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When it comes to schools’ and districts’ ability to implement new technology tools and programs, cost and shrinking budgets are consistently identified as top barriers to implementation.

And while budget woes won’t improve overnight, schools and districts can boost their available funds with grants that are targeted to different areas of need.

Want to shrink the digital gap for low-income students? Do you need more funding to support youth-led community service programs? Or maybe you want to recognize excellence in education innovation.

Look no further. We’ve got 6 grants to meet various levels of funding needs.

(Next page: 6 grants for schools, educators and districts)

A majority of Americans would like to see technology companies take a more active role in improving U.S. education by creating apprenticeship programs and providing more technology resources, according to new data.

The new poll from OZY and SurveyMonkey tracks how technology is impacting post-secondary education and the workforce in the U.S. It also gauges how survey participants feel about free public higher education, online learning, classroom teachers, and more.

Here are some of the results:

What role, if any, would you like to see technology companies play in improving U.S. high schools?

• Creating apprenticeship programs (57 percent)\
• Providing technology resources in the classroom (50 percent)
• Supporting teachers’ technology use in the classroom (42 percent)
• Sponsoring charter schools in low-income areas (30 percent)

(Next page: How many would strongly support free post-secondary education and tax increases to cover the cost?)

Video technologies’ continue to have a profound impact on K-12 and higher-ed classrooms as educators and students report increases in achievement, engagement and active content creation, according to a new survey from Kaltura.

Ninety-nine percent of institutions report they have teachers regularly incorporating video technologies in their curriculum. More than half are using video for student assignments, with 21 percent reporting that more than half of their students actively create video (up from 10 percent in 2016). Seventy-three percent of higher education institutions use video technologies for remote teaching and learning.

The survey gathered responses from more than 1,000 educators, administrators, students, IT and media staff, and instructional designers.

(Next page: How many educators believe video technologies improve students’ learning experiences?)

Personalized learning, competency-based learning and dynamic organizational design have shown promising results in school districts across the nation, according to a new report from Education Elements.

The third annual Impact Report, Building Capacity for Personalized Learning and More,” shares data from specific school districts and highlights the progress each district has made in several areas, with a special emphasis on those districts that have been implementing personalized learning for several years.

“As personalized learning grows in popularity, additional voices have emerged that point to the risks associated with it,” said Anthony Kim, Founder and CEO of Education Elements. “We are pleased to report that districts who are thoughtful about their implementations and focus on the needs of their communities see a positive impact year-after-year on not only student test scores, but also student engagement, teacher satisfaction, and overall district effectiveness.”

This year’s analysis reveals the cumulative benefits of shifting to student-centered learning environments. According to the report, on the NWEA MAP assessment, given 2-3 times per year, 36,000 students from five districts showed an average growth of 130 percent in reading and 122 percent in math, compared to national MAP growth targets. In one district, the number of students on target to be college and career ready as measured by the ACT Aspire exam more than doubled.

(Next page: Amazing growth from three districts)

[Editor’s note: This post is the first in a new column for eSchool News. In her column on ‘Personal Development’, eSchool News Columnist Jennifer Abrams focuses on tangible takeaways, tools and teachings that all those working in schools can use to develop their leadership. Read more about the column and browse future content here.]

Moving from the classroom into the role of a teacher leader and a coach was a transition, to say the least. I recognized I was credentialed in teaching students English language arts, but didn’t have a credential in communicating effectively with adults. I took workshops and courses on facilitation and coaching, but the idea of being a professional in a learning community who was an effective group member as well as a leader continues to be something I am growing into everyday.

The Use of Voice

The use of voice in collaboration, coaching, facilitation and leadership is something I focus on in my consulting work and is a piece of what each leader and teacher does daily. If we are lucky to be in schools and offices where we have time to learn in community, we spend that time learning more about our content and pedagogy. That’s understandable, since classroom practice and student growth are our primary foci.

However, if we don’t spend enough time learning the skills, dispositions and mindsets of becoming and being a professional learner in a community, it can hurt us and our students.

Collective Efficacy

Collective efficacy, the “collective self-perception that teachers in a given school make an educational difference to their students over and above the educational impact of their homes and communities,” (Tschannen-Moran & Barr, 2004, p. 190) presupposes that teachers collectively can make an educational difference. And collectively means together.

At the 2016 Visible Learning Conference, John Hattie revealed that collective efficacy is the number one factor influencing student achievement, more than other important factors such as student expectations, feedback, or teacher-student relationships. (Read more here) The bottom line: this is essential. The faculty must work together to make this difference, and communication at the level of impact implies a sense of trust and belief in the competence of the others who work with you.

How do we create this climate of trust?  Many authors from Peter DeWitt to Anthony Muhammad speak to school climate and culture and, like psychologist and author of The Dance of Connection, Harriet Lerner, I believe that how you use your voice determines the quality of our relationships, who we are in the world and what that world can be and might become. Clearly, a lot is at stake here.

So, a few ways to use your voice to create quality relationships:

• Don’t use your voice. Use your ears and listen more.
• Consider how you respond once you do share your voice. Do you go ‘autobiographical’ and talk all about you?  Do you immediately ‘go to solution’ and not allow the person to find his or her own solutions? Or do you listen, paraphrase and let your colleague come to his or her own decisions?
• Watch your tone. Some mothers suggest this when communicating and they aren’t wrong.  Being too cold or coming off as judgmental with tone can hurt relationships.  Many relationship experts agree.
• Consider how you ask questions when you do ask one wait for the person to respond. We often are more generous with our students regarding wait time, and that is wonderful, yet our colleagues need us to hold the same container for them as they think and respond.

Becoming a learning culture in which student growth is the focus requires the adults to spend time thinking about how they are using their voices when communicating with each other.  Because a lot is at stake.

Educators today are trying harder than ever to diversify their teaching practices, using a variety of tools and materials, incorporating different learning styles, and also allowing students to have a voice in their learning. At the David C. Barrow Elementary School, we have a project which takes all these things into account.

As the media specialist, I created the annual “Barrow Peace Prize” project in collaboration with the 2^nd grade classroom teachers and art teacher, where students from across all the second-grade sections pick six nominees from civil rights history and decide what attributes the winner must embody. I give research instruction utilizing many educational tech tools that the students incorporate into the project to develop a nominee that may win the Barrow Peace Prize. This recognition not only reaches the David C. Barrow student body, but the entries are voted on by people from all over the world, and the nominee with the most votes (and the students who researched them) is awarded the Barrow Peace Prize.

Here are three tools we use to make the Barrow Peace Prize project a reality.

PebbleGo is one of the databases our students use for research. It is designed for students in the grades K–2. It offers a quality base of facts about a variety of topics, which are broken down into manageable sections under each heading, making it easy for young researchers to find the information they’re looking for. PebbleGo also has a read-aloud feature, so every student can follow along, regardless of their reading ability.

Flipgrid is the video discussion platform that students use to record a video of themselves reading their persuasive essay. As each student records, their video is uploaded to a grid with videos from all of the other 2^nd-grade students researching that same person. People from across the country—and the world—then vote on a winner. Some students are more introverted and don’t like sharing in front of the whole class, but by using a tool like Flipgrid, students are able to speak to just the iPad. This allows their voice to be heard in a way that it might not be heard in the classroom.

Tinkercad is the 3D design and printing app we use to design the peace prize. A small group of students is selected to design the prize that each student who researched the winning nominee will receive. I show them how to use the program and sit with them while they design to offer troubleshooting tips.

All these tools aid in the development of a project that gives students a global voice to showcase their individual strengths.

Some students are talented writers, so they shine in the persuasive writing. Some students are natural public speakers, so their talent lies in the presentation of their nominee. Other students love researching details and then enjoy sharing what they have researched.

Every student has a voice in the project, no matter if they are in general education, special education, gifted, English as a second language, or early-intervention programs. And those voices reach the world.

Assessments are more than just measuring how well students are doing in particular subjects in school, and they can actually improve student learning. In fact, frequent assessments can have a positive impact on a student’s education from kindergarten through college. While this may make some educators cringe, the reality is that test-enhanced learning, or testing as an aid to learning, has evidence of effectiveness dating back nearly 100 years (Roediger III, McDaniel, & McDermott, 2006).

Testing can help students better retain and recall what they studied, not only for the final exam, but as part of their overall educational development. This is the “testing effect,” or the phenomenon where taking a quiz can enhance later retention of studied materials, and its effectiveness has been demonstrated many times over. Students who take quizzes shortly after they study show better performance on a final test relative to students who only study without taking a practice quiz, even when no feedback is given on the quiz (Roediger III, McDaniel, & McDermott, 2006).

The testing effect, also known as retrieval practice, practice testing, or test-enhanced learning, needs a place in today’s modern learning. It can be implemented in modern learning management system (LMS) and assessment management system (AMS) technologies, like Gauge, to help improve student learning, from their first day in kindergarten to their last day of earning a university degree.

The Testing Effect and LMS Technology

Researchers from the University of Delaware tested the impact of enabling quizzes through LMSs in a series of university-level courses. The university used Canvas, an LMS in the K12 and higher education space, in an effort to enhance student learning by simultaneously decreasing their anxiety and increasing retention of important material. Testing the use of Canvas quizzes in seven online courses and five hybrid courses, the researchers designed quizzes for each student and for each quiz attempt.

Through this study, the researchers found that students who used the quizzes on Canvas:

1. Improved their metacognitive accuracy though multiple quiz attempts and earned higher scores on subsequent attempts
2.  Invested additional time between quiz attempts to better master the assigned materials
3. Reduced test anxiety and stress by being able to choose the place and time of taking the quiz

As this study shows, LMS platforms, combined with quizzes, can help students achieve. Though the positive impacts of quizzing have already been established over decades of research, the benefits can be even further improved with the enabling features and settings of modern educational technology.

Quizzing in LMS’ to Improve Student Learning

Though quizzing using available edtech platforms clearly gives students an advantage, there are specific ways to deliver quizzes that can better optimize the experience.

Timing

The longer the delay after learning a subject, the worse students will perform on quizzes. Giving a quiz immediately after learning new materials can halt the forgetting process and improve comprehension, which ultimately boosts final test performance (Spitzer, 1939, Roediger III & Karpick, 2006; Agarwal, Karpicke, Kang, Roediger, & McDermott, 2008; Chan, McDermott, & Roediger, 2006). With LMS platforms set up for immediate administration of quizzes, students can have quizzes available to them directly after they consume course content.

Quizzes in Reading Materials

Compelling research shows that following up text reading with quiz questions improves comprehension, retention and final test performance, more so than questions that appear in advance of materials or interspersed throughout the materials (Chan, McDermott, & Roediger, 2006). Educators can require students to access material and then take  short comprehension check quizzes on the LMS of choice.

Fill-in-the-Blank Questions

Students who answer fill-in-the-blank or short answer questions instead of multiple choice scantrons are better able to retain materials over the long-term and master topics come final test time (Glover, 1989; Kang, McDermott, & Roediger, 2007). Instead of creating simple bubble quizzes, educators can design short-answer quiz questions. Using their LMS, they can also be notified when students complete a quiz and require feedback on answers.

Frequency 

Giving even one quiz in class can produce significant gains relative to giving no quizzes at all. Administering frequent short quizzes only improves learning more (Bangert-Drowns, Kulik & Kulik, 1991). Educators can make in-class quizzes easier by allowing students to use their mobile device or laptop to access the LMS platform to quickly complete quizzes.

There are many advantages to leveraging educational technology, and educators can particularly use it to enhance the quizzing experience for their students. By augmenting the “testing effect,” learning can not only be assessed, but improved in the K-12 and higher education spaces.

Today’s society is mobile and global. Laptops, tablets and smartphones connect users with information in less than a second, and because mobility has increased our connectivity, we’ve increased our connections with all parts of the world.

These advancements mean students have to be ready to learn and work on a global scale. And luckily, with a mobile device and the internet, it’s fairly simple to help students get on the road to developing a global mindset.

Whether your goal is to help students connect with other students from different countries and backgrounds, or if your aim is to broaden their knowledge of worldwide issues, technology can help.

Here are 7 tools to get you started on your global mission:

iEARN: iEARN is a non-profit organization made up of over 30,000 schools and youth organizations in more than 140 countries. iEARN empowers teachers and young people to work together online using the Internet and other new communications technologies. Over 2,000,000 students each day are engaged in collaborative project work worldwide.

(Next page: Six more global learning tools)

In education, there are always a host of programs and policies clamoring for funding. But of all the options policymakers could invest in, the most worthwhile may very well be universal preschool.

Recently, Nobel laureate James Heckman and his colleagues published a report that makes this point loud and clear. Their research analyzes the long-term benefits of a high-quality early-childhood program in North Carolina targeted at serving disadvantaged children and their families.

According to the researchers’ estimates, the long-term financial impact of the program—from labor incomes of participants, improved health and the quality of life, crime, education, and the labor income of the mothers of the participants through subsidizing their childcare—amounts to roughly a 13 percent annual rate of return.

Heckman and his colleagues show that investing in preschool makes strong financial sense. But that fact alone doesn’t provide states with the funding needed to foot the bill.

Online Preschools Save Money

Preschool is still expensive. The programs examined in the report cost around $18,514 per student per year. Currently, states with preschool programs spend between roughly $1,700 and $16,400 per student per year. Those sticker prices are a big barrier for policymakers, who must weigh preschool against a wide array of other potential government programs while also trying to minimize or reduce taxes and government spending.

Innovation creates new options.

Since 2008, Utah has given its families an alternative to preschool called Upstart. Developed and administered through a state contract with the Waterford Institute, the Upstart program provides four-year-olds with in-home online curriculum.

(Next page: Online preschool students show strong learning gains)

For just 15 minutes per day, five days per week, students log into the curriculum to engage in adaptive lessons, digital books, songs, and activities designed to develop their knowledge and skills in reading, mathematics and science.

All participating students and their caregivers receive training at the beginning of the program and support throughout the program from a personal care representative who monitors the child’s progress and contacts the child’s family if the child’s usage falls below guidelines.

Waterford also gives parents support resources, technical assistance and, if needed, a computer and internet connectivity for accessing the online software.

Great Student Gains

In the six years since it launched, Upstart’s results have shown students in the program to demonstrate strong gains in early literacy that significantly exceed those of students in matched control groups.

As these cohorts of Upstart students progress through their first few years of school, they continue to outperform their peers on state exams. Most noteworthy is the fact that special education students, low-income students and English learners have the largest gains relative to their comparable peer groups.

Given that Upstart costs just $725 per student, it is a more-than-sensible solution in states where universal preschool does not exist.

A Help for Parents

Online preschool programs such as Upstart are remarkable examples of how low-cost technology can expand the frontier of educational opportunities. Few parents have the professional training to know how to teach their children early literacy and numeracy. But online learning can fill in where parents’ knowledge and skills reach their limits.

Meanwhile, parents offer something that software cannot provide: the supervision, support, encouragement and praise that young children need in order to feel that learning is important and that they can learn successfully

While parents take care of students’ physical, social and emotional needs, the software takes care of delivering high-quality instruction so that students can start school on a strong footing.

Upstart isn’t available to parents outside of Utah and a few other states that are piloting the software. But there are a number of other online preschool programs—such as ABCmouse.com, online preschool lessons by Time4Learning and Embark by K12 Inc.—that give parents affordable options for developing their children’s early academic skills.

The app stores for popular mobile devices also have a host of early learning apps—including Endless Alphabet and Endless Numbers by Originator and apps by PBS Kids—that can help young children learn to recognize letters and numbers and develop an appreciation for reading, math, science, social studies and creative problem solving.

Not Perfect

Granted, none of these programs are perfect substitutes for traditional preschool where children learn with their peers from an expert in early childhood education. Clearly, in-home online preschool does not help children learn how to interact socially outside of their home environments.

And research suggests that preschool quality depends a great deal on the training and experience of the teacher. But for parents who cannot afford private preschool and who do not live in a region with state-funded preschool options, these programs offer valuable access to early learning opportunities.

[Editor’s note: This piece was originally published on the Hechinger Report.]