educators and maximizing their talents to facilitate student success. Based in western Pennsylvania, it is the developer of Lincoln Empowered™, a digitally based curriculum that delivers engaging, standards-based, instruction in online and blended learning environments. Lincoln Empowered™ offers a dynamic array of courses in language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, physical education, and the creative and performing arts. Lincoln Learning Solutions currently serves nearly 100 schools in 14 states, and upward of 20,000 students.
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Corporate Learning Systems
PR Newswire | September 21, 2023
D2L, a global learning technology company, today announced the formal launch of D2L for Business – a corporate learning solution designed to maximize return on investment (ROI) in learning and help empower employers to attract, retain, onboard, and upskill their workforce.
D2L for Business combines the benefits of an existing network of world-class education providers, skill development solutions, and expert consulting services along with D2L's world class Learning Experience Platform (LXP) and authoring tools, creating one integrated, easy-to-use corporate solution.
The 2023 World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report predicts that 44% of workers' skills will be disrupted in the following five years – rising significantly from 35% in 2016. And, according to D2L's 2023 White Paper, 80% of U.S. adults expressed some interest in pursuing additional skills training over the next 12 months.
"With recent rapid advancements in AI, the changing nature of jobs, and skills shortages, it's essential for employees to continue to upgrade their skillsets – and for businesses to offer the right learning to remain competitive in the talent market," said John Baker, CEO of D2L. "For over two decades, we've helped hundreds of organizations drive their business forward with the right learning for the skills they need. D2L for Business will help take our customers to the next level with a simple, seamless, and personalized mix of technology and services to help fuel a skilled workforce prepared to take on the future."
D2L for Business helps employers maximize organization-wide learning ROI and their workforce's satisfaction, retention, and internal mobility through:
Skills Mapping and Pathways: D2L for Business uses AI-driven algorithms and industry experts to help develop a comprehensive skills audit, map skills to careers, and identify custom learning pathways for desired careers and skill sets. This helps businesses create a skills pipeline aligned with business objectives, fill open roles, and close skills gaps.
Network of World-Class Education Partners: D2L for Business can help businesses streamline their learning administration through a curated provider network of industry-leading universities, colleges, and training organizations. Employers can easily deploy a centralized catalog of career-aligned programs and courses to talent at every level of the organization.
Customized Learning: D2L for Business can help businesses create and deliver their own customized digital learning experiences through D2L's LXP. This can enable organizations to rapidly scale and deploy learning that aligns with their strategic goals.
Learning Analytics: D2L for Business offers built-in insights to help maximize businesses' ROI with a birds-eye-view into learner progress and outcomes. Employers can gather integrated, organization-wide data about course completion rates and employee skill development, and then make data-informed decisions to help ensure future-readiness. "When it comes to revamping your learning and development program, it's important to have a plan in place that's going to take your business to the next level, and into the future," said Melissa Stein, Officer of Learning & Development at Tompkins Financial. "Tompkins specifically chose D2L as its corporate learning platform for its flexibility, ability to provide content in all areas of learning, and its two decades of trends-focused, forward-looking innovation."
D2L for Business can help empower companies to make their skilled teams a competitive advantage, future-proofing their organization to fuel growth. For more information on D2L for Business, please visit https://www.D2L.com/solutions/corporate/.
About D2L
D2L is transforming the way the world learns—helping learners of all ages achieve more than they dreamed possible. Working closely with clients all over the world, D2L is supporting millions of people learning online and in person. Our growing global workforce is dedicated to making the best learning products to leave the world better than they found it. Learn more about D2L for K-12, higher education and businesses at www.D2L.com.
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Education Technology
Businesswire | July 10, 2023
YuJa, Inc., a leader in ed-tech solutions, has introduced a number of new and exciting features across its portfolio of higher education offerings, which include the flagship YuJa Enterprise Video Platform, YuJa Panorama Digital Accessibility platform, YuJa Engage Student Response System, YuJa Verity Test Proctoring, and YuJa Himalayas Enterprise Archiving Platform.
“Our goal is to continually innovate to meet the evolving needs of our customers,” said Nathan Arora, Chief Business Officer at YuJa, Inc. “With these new features, updates, and enhancements, we aim to empower educators and institutions with innovative tools that foster engaging learning environments and enable seamless collaboration. We are dedicated to supporting the ever-changing landscape of higher education and ensuring our products remain at the forefront of educational technology.”
Highlighted feature introductions and updates are listed below.
YuJa Enterprise Video Platform
A number of Enterprise Video Platform improvements were implemented. Highlights include:
The need for third-party cookies has been eliminated, which simplified product use and enhances the privacy and security for institutions as they access the Video Platform from within their learning management system.
A new umbrella system infrastructure has been deployed to support systems of higher education with multiple campuses or institutions using a single Video Platform instance. Administrators can manage system-level deployment and designate sub-administrators at an individual college level.
A new client-side Microsoft Teams app complements the cloud-side Teams integration, which creates a streamlined video-sharing workflow between Teams and the Video Platform.
YuJa Panorama Digital Accessibility Platform
YuJa Panorama Digital Accessibility Platform has a long list of new features to help streamline accessibility across institutions. Some accessibility enhancements include:
A new gradient reader helps reduce unnecessary eye movements and increases the reader’s focus by providing a guiding color gradient to facilitate a smooth shift between lines of text.
YuJa Panorama provides “How-to-Fix” guides to help instructors fix accessibility concerns. Now, guides can now be edited with new text, images, and links, and each issue is now accompanied by both a video tutorial and a link to web content accessibility guidelines.
The Alternatives Formats Menu has an updated UI and minimized steps to view a preferred format.
YuJa Verity Test Proctoring Platform
Among the top updates to the YuJa Verity Test Proctoring Platform include the following:
YuJa Verity users can now monitor third-party assessments across all learning management systems, which provides secure testing environments within the Verity LTI app.
A new lockdown app has been launched. The app works seamlessly with Verity Live Proctoring to ensure students can’t end recordings during an assessment and enforces strict measures to prevent common methods of bypassing proctor settings.
Instructors can now create custom profiles for their proctoring settings, which can be applied to upcoming proctored tests.
YuJa Engage Student Response System
The YuJa Engage Student Response System also saw a host of new and updated features, including:
A new mobile application for IOS and Android has been introduced to their respective app stores to provide on-the-go access to polls and results for both students and instructors.
Surveys have been updated to seamlessly integrate with the gradebook and new question types have been added.
Gradebook results can be manually adjusted within YuJa Engage, which allows instructors to tailor the grading process to better align with individual student progress and ensure accurate evaluation of academic performance.
ABOUT YUJA, INC.
YuJa is a leader in ed-tech solutions. Our platforms provide organizations of all sizes with the tools to educate, engage, inspire and collaborate. We serve learning enterprises within all sectors, including higher-ed, K-12, government, healthcare, non-profit and corporate. We have legal headquarters in Delaware with primary U.S. offices in Silicon Valley, California, and Canadian offices in Toronto.
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Entrepreneurs and Leaders
PRnewswire | August 02, 2023
Instructure, the leading learning platform and maker of Canvas, today announced enhanced and expanded Instructure Learning Platform solutions, further demonstrating the company's ongoing commitment to innovation in edtech and its mission to make teachers' work easier and improve student success. Today the company unveiled enhancements centered around core teaching and learning, advanced analytics, lifelong learning and platform integration during InstructureCon 2023, the company's annual user conference held July 26-28 in Denver.
Core Teaching and Learning
To better support millions of educators and learners using Canvas around the world, Instructure showcased continued innovation to their core teaching and learning solutions, all designed to save educators time, personalize learning experiences for students and simplify complex tasks for administrators. Today, AI-assisted course templating was announced, giving educators and instructional designers the power to quickly create elegant page layouts using dynamic methods, making courses both more engaging and intuitive. This latest release, soon available in beta, joins the growing list of new functionalities specifically designed to improve educator efficiency and reduce administrative tasks, such as bulk publishing for modules, enhanced Gradebook filters, Course Pacing and the ability to submit assignments on behalf of students. Students also gain a more personalized, equitable experience from Canvas solutions with tailored in-context support, like the beta AI-powered right-and-wrong answer rationale and integration of AI writing tutor Khanmigo, made available through the just-announced partnership with Khan Academy. These tools give instructors supplemental AI-powered tools to support students in and out of the classroom. "This work underscores our continued commitment to build the extensibility and advanced capabilities of Canvas products, while also promoting simplicity for both educators and learners," said Shiren Vijiasingam, Instructure's Chief Product Officer. "With the introduction of AI capabilities into our core products—both with our own innovation and that of our strategic partners found in our beta emerging AI marketplace—we aim to meet the immediate and future needs of our community with substantive improvements that help to drive best practice in pedagogy and curriculum."
Advanced Analytics
Building upon the rapid adoption of the new data pipeline for Canvas Data 2 and the recently released Canvas Admin Analytics, included in Canvas LMS, Instructure also showcased new advanced analytics solutions now available in beta. This allows administrators to personalize the way they see and interact with their data in a fraction of the time. Injecting conversational AI into Instructure analytics products empowers educators to ask deeper questions of their data using everyday language. This results in more timely, actionable insights to drive better outcomes for students.
Lifelong Learning
In response to rapidly evolving labor markets and growing demand for alternate educational paths, Instructure's new streamlined offering of Canvas LMS, Canvas Credentials and Canvas Catalog provide institutions with a turnkey solution to diversify course offerings, attract new learners and drive continued institutional growth. As an evolution of this offering, today the company previewed innovative work in credentialing and learner records. Instructure is launching a learner passport in beta designed to empower learners to carry stackable, verifiable evidence of the competencies acquired throughout their learning journey. "We believe the future requires a portable, shareable record to show the skills and achievements an individual mastered with either employers or institutions," Vijiasingam said. "We know that learners are looking for alternative paths to employment and education and this gives them the power to pursue their own unique learning journeys."
Platform Integration
To realize the company's mission of delivering the most comprehensive, seamless learning platform on the market, Instructure showcased new deep integration between their solutions, like Canvas LMS and assessment management system Mastery Connect, and a seamless learning experience across Canvas LMS, Canvas Catalog and Canvas Credentials. This cohesive platform experience is strengthened by a foundation of data brought to life by advanced analytics. As part of the platform, the Instructure Community, edtech's largest online community, now has PandaBot, an AI-powered chatbot available to all community members. "Whether educators and learners are using Instructure products or other educational technologies on the Instructure Learning Platform, they deserve an experience that puts teaching and learning front and center," said Steve Daly, Instructure's Chief Executive Officer. "Removing the barriers between these solutions allows everyone to navigate freely so they can focus on the content of their education and not the tech. Today we shared our vision of what a cohesive platform experience could and should look like–and our strategy to get there."
ABOUT INSTRUCTURECON
InstructureCon 2023, Instructure's professional learning event for educators and edtech users, with a 2023 theme of Making Moments, features prominent keynotes from Deepak Chopra, Arianna Huffington and Dr. Jordan Nguyen. With more than 130 sessions from fellow educators and inspiring thinkers, InstructureCon addresses some of the most impactful edtech insights and tips on resilience, wellness and self-care for educators. This year's InstructureCon event takes place July 25-28, at the Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center in Denver.
ABOUT INSTRUCTURE
Instructure is an education technology company dedicated to elevating student success, amplifying the power of teaching, and inspiring everyone to learn together. Today the Instructure Learning Platform, comprised of its flagship product Canvas LMS and several products serving K-12 and higher education, supports tens of millions of educators and learners around the world.
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