Education Technology, Continuing Education
Article | August 8, 2022
This entry is the 13th in a blog series called Pandemic Response and Educational Practices (PREP), which aims to highlight and further the important work educators are doing amid the worldwide COVID-19 crisis. Based on Creating the Anywhere, Anytime Classroom. Gloria’s situation is not unfamiliar. In fact, over the last six months, millions of teachers everywhere have been asked to suddenly transition from traditional face-to-face instruction to working either fully online or in some type of blended-learning configuration.
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Online Education
Article | July 12, 2022
There’s no question the COVID-19 pandemic has brought many challenges to everyday life. But it has also spurred rapid growth in technologies that aim to make everyday life simpler, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Many industries have been fueling this growth, automating processes through AI (the use of computers and machines to mimic human problem-solving and decision-making abilities).
K–12 education is no exception. As schools rushed to accommodate remote learning with little notice — and maintain a secure online network for students and staff — many incorporated elements of AI and ML. Between digital assistants, endpoint security, chatbots and more, AI is gaining a foothold in U.S. classrooms.
Here are three trends to look for in 2022:
AI in Digital Assistants Helps K–12 Teachers Manage Classrooms
“Alexa, read us a story.”
That’s one way teachers are using digital assistants, such as the popular Amazon Echo device — technology that many parents of home-bound students used last year to aid in their children’s educational routines — in the classroom.
One school district in California has integrated this technology even further with the Symphony Classroom device from Merlyn Mind, described as the world’s first digital assistant for education. The device is powered by Edge AI, combining artificial intelligence with edge computing technology.
It’s a way of getting technology to kids where they’re at and when they need it, says Brian Fish, an English teacher at Rancho Verde High School in California.
“Nothing can replace a teacher. However, technology can expand teaching,” Fish says.
Elsewhere in the Val Verde Unified School District, first grade teacher Jennifer Thornton says it comes in handy in her classroom because she’s never at her desk for very long. Through voice commands, Merlyn — the name given to the AI — can navigate tabs on Thornton’s computer and play or pause a YouTube video for a lesson, for example.
“It’s helped a lot with the classroom management,” she says.
Darren Crist, an elementary special education teacher in the district, also uses it for videos in his classroom. But Merlyn’s best feature, at least for Crist’s students, is its visual timer, which helps them with time management and more.
Crist also assigns students to be in charge of Merlyn as a classroom job, which helps them develop life skills.
“As a special ed teacher I’m focused a lot on, not just the normal standards of academics, but making sure that my kids are able to get some of that executive functioning they might be lacking,” he says.
"Nothing can replace a teacher. However, technology can expand teaching.”
- Brian Fish English teacher, Rancho Verde High School
Next-Generation Cybersecurity Solutions Integrate AI Technology
The use of AI and ML is also shaping cybersecurity and the IT industry. For example, these technologies “can offer IT security professionals a way to enforce good cybersecurity practices and shrink the attack surface instead of constantly chasing after malicious activity,” BizTech reports.
So, what does that mean for schools?
Between January and May 2020, as the pandemic took root, the use of remote management and collaboration apps increased by 87 percent and 141 percent, respectively, in K–12 schools, according to an Absolute Software survey of more than 10,000 school and district representatives.
Despite the rise in online applications for teaching and learning, “educational institutions are spending more on endpoint security yet gaining less visibility and control. Forty-one percent of schools say tracking devices is one of their most significant challenges,” Forbes reported.
That’s where technology such as next-generation endpoint security comes into play. “This advanced protection leverages artificial intelligence to recognize potentially dangerous threats — both known and unknown — in real time without the need for signatures, increasing speed-to-action via a proactive, streamlined security protocol,” according to a CDW•G white paper.
Cybersecurity solutions powered by AI and ML are becoming more popular in school districts because they give time back to small IT teams and allow them to scale security with the introduction of large device fleets.
Chatbots Rely on AI to Improve Communication and Tutoring
AI-powered chatbots have been shown to improve classroom efficiency and help teachers communicate with parents.
Since the onset of the pandemic, even more uses for chatbots have started to gain steam. With tutoring seen as a solution to helping students overcome the COVID-19 learning disruption, chatbots could help bridge the equity gap between students who can’t afford private, traditional tutors and those who can.
“To me, AI is just a set of simple tools that we can use, in this case, to figure out some problems that teachers and kids are persistently having,” researcher Neil Heffernan, a computer science professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, says. “The real magic is giving human tutors and teachers a little bit of information on what’s going on so they can be more efficient.”
Google released a suite of programs for higher education that include virtual assistants and, as of November, an AI tutor. The applications in this software suite, called Student Success Services, can be customized for use in K–12 classrooms.
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Education Technology
Article | July 14, 2022
Data and analytics have become a prominent strategy across industries to promote informed decision-making. Riding this wave is the higher education industry. Recently, the higher education IT association inaugurated a data and analytics edition of the Horizon Report, a report that provides a deep analysis of technology trends and practices that impact higher ed institutions. The report confirms that data analytics is an emerging alternative for strategic decision-making and planning.
According to the report, here are the six practices and technologies that will have the greatest impact:
Data Management
Data management and governance includes automating workflow, managing access, consent management, data privacy, and data integrity management. According to Educause, these data processes form an essential part of institutional success and security. Despite this, many institutions rely on multiple committees instead of a dedicated team for data management and governance. This gap is an opportunity for data and analytics solution providers to meet and improve data management in higher ed.
Consolidating Data Sources
Data silos are a common concern in higher ed institutions. The tremendous volumes of data that institutions have stored are never leveraged due to the divide between systems. Unifying these data sources will help higher education institutions build a seamless ecosystem that supports their administrative as well as remote instruction platforms.
Data Architecture
High-end analytics is incomplete without smart data architecture. The scalability and flexibility of the data architecture enables higher ed institutes to be agile and use data effectively to fuel decision-making. Establishing a modern data architecture will be at the top of the list for higher ed institutions.
Data Literacy
Equipping decision-makers and stakeholders with the necessary skills to interpret the insights generated by the data is crucial to the success of the organization. Stakeholders across the institutions in higher education, from management leaders to administrators and teachers, need data literacy training to leverage data efficiently.
DEI-based Data and Analytics
Data analytics professionals are putting more emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) to drive how they retrieve, analyze, and process data. This will allow higher ed institutions to capitalize on data and analytics to promote their DEI policies, boost equity, and track progress to improve outcomes.
Enhancing Institutions’ Data Analytics
The growing demand for meaningful, and insight-driven data is pressing data professionals to enhance their capabilities and contribute to the institutional capabilities to use data effectively. Institutional leaders can start considering what purpose data analytics might play in the future if stronger procedures are in place. Collaboration between institutions will be more secure, useful, and advantageous. Analytics administrators can anticipate greater outcomes for students, instructors, and staff as data analytics procedures advance.
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Article | August 25, 2020
How fitting that our last day of in-person learning was Friday the 13th. I’m the vice principal at St. Barnabas Elementary School in the Bronx. That day in March I was refilling hand sanitizer when our week-long closure was announced. Like many of us, we scrambled, tossing teacher’s editions into bags and packing as many manipulatives as we could carry, all while lugging chart paper over our shoulders just in case. We didn’t know what was needed, so it all seemed logical to take.
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