Blog Archives - The EdTech Roundup

Nearpod Guest Post | The Power of Exposure: Nearpod Virtual Reality

5/27/2016

Author: James Funkhouser a school counselor from Frederick, MD, USA. [Originally posted on the Nearpod Blog]

“A child’s course in life should be determined not by the zip code she’s born in,
but by the strength of her work ethic and the scope of her dreams.” – President Obama

As a school counselor, I consider President Obama’s quote daily when working with students. How can I empower this student to overcome his/her barriers to success? One of the largest barriers to students in my schools is access. Because of our location, it is difficult to expose students to the many opportunities beyond the borders of the county.

Sure, we can talk about great colleges, universities, technical schools, and careers, but what meaning can students associate with these areas if they have never been immersed in such an environment?

New EdTech Resource | The Restricted Adventures of Raja: Teach Elementary Students About Empathy Towards Animals

5/26/2016

Author: RedRover Staff

The Restricted Adventures of Raja is a new app from the non-profit organization RedRover that has been built to teach primary school age children empathy towards animals. The app, which is available both for Apple and Android devices, contains both a comic book style interactive eBook, and a fun game to test what a child has learned.

Done in both English and Spanish, the app is designed for both independent use from a child, but also as a parent/child dialog prompt that can be done together. The app is the first in a series of five stories, and was born out of the popular “RedRover Readers” program that is already in place in hundreds of schools across the country. The app is a $2.99 download, and all proceeds benefit the RedRover non-profit.

You can find the app on the Apple and Google Play stores.

Code.org + TEALS = More AP computer science in high schools

5/25/2016

Code.org and Microsoft's TEALS (Teaching Education and Literacy in Schools) program have just announced a joint pilot program with the aim of supporting more computer science education in K-12 schools. They plan on bringing "teacher development and our real-world experts who co-teach CS with the classroom teacher – to shorten the teacher ramp-up time and expand our impact more quickly." Read the full post here.

K12 Insight Takes Community Engagement to Parents with Release of Let’s Talk! 7.5

5/23/2016

New features include a Learning Center that gives users access
to best practices from inside the platform

(HERNDON, VA) May 23, 2016 – Why wait for your school community to come to you? Take the conversation to your community. That’s the thinking behind Campaign Manager, announced today as part of Let’s Talk! 7.5, a comprehensive upgrade to K12 Insight’s cloud-based community feedback solution.

School leaders know that it’s critical to engage the community in important decisions. Putting a Contact Us button on the school or district website invites feedback from stakeholders, but it doesn’t actively seek it out.

New EdTech Resource | Discover Your Future Career with “Be”

5/20/2016

Author: Be Staff

Did you ever have that moment in school when you didn’t know what career to pursue or even what the options were?
Ruhnau Ruhnau Clarke’s Innovation Lab has launched “Be - Career Discovery”, for iPhone and iPad to solve this very problem. “Be” helps students discover their future careers by swiping through career cards. Much like the popular dating app Tinder, you can swipe right to like a career or swipe left to pass.

Tapping the career card reveals information like salary, job skills, and education requirements. If you are really passionate about a career, crown it as one of your Top 3! Then share them with your friends and see what they choose.

Try out “Be” and explore over 200 STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) careers in new and exciting fields. “Be - Career Discovery” is free to download on the App Store.

New EdTech Resource | Zed and Stories in the Sky

5/20/2016

Author: Zed Staff

Stories in the Sky is the first program created for our Zed console. It teaches kids about the science and mythology of stars and constellations. But what's really revolutionary about this system is its new approach to S.T.E.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math education). The Zed Digital Makerspace system has the ability reach a vast number of kids in all types of communities, empower them, and inspire them to learn more about a multitude of S.T.E.M. subjects, like electricity, climate change, space, or thermal energy. How? By strengthening the connection between local schools and science museums. More information at: www.storiesinthesky.org

KickStarterMAIN_051816 from Artifact Design on Vimeo.

Sunburst Digital establishes itself as the K12 Leader in offering Integrated Technology Solutions spanning all grades with their successful school launch of Wonder Workshop

5/19/2016

HOFFMAN ESTATES, IL -- May 17, 2016 - Introducing coding and computer science into every classroom is the new American “moonshot”. From President Obama’s 2016 State of the Union address to the new curriculum mandates in San Francisco, Chicago and New York City, educators are placing a high priority on exposing students to these important 21st century skills.

Kaltura launches Video Platform as a Service (VPaaS), bringing video everywhere

5/19/2016

Disruptive pay-as-you-go platform with hundreds of video APIs enables tech and SaaS providers, developers and integrators to rapidly build and launch new custom video products,
and to add advanced rich media workflows into existing products, catering to all
industries and for any video experience.

New York, NY – May 18, 2016 – Kaltura, the leading video technology provider, today announced the launch of the Kaltura Video Platform as a Service (VPaaS) (https://vpaas.kaltura.com/), the world’s first specialized cloud video service, enabling organizations to build and rapidly deploy any video application, workflow and experience.

Kaltura VPaaS lets SaaS providers, integrators, in-house teams in large organizations and developers everywhere to quickly add video capabilities and easily integrate video as a native data type into existing platforms and workflows by leveraging the Kaltura APIs, SDKs and developer tools for their specific needs.

Doodles Academy launches, bringing arts education to students nationwide

5/13/2016

Doodles Academy is an online art education resource whose aim is to democratize access to high-quality art education for elementary students. Doodles Academy offers a high-quality arts curriculum that is free and online. Designed to be used in any educational context—from the homeschooler's living room to the public school classroom—the Doodles curriculum offers structure and guidance to educators without compromising child creativity.

Photon – A Child Friendly, Code Teaching Robot About to Join Kickstarter

5/13/2016

BIALYSTOK, Poland, 10.05.2016 – Photon Entertainment announced a crowdfunding campaign for Photon – world’s first interactive robot that grows up with children while teaching them programming. The campaign is launching on May 17th and will take place over the course of six weeks. Price ranges from $149 for a super early bird version to $199 for a regular one.

Stretch goals include backer exclusive accessories for the robot (such as a jetpack or mouth allowing for speech visualization) as well as donations for various child related charities (cancer wards, orphanages and others).