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Most Americans agree that education is a national priority. Yet, despite efforts over the last 20 years to improve the performance of our schools, the U.S. public education system falls in the middle of international quality rankings.

But let's be clear: the problem with education in America is not lack of excellence. It's lack of equity.

There are pockets of excellence across the country that outshine the best of the best around the world. Students are designing, making, coding, composing, animating, and publishing. They are experimenting and tackling the challenges of food, water, housing, and energy. They are connecting across cultural and national borders to promote global awareness and tolerance. They are creating solutions for positive social change and a healthier, more sustainable future.

At the same time, innovative education leaders and classroom teachers are engaging, motivating, and nurturing students to develop mindsets for college and career readiness and lifelong learning, and they are supporting social and emotional development. Education researchers and neuroscientists are learning more about how people learn. Entrepreneurs are building on this knowledge to build breakthrough innovations that improve learning.

Still, huge gaps exist in educational outcomes, high school graduation rates, college readiness and workforce advancements based on race, class, and geography. Gaps also exist between high-performing and low-performing public schools based on differences in access to funding and resources, community engagement and commitment, and the ability and willingness of district and school leaders to embrace innovation and try new strategies.

In the old model of education, the job of schools was to teach students everything they needed to know for life and work. In a rapidly changing world, this is no longer possible. Today, students must acquire knowledge, competencies, and mindsets that prepare them to be productive members of a modern workforce in a global economy powered by technology. They must be prepared to continually learn new skills throughout their lives for a future we cannot predict. And, they must be informed citizens in our democracy.

In recent years, to support these outcomes, a growing number of forward-thinking states, districts, schools, and teachers have adopted technology in learning and strategies proven to be effective.

Technology, and especially the internet and mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones, has become ubiquitous in our daily lives and affordable even to our public schools. With the internet, students can access primary source documents, research just about anything, and support their own understanding with explanations accompanied by video, animations, or other helpful visualizations. A growing number of education-focused websites help people of all ages and stages of life learn, from students to professionals to leisure-time learners.

Mobile devices let teachers and students do what they naturally want to do: move around the classroom or campus, work one-on-one and in small groups. And, accessibility technologies support learner variability and people with disabilities by ensuring navigation and information display is available in multiple ways.

However, even as technology has evolved to more effectively support learning, our education system faces another great divide: the Digital Learning Gap.

What is the Digital Learning Gap?

The Digital Learning Gap is caused by differences in how Americans in and out of school access and use technology to improve learning opportunity and outcomes. To help ensure powerful learning opportunities for all are supported by technology, we must understand and work to close this gap. There are three parts to the problem-access, participation, and powerful use. These present as follows:

1. Access: Not all learners have daily-let alone anytime, anywhere-access to high-speed internet and a mobile device for learning.

Over the past two decades, the FCC through its E-Rate program has connected just about every U.S. school and library to the internet. In 2014 the FCC modernized the E-Rate program to make it more affordable for schools and libraries to upgrade their internet connection speeds. In 2018, 98 percent of K-12 school districts met the FCC's minimum connectivity target of 100 kilobits-per-second per student in schools. This means nearly 45 million students now have access to high-speed internet at school, up from 4 million five years ago.

However, there are still 2.3 million students left to connect at the minimum target speed, mostly in rural and remote areas of the country. Further, just 28 percent of school districts meet the more ambitious target of one megabit-per-second per student, which is necessary to enable every teacher in every school to use technology learning resources each day. In addition, high-speed internet goals are increasing and schools that have met the minimum target speed must continue to upgrade to higher speeds to meet demand.

While the E-Rate program has been enormously successful at connecting schools and libraries to the internet and increasingly to high-speed internet, about 15 percent of U.S. households with school-aged children do not have a high-speed internet connection at home. The statistics are worse for school-age children in lower-income households earning less than $30,000 a year; about one-third of these households do not have a high-speed internet connection, compared with just six percent of households earning more than $75,000 a year.

Lack of access to high-speed internet access at home creates yet another educational gap: the homework gap. Nearly one in five teens can't always finish their homework because they lack access to a computer at home and high-speed internet access. Among black teens, it's even worse; 25 percent of black teens report they are sometimes not able to finish their homework, compared with just four percent of white teens and six percent of Hispanic teens. Further, one in four teens from lower-income households (<$30,000 a year)don't have access to a computer at home, compared with just four percent of teens living in households that earn at least $75,000 a year. About one-third of teens say they often or sometimes have to do their homework on a cellphone; 45 percent of teens living in lower-income households say they at least sometimes must rely on cell phones to finish their homework.

2. Participation: Almost every American has access to the internet, but 11 percent do not use it.

Not surprisingly, seniors are the age group most likely not to use the internet. But beyond age, household income and educational attainment are also indicators of internet use. A little more than one-third of Americans without a high school education do not use the internet. Approximately one in five adults earning less than $30,000 a year do not use the internet. Rural Americans are more than twice as likely to not use the internet than their urban and suburban counterparts.

Americans who do not use the internet are at a disadvantage when it comes to accessing jobs, federal benefits, healthcare through public health insurance exchanges, and, increasingly, educational opportunities that require high-speed internet access.

Over time, the reality of living in a digital world will resolve the participation issue. But we can't wait. Our schools must begin now to educate students and their families about the importance of technology and internet access to their lives and futures. They also must ensure all students are digitally literate-that they understand online information, media, and how to be competent digital citizens before they reach adulthood. Likewise, we must expand adult learning opportunities through libraries, community centers, and adult learning programs to improve digital literacy and workforce skills.

3. Powerful Use: Many teachers and students of all ages do not yet have the knowledge and skills to use technology in personally productive and powerful ways.

Learning to use technology effectively goes much deeper than learning how to access the internet from mobile phones to use social and other media for connection and entertainment. Technology can enable deepened understanding and problem-solving, and support learning how to learn.

Powerful use of technology supports learning in numerous ways, including:

Personalization. Technology can provide learners with personally relevant content, customized options for difficulty level, alternative learning pathways, and choices for support and guidance. Relevant data can support teachers with adjusting the pace and progressions for individual students, and developments with artificial intelligence promise to improve the effectiveness of personalization.

Accessibility. Technology can make content and learning resources more accessible to support learner variability and students with disabilities.

Understand Complex Concepts. Technology can increase access to and deepen understanding of complex concepts through the use of live video, animations, simulations, and visualizations. Emerging technologies such as virtual and augmented reality also will serve to build empathy and enable exploration of far away places.

Access Resources. Technology makes it possible to access experts across the world, courses and materials on myriad topics, large publicly available data sets, research, and primary source documents and books and publications in the public domain anytime, anywhere.

Use Professional Tools. People of all ages can access and use professional grade tools for writing, editing, and online publishing, composing music and making movies, computer assisted design and manufacturing, game design and development, photography, and much more.

Connect and Participate Globally. Technology gives students and teachers the ability to connect and collaborate globally as they engage with other learners and teachers, expanding understanding of the world and developing global competence.

Increase Feedback and Assessment. Technology increases the quantity of feedback and formative assessment, and learning data and analytics provides teachers, parents, and students with information about what to do next.

Extend the Learning Day. Technology provides homework supports and access to learning resources regardless of where learners are.

Engage Families. Technology extends family engagement by sending learning resources into the home, improving the home literacy environment, and supporting parents with pursuing their own education and learning.

Closing the Digital Learning Gap Should be a Top Priority

If we work to close the Digital Learning Gap, technology will promote equity of opportunity regardless of location, disability, or age-and, if used in powerful ways, it will support learning how to learn for life. As we work towards this goal it is important to note that technology cannot replace teachers. On the contrary, when used in powerful ways, technology supports teachers in their efforts to help students engage and achieve. But, teachers need support through coaching, continuous improvement practices, and opportunities to further their own learning.

Closing the Digital Learning Gap is a big idea for education. If we're successful, all Americans will have a better opportunity to learn now and throughout their lifetimes.

Sign up for our newsletter to keep in touch and join us in our cause.

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Most Americans agree that education is a national priority. Yet, despite efforts over the last 20 years to improve the performance of our schools, the U.S. public education system falls in the middle of international quality rankings. But let's be clear: the problem with education in America is not lack of excellence.

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Closing the Gap: Technology Access for Everyone | Daniel Lara | TEDxMoreauCatholicHS

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Twenty-one-year-old Mirka Mendez, a petroleum engineering student at the University of Texas-Austin (UT), has a deep understanding of the US's technology gap. Without easy access to the internet while in high school, she often had to leave home at 4 a.m. and sit on a bench outside her school so that she could use the building's hotspots to do research, study or write papers before the opening bell.

"There was no internet where I was staying," explained Mendez, who left Ciudad Juarez, Mexico - alone - in 2012. She was 15 and planned to live with relatives who had agreed to let her stay with them for $300 a month. It was her dream, she says, to study in the United States. Almost immediately, however, she realized that the arrangement was fraught. "Sometimes I walked to the public library three miles away," she told Truthout. "I would stay until it closed and then walk back home."

Despite the personal and academic difficulties she faced, Mendez always completed assignments and graduated high school in 2015 with a 3.7 GPA. Since arriving at UT, things have improved, she said. Nonetheless, she concedes that students in straits similar to hers often fall through the cracks and leave high school without a diploma, let alone enrolling in college.

Students Are Set Back Without In-Home Internet Access

A 2017 survey of more than 400,000 K-12 students, teachers, librarians and school administrators conducted by Project Tomorrow, a California nonprofit dedicated to educational equity, found that lack of in-home internet access is an enormous problem for students in all 50 states. This has been corroborated by researchers at Pew Research who discovered that 17.5 percent of school children in grades 6 to 12 have ongoing difficulties completing school work due to a lack of internet access.

The situation is especially bad in rural school districts. Some allow students to come to school early and stay late, and some have installed Wi-Fi on school buses. Despite this, more than a quarter of respondents told interviewers that they spend part of each day doing homework in coffee shops or fast food restaurants.

Academic difficulties are clearly compounded by the fact that broadband access is now essential for all students. This is not new. The Federal Communication Commission's Broadband Task Force sounded the alarm almost a decade ago, in 2009, when they found that approximately 70 percent of teachers assigned homework that required internet use, whether to submit assignments, utilize bulletin boards, take practice quizzes, share documents for group projects, do research, check grades, or communicate with teachers or peers.

Needless to say, not having access to in-home, high-speed internet puts 5 million US households with school-aged children at a huge disadvantage. Worse, this completely ignores the fact that, even in homes with internet service, numerous family members may have to share one device.

Julie Evans, the CEO of Project Tomorrow, is focused on promoting the equitable distribution of technology and, simultaneously, making sure that teachers are equipped to use this technology in the classroom. "Educational equity is an important social justice issue," she says. At the same time, she is aware that in-home internet access is just one piece of a far more complex array of concerns impacting how students are educated and supported in their learning.

"There are innumerable issues that have to do with how we use resources within schools," Evans continues. Parents, she says, are often driven crazy by how much tech use varies from class to class, teacher to teacher. "Some teachers show students virtual experiments, Skype or Facetime with professionals, or have students create a blog. Other teachers don't incorporate technology into their teaching at all, as if they don't recognize its importance. This means that apart from in-home access, students are not being introduced to technology in an even way," Evans says.

She believes that aspiring teachers must be prepared to use technological tools regardless of whether they're teaching algebra, European history, physics or something else. That said, she admits that there are no one-size-fits-all strategies for making this happen.

Multiple Strategies Utilized

In the rural Southern Columbia School district in Pennsylvania, between 22 and 23 percent of the district's 1,400 students receive free or reduced-cost meals, meaning that they come from families with incomes between $32,630 and $46,435 for a household of four. "Some students are impoverished and do not have access to broadband," Paul Caputo, superintendent of the district, says. "Plus, in more rural areas, cell access is troublesome. Service is spotty and there are pockets where there is no service at all. On the plus side, these areas are fewer and fewer, but some still exist."

District schools, he explains, are now fully wired, and thanks to various federal grants, have been able to "shift how we teach to include technology."

In addition, Caputo told Truthout that not only are schools being kept open for expanded morning, evening and weekend hours, but every student in grades 7 to 12 has also been issued a computer. This technology was paid for by the sale of the district's bus fleet several years back. "We realized we could not sustain our own transportation system so we sold our buses for $460,000 and earmarked $250,000 for tech implementation. We bought laptops which have been issued to more than 600 students." The laptops are turned in at the end of each year, or if a student moves away, and the district currently outsources bus service for the students who need it.

Utilizing SmartBuses

The much larger Merced Union High School District in California's San Joaquin Valley - with more than 10,000 students, 64 percent of whom are eligible for free or reduced-cost meals - did something different. After recognizing that many students spend an hour or more on the bus traveling to and from school, they equipped the buses with Wi-Fi so that assignments might be completed in transit. The use of Wi-Fi equipped SmartBuses has spread, and they are presently in use in numerous districts throughout the country.

Still, the more than 1.3 million public school students who are homeless, and the more than 400,000 living in foster care often face monumental hurdles in getting schoolwork done in a timely and thorough manner.

Barbara Duffield, executive director of SchoolHouse Connection, a Washington, DC-based advocacy group that addresses the educational needs of homeless youth, outlined the deficits.

"Most are focused on the needs of adults, not kids, and some require you to be out of the building during the day. The current federal push is to get single adults into permanent or supportive housing.... These policies typically do not take children's academic needs into account," Duffield told Truthout. "This is a glaring example of federal failure, since we know that the lack of computer and internet access contributes to the high dropout rates of poor and homeless kids. I've seen kids get discouraged when they are belittled by a teacher for not turning in work on time. They're also typically embarrassed to disclose that they are homeless."

Emotional Toll Is Enormous

Ed Vere, an Urban Studies major at Wheaton College, remembers this discomfort well. Vere came to the US from the Philippines in 2012, at age 14. After family members told him that he could no longer stay in their Illinois home, he lived with a variety of people and spent several years couch-hopping. "I told my teachers that I did not have access to the internet at home and, if I knew I'd be late with an assignment, would ask if I could turn it in after the due date. Some were gracious, but others said I should have planned ahead or not procrastinated. It made me feel really depressed and suicidal," he recalls.

Vere now lives on the Wheaton campus and, like Mirka Mendez, says being in college has given his life needed stability. "I even have fast Wi-Fi in my bedroom," he says. Looking back, though, he believes that his high school teachers should have been better attuned to his despair. "I excelled in school because I channeled all of my energy and emotions there. I appeared fine because my grades were not red flags to my teachers, counselors or coaches. However, mental health is invisible, and mine was falling apart. The red flags were subtle. Saying I did not have Wi-Fi was the only warning I could muster."

Bobbie Jones, homeless liaison and grant administrator of the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District in Harris County, Texas, never wants another student to go through what Vere experienced. This is why her district has opted to use Title 1 money - a grant allocated through legislation authorized by 2001's No Child Left Behind Act - to provide the District's 450 homeless students with laptops and hotspots, a wireless local area network that will provide them with an internet connection and private network access from any location. Although the program is still in the planning stages, Jones expects it to roll out in January 2019. "Many homeless students have difficulty completing homework, and it is not always possible for them to stay late at school," says Jones. "There are real gaps in academic achievement for homeless students, and we hope this will lead to improved grades and better achievement overall."

Money, of course, is paramount, and although most school districts now have internet in school buildings, they continue to scrounge for funds to provide laptops, iPads and hotspots to students, or expand access in other ways. Several for-profit groups - Kajeet is among the best known - have jumped into the fray, and while corporate and foundation money is sometimes available to schools or school districts, it does not come close to meeting the need.

That's where the federal government comes in - or should come in. Not surprisingly, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has not uttered a word about technological inequality since assuming the Department of Education helm in the winter of 2017. For its part, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has several programs that provide assistance to both individuals and districts. According to Mark Wigfield, deputy director of the FCC Office of Media Relations, the E-Rate program has, since 1997, provided money to public schools and libraries to connect to the internet and upgrade services as needed. The amount allocated is tied to poverty rates in a particular area; last year $3.3 billion was expended. E-Rate is administered by the Universal Service Fund; its revenue is raised by a consumer tax on telephone service.

Although smaller, the LifeLine Program provides a $9.25 per month subsidy toward the phone or internet service of more than 13 million low-income people. According to Mother Jones, LifeLine is on the chopping block, but, to date, no pronouncements have been made about the FCC's intentions.

The stakes of this - as well as of the larger effort to make sure that every student has 24/7 internet access - are enormous, and growing. Harvard Professor of Education Chris Dede, in the introduction to Closing the Homework Gap by Daniel J.W. Neal, lays it out clearly and succinctly:

If equivalent broadband access outside of school is not addressed, then teachers are hampered in using powerful forms of digital learning. Either they must privilege some students at the expense of others, or they must forego effective, technology-based instructional strategies that could help all students. The fundamental issue is whether we limit learning to the school place and the school day, or instead make learning life-wide.

Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Technology Access Gap Leaves Millions of Students Struggling to Keep Up

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Twenty-one-year-old Mirka Mendez, a petroleum engineering student at the University of Texas-Austin (UT), has a deep understanding of the US's technology gap. Without easy access to the internet while in high school, she often had to leave home at 4 a.m.

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Disparate perspectives about the use of technology in the classroom have become commonplace in higher education discussions. Opponents of such technologies argue that they are distracting to everyone involved and can lead to worse classroom performance, leading some to propose banning them altogether.

Proponents of such technologies point out that some technologies can enhance the classroom experience, and that banning technologies can hinder the performance of students with learning disabilities, and ostracize them.

We come to this issue both as teachers, who want the best for our students, and as psychologists, who rely on scientific rigor and behavioral outcomes as evidence, such as learning performance. Many of the arguments used for educational technologies are based on anecdotes, not scientific data.

To counter these arguments, we will provide recommendations that draw from decades of learning research -- sometimes from the laboratory and sometimes from the classroom -- about how students process, store and retrieve information.
Misuses of Technology
The evidence that technology use in the classroom can create a distraction, thereby hindering learning, is manifold. We could cite many studies that have demonstrated this effect, but here are just two.

When students have free rein to use their cellphones in class, they perform half a grade lower than when they don't use their cellphones. (Cognitive psychologists explain these results as a product of divided attention and the myth of multitasking: that people think they can effectively pay attention to multiple stimuli at once.) And this distraction harms not only the user, but nearby classmates as well.

Perhaps even more compelling evidence comes from true experiments. The beauty of true scientific experiments in this case is they rule out the chance that certain outcomes occur for certain people. Experimental evidence points out that students perform better on tests when they take notes on paper, rather than on a laptop. Studies like this have the added boon that they dodge the issue of distraction of the classroom -- another learning hindrance for sure -- because the experimental procedure made it so laptops could be used only for note taking. So, it's not just distraction that's the problem, it's the actual process of taking notes on a computer that hurts learning.

Presumably, this occurs because taking notes by hand is a slower process, and one which cannot possibly keep up with how fast people may present information verbally. Thus, in the process of note taking, students must interpret and actively think about the information they're receiving. This type of behavior is rooted deeply in a phenomenon many educators prize called active learning, which has its roots in decades-old research on depth of processing in memory.

But lots of students like taking notes on a laptop. And what's more, they perceive it to be an effective practice. What are we to do with these perspectives? Unfortunately, most people do not really understand the processes by which they learn (i.e., they lack metacognitive awareness).

To provide just one example of this, among many others: many students reread material as an effort to study in preparation for an exam because they think this is an effective practice, and they engage in it regularly. But unfortunately, rereading is actually an ineffective studying practice. What's the lesson, then? We can't trust that what we do, or what we like, will be the most effective for us.
Effective Uses of Technology
Though it's important to acknowledge the limits of technology in the classroom, we do not advocate banning technology altogether. One reason not to ban laptops is that some students may have learning disabilities or other accommodations that allow them to take notes much more effectively by computer.

Trends show that such students are enrolling in college at increased rates. And it is both illegal and unethical to prevent students with accommodations from using their legally approved technologies in the classroom. Furthermore, a ban on technology in the classroom would require a student with a documented accommodation to eschew such a ban, thereby creating the possibility of revealing an invisible stigma.

Instead, play to technology's strengths in the classroom. For example, researchers in hundreds of studies have demonstrated that multimedia learning greatly increases students' retention of course material. Multimedia learning occurs when learners encode into their memory using both visual and auditory information, such as when they listen to an instructor discuss research and watch the instructor display the result of the research on the board. Recent research demonstrates the effectiveness of multimedia learning.

There can also be cognitive benefits to using key technological aids, especially quizzing tools. Quizlet, a free online app, can be used both in and out of class to improve students' study strategies and retention of course material.

Quizlet allows students to make flash cards or view those of other students and use gamification (for example, matching games) to study course content. The app also allows for self-testing, which can help them determine how and what to study through metacognition.

And there are lots of ways that technology can enhance other educational goals as well. For example, as professors, we are aware that students rarely check email. One way around this would be to text your students about the course. But who wants to give their cellphone number to their students? No one, or almost no one.

Thankfully, apps like Remind or Google Voice allow you to text your students without revealing everyone's personal cellphone numbers. You can use these tools for learning-related reasons, like opening a dialogue about confusing class content. Or you can use them for other reasons that make sense for engaging your students, like notifying them of a canceled class during inclement weather.
Final Recommendations
We realize that we may have done more to complicate decisions about technology in the classroom than to simplify them. But we're scientists, and when you follow scientific results, instead of yes or no answers, what you often get is "it depends." And it does depend. There's a lot of nuance to understanding student learning and how to effectively use technology in the classroom.

But let us share a perspective that we think is really important. Technology can be a tool for worthwhile educational experiences, but make sure its use fulfills specific educational goals. And here are a few more recommendations we'd like to provide:

Don't ban laptops, but do make sure laptops in the classroom minimize the likelihood of distracting others, such as by having these students sit on the edges of the classroom, or by coming up with other creative solutions that make sense for your classroom.

When at all possible, approach learning in a multimodal and multifaceted way. For example, adopt Universal Design for Learning principles into teaching and allow students to use lots of their sensory modalities when learning. Some of these principles are quite easy to adopt and will allow everyone to get the most out of your teaching. All of the suggestions below are in line with Universal Design principles. (For those who were curious, no, this is not about learning styles. Sorry, the data do not support the existence of learning styles.)

Run all of your text material, such as syllabi, assignment descriptions and so on, through ereaders. This will help them hear how they sound for students who are visually impaired. You will be shocked by how the documents read, and inevitably, you will change your writing style to accommodate these students' needs.

When using videos in the classroom, use video captions whenever they are available. Doing so allows all students to process the information better. Thus, this makes for better, more inclusive learning.

In closing, we wish to leave you with a quotation by Bill Gates, who, if anyone, has championed the use of technology. " Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids [students] working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important." Even he recognized the necessity for nuance in the use of technology in the classroom.

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What research tells us about using technology in the classroom (opinion)

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Disparate perspectives about the use of technology in the classroom have become commonplace in higher education discussions. Opponents of such technologies argue that they are distracting to everyone involved and can lead to worse classroom performance, leading some to propose banning them altogether.

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Creating a meaningful connection between teachers, students, and technology through professional development has never been more crucial than right now with the current climate of the education environment. It is important that teachers are aware of how to stay connected with students and that they are equipped with the necessary technology to keep students connected with school content, regardless of where learning is taking place.

A great option for educators to learn how to more effectively bridge the gap between teachers, students, and technology is through participating in professional development sessions . Professional development allows teachers to complete different training sessions to learn how to adapt their classrooms to whatever environment is implemented.

We recently had the opportunity to talk with Dr. Marcia Tate ( @drmarciatate ), educational consultant and author, on our podcast, Tackling Tech . She gave us some great advice on how to use professional development to bridge the gap between teachers, students, and technology.

Connecting Teachers, Students, and Technology Through Professional Development
Professional development is a great opportunity for educators to learn how to connect teachers, students, and technology. Here are some reasons outlined by Whitby School on why it is important for teachers to continue to learn through professional development. 1. Improve student outcomes Professional development gives teachers the opportunity to learn how to improve student learning. Whether teachers are picking up a new learning style or teaching technique, it is important for teachers to continue to evolve their practices in the classroom. Subsequently, by bettering themselves, teachers will be able to better connect with their students in the classroom, which will ultimately promote better student outcomes. 2. Introduce new technology With hectic schedules, it may be hard for teachers to set aside time to learn more about new technology that will benefit their students. Not only can teachers learn about new tools and devices through professional development, but they can also learn how to improve their use of their current tools and devices implemented in their classrooms, which allows teachers to better connect their lessons with technology in the classroom. 3. Expand teaching horizons It is important to continually evaluate your instructional practices to understand what you can improve, especially during this time of uncertainty. It is important to make time for professional development to continue to understand how you may alter your teaching style to adapt to the current situation to make a deeper connection with your students.

Virtual Professional Development Resources
With a global pandemic, most professional development opportunities are now being offered online, so we wanted to supply you with some of our favorite online professional development resources. Professional Learning Books: Reading and analyzing a book is one of the most effective routes for professional learning. We suggest looking for books that are written by educators for educators. Dr. Marcia Tate has written multiple books based on the research she has done over various learning styles and brain-based learning. These books are loved by educators across the world. Here are some of her popular books: Science Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites: 20 Instructional Strategies That Engage the Brain Shouting Won't Grow Dendrites: Techniques for Managing a Brain-compatible Classrooms
Online training sessions and conferences: Prior to the COVID-19, most professional development training sessions were done in-person. In order to still facilitate professional development opportunities during this pandemic, many sessions have now been adapted to a virtual setting. At Dyknow, we saw an opportunity to offer even more help to educators during this time. Therefore, we created our 2020 Technology Coaching Conference to virtually support educators professional learning efforts. Here are some of our past events linked:
Coaching the Tech Coaches Workshop Professional Development Summit
2020 Remote Learning Summit

YouTube: Professional development training does not have to take multiple hours out of your day. There are a variety of educational videos that are provided on YouTube that range in different time frames to best fit your time needs. We created our YouTube page to offer a variety of videos. For quick and effective videos, try watching our Tech Coach Corner series. For a longer and more in-depth learning opportunity, we also post our event and podcast episodes on our YouTube page. Here are some of our other favorite educational focused YouTube pages:
Coaching the Tech Coaches Workshop Professional Development Summit 2020 Remote Learning Summit

It is important to dedicate time out of your busy schedule to work on improving your practice as an educator. Professional development sessions and training are a great way to learn how to better yourself and bridge the gap between teachers, students, and technology.

Listen to full conversation with Dr. Marcia Tate

On this episode of Tackling Tech Podcast, powered by Dyknow, Brett McGrath talks with Dr. Marcia Tate, bestselling author of "Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites 20 Instructional Strategies to Engage the Brain." These brain-based strategies include drawing, discussion, movement, and storytelling, and are backed by extensive research and science and encourages social emotional learning.

The best K-12 environments have strong leaders within their district to set the tone for their community. To create a successful K-12 alignment, educators need to have some sort of connection or alliance with one another. Core values center the focus for a lot of...

On this episode of Tackling Tech, Tierra Leustig interviews the hosts of The Three Caffeinated Coaches podcast- Georgina Dean, Shannon Moore, and Becky Colling. These three educators and coaches from around the world decided to launch a podcast that is a part...

On this episode of Tackling Tech, Tierra Leustig interviews Porsha Dudley, an Elementary Principal in Houston, Texas. Portia shares her journey stepping up to a leadership position in education, taking initiative, building relationships, and making everyone at her...

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Bridging the Gap Between Teachers, Students, and Technology with Professional Development - Dyknow

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Creating a meaningful connection between teachers, students, and technology through professional development has never been more crucial than right now with the current climate of the education environment. It is important that teachers are aware of how to stay connected with students and that they are equipped with the necessary technology to keep students connected with school content, regardless of where learning is taking place.

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At any given moment in the day, I am attached to my cellphone, my iPad or my computer. As a writer, I was an early convert to the computer. I began writing on a TRS-80 from Radio Shack in 1983 on wonderful writing software called WordPerfect, which has mysteriously disappeared. I had two TRS-80s, because one of them was always in repair. I love the computer for many reasons. I no longer had to white out my errors; I no longer had to retype an entire article because of errors. My handwriting is almost completely illegible. The computer is a godsend for a writer and editor.

I have seen teachers who use technology to inspire inquiry, research, creativity and excitement. I understand what a powerful tool it is.

But it is also fraught with risk, and the tech industry has not done enough to mitigate the risks.

Risk One: The Threat to Student Privacy

Risk one is the invasion of student privacy, utilizing data by tech companies collected when students are online. The story of inBloom is a cautionary tale. Funded in 2014 with $100 million from the Gates Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation, inBloom intended to collect massive amounts of personally identifiable student data and use it to "personalize" learning to each student.

Parents became alarmed by the plan to put their children's data into a cloud and mobilized in communities and states to stop inBloom. They were not nearly as impressed by the possibilities of data-driven instruction as the entrepreneurs promoting inBloom. The parents won. State after state dropped out, and inBloom collapsed.

Though inBloom is dead, the threat to student privacy is not. Every time a student makes a keystroke, an algorithm somewhere is collecting information about that student. Will his or her data be sold? The benefit to entrepreneurs and corporations is clear; the benefit to students is not at all clear.

Risk Two: The Proliferation of 'Personalized Learning'

Personalized learning, or "competency-based education," are both euphemisms for computer adaptive instruction. Again, a parent rebellion is brewing, because parents want their children taught by a human being, not a computer. They fear that their children will be mechanized, standardized, subjected to depersonalized instruction, not "personalized learning." While many entrepreneurs are investing in software to capture this burgeoning industry, there is still no solid evidence that students learn more or better when taught by a computer.

Risk Three: The Extensive Use of Technology for Assessment.

Technology is highly compatible with standardized testing, which encourages standardized questions and standardized answers. If the goal of learning is to teach creativity, imagination, and risk-taking, assessment should encourage students to be critical thinkers, not accepting the conventional wisdom, not checking off the right answer. Furthermore, the ability of computers to judge essays is still undeveloped and may remain so. Professor Les Perelman at MIT demonstrated that computer-graded essays can get high scores for gibberish and that computers lack the "intelligence" to reason or understand what matters most in writing.

Risk four: The Cyber Charter School

Most such virtual schools, or cyber charters, are operated for profit; the largest of them is a chain called K12 Inc., which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Its executives are paid millions of dollars each year. Its biggest initial investor was the junk bond king Michael Milken. Numerous articles in publications such as the New York Times and the Washington Post have documented high student attrition, low teacher wages, low student test scores and low graduation rates. Yet the company is profitable.

The most controversial school in Ohio is the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT), whose owner makes political contributions to office-holders and has collected about $1 billion in taxpayer dollars since 2000. ECOT reputedly has the lowest graduation rate in the nation. The state of Ohio recently won a lawsuit requiring ECOT to return $60 million because of inflated enrollment figures. Studies of cyber charters have concluded that students learn very little when enrolled in them. There may be students who have legitimate reasons to learn at home online, but these "schools" should not receive the same tuition as brick-and-mortar schools that have certified teachers, custodians, libraries, the costs of physical maintenance, playgrounds, teams, school nurses and other necessities.

Risk Five: Money in Edtech

The tech industry wields its money in dubious ways to peddle its product. The market for technology is burgeoning, and a large industry is hovering around the schools, eager for their business. In November 2017, the New York Times published an expose of the business practices of the tech industry in Baltimore County. It documented payola, influence peddling and expensive wining and dining of school officials, which resulted in nearly $300 million of spending on computers that received low ratings by evaluators and that were soon obsolescent. This, in a district that has neglected the basic maintenance of some of its buildings.

The greatest fear of parents and teachers is that the tech industry wants to replace teachers with computers. They fear that the business leaders want to cut costs by replacing expensive humans with inexpensive machines, that never require health care or a pension. They believe that education requires human interaction. They prefer experience, wisdom, judgment, sensibility, sensitivity and compassion in the classroom to the cold, static excellence of a machine.

I agree with them.

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5 Risks Posed by the Increasing Misuse of Technology in Schools - EdSurge News

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At any given moment in the day, I am attached to my cellphone, my iPad or my computer. As a writer, I was an early convert to the computer. I began writing on a TRS-80 from Radio Shack in 1983 on wonderful writing software called WordPerfect, which has mysteriously disappeared.

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Even before the Pandemic, Students with Limited Technology Access Lagged behind Their Peers

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Data show students without internet or computer access are already behind academically.

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In 2014, Palmdale School District was experiencing a major digital divide. With 28 campuses spread across the Southern California district, each managing its own technology decisions, some schools regularly enjoyed the benefits of technology in the classroom, while those in higher poverty areas had minimal tech interaction, if any. District leaders knew that something had to change, and it needed to happen fast.

So, in 2015, the " Palmdale Promise " was born. The goal was simple: provide students with a well-rounded education-including technology competency-designed to help them throughout their lives. Yet, rolling out a district-wide initiative to a student body of more than 19,000 individuals is no easy feat.

We spoke with Christine Jones, coordinator of Educational Technology at Palmdale, and Scott Whitney, teacher and media technician at Oak Tree Learning Center, to learn how they rose to the challenge. Discover how the district leveled the technology playing field across its schools, created new opportunities for students, and enhanced learning experiences for all.
Promethean: How did Palmdale Schools double down on digital for its students? What gaps did you have to fill?

Christine Jones

Jones: Some of our school sites were fairly well outfitted with technology, while others had absolutely nothing. There was huge disparity. Part of our Palmdale Promise was to provide equitable access to technology for all students, regardless of school or location. We knew we needed an affordable solution, not to mention the training for teachers to utilize it. After months of searching, testing and focus groups, we landed on the Promethean ActivPanel as the perfect solution to fit each of our schools' unique needs.
What key considerations went into your decision to go with the ActivPanel?
Jones: We had to keep in mind that, whatever decision we made, it would need to be a long-term priority. In other words, we needed a solution that would serve us for the longest period of time possible. That is one of the reasons we landed on the ActivPanel. Likewise, we established a process around technology decisions. Rather than have individual principals making purchases on their own, we created a centralized website for them to see which pieces of technology were approved for the entire district. That way, our IT team can easily support any troubleshooting or necessary repairs. This limits the need for additional training, whether for educators, administrators or IT.
How did the ActivPanel help Palmdale create a collaborative classroom environment for students?

Every student is different, and this allows teachers to engage them each individually.

Scott Whitney

Whitney: We selected the ActivPanel because of its user-friendly, collaborative interface. The flexibility to mount it on a mobile stand that moves freely throughout the campus was a huge benefit to our educators. It offers them the flexibility to break up the class into groups, lower and raise the panels for easy access and allow multiple students to collaborate at once. It has changed the way teachers in the district approach their lessons. Untethering teachers from the head of the class allows them to determine how best to structure their classrooms for students. Every student is different, and this allows teachers to engage them each individually.

A recent study found that 48 percent of teachers feel they don't have the proper training to leverage their classroom technology. How do you combat this trend?

Whitney: At Palmdale, teachers come together for after school training sessions-known as 'Tech Tuesdays and Thursdays'-to work with skilled Promethean coaches and connect with one another to learn new ways to use the technology, share best practices and useful tips and tricks that are working in other classrooms throughout the district. With these regular training sessions, every teacher feels more comfortable with the panels' features and accompanying software.
What other tools help you engage with students?

Scott Whitney

Whitney: Leveraging technology in the classroom has helped me go paperless in all of my classes. All of my books are online, and all of my lessons are digital. My students use Google classroom on their Chromebook notebook computers, which can then be projected on the ActivPanel. And if a student misses a lesson, I deliver it using ClassFlow. We've created a 21st century learning experience so that when students go to high school and have to use digital portfolios, they'll have that experience.
What is on the horizon for Palmdale Schools?
Whitney: Not every school is the same; not every student is the same, but the district has been pushing hard to make sure that all students have an equal playing field with their peers. It is an awesome sight to see the district doing all it can for these students because, when they are ready to learn, we are here to give them 100 percent. I personally teach in an alternative school, so the district's commitment to making sure my students have the same level of access and opportunity as other schools in the district makes a real, meaningful difference in their lives.

Learning Impact
Reflecting on Promethean's impact at Palmdale schools, Christine Jones shared these closing thoughts:

You just cannot minimize the effect of happy, engaged teachers on the learning environment!

Christine Jones

Our teachers have widely adopted the use of the Promethean panels in their classrooms. Having immediate access to digital content and resources has enabled them to quickly create and present more exciting and rich lessons for their students. On our annual district technology survey, student engagement has increased an average of 22 percent districtwide with a few sites reporting a more than 40 percent increase. Our alternative sites have seen some of the greatest increases in engagement in learning as Promethean boards offer a wonderful visual connection to curricular content that so many students need. An unforeseen (but happy) by-product of providing up-to-date technology tools in the classroom has been an increase in the general technology skills of the teachers themselves. They have been excited to learn new skills and many have reported that the new technologies have forced them to move "out of the box" and to keep content fresh for their students. You just cannot minimize the effect of happy, engaged teachers on the learning environment!

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Close the Digital Learning Gap: How One District Tackled Tech Disparity in the Classroom - EdSurge News

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In 2014, Palmdale School District was experiencing a major digital divide. With 28 campuses spread across the Southern California district, each managing its own technology decisions, some schools regularly enjoyed the benefits of technology in the classroom, while those in higher poverty areas had minimal tech interaction, if any.

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During the pandemic, schools are doing everything they can to keep students and teachers safe from contracting COVID-19. From taking temperatures as students arrive, to sanitizing surfaces and shared equipment, the number of new processes schools are following is endless.

While these new procedures, such as requiring everyone to wear masks, stay six feet apart, and sanitize surfaces and shared equipment, might seem tedious as these measures are all designed to keep students and teachers healthy and in school. But there's one additional measure some educational institutions are taking that could dramatically reduce the spread of the virus: they're tracking the location of students, teachers and other employees using radio frequency identification (RFID) technology.

How RFID Can Help Protect Students During a Pandemic

RFID can serve as a valuable tool in helping protect students from COVID-19 exposure. RFID-enabled student ID cards can help reduce co-mingling among students by limiting entry to particular rooms or buildings based on grade level, time of day or class schedule.

More importantly, if a student tests positive for COVID-19 or is showing symptoms, RFID badges can help with contact tracing by helping schools and universities determine which students spent a significant amount of time in the same location as the sick individual. This can be a critical tool in fighting the disease, as research shows that effective contact tracing can reduce the number of COVID infections up to 71%.

RFID Has a History of Keeping Students Safe

RFID technology keeps students safe in other ways as well, which is why they have become increasingly popular with educational institutions in recent years. Many universities have issued RFID-enabled student ID cards to monitor the location of students as well as professors and other employees on campus. During potentially dangerous situations, the ID cards can be used to quickly locate individuals and get them out of danger.

In high schools, RFID can help manage who enters and leaves the building, making it easier for institutions to improve truancy monitoring and management. For example, schools can automatically monitor whether a student shows up for school in the morning - or if a student leaves the building before school ends. This not only keeps at-risk students in school, it also gives schools access to data that proves their attendance levels and ensures they receive much-needed funding. Consider this: an absence rate of just 2% cost one California school district more than $1 million in lost funding in a single year!

The Hidden Cost Savings Provided by RFID

In addition to monitoring truancy, RFID can help schools reduce theft and waste through better tracking of computers, plexiglass barriers, microscopes, tablets and other valuable assets.

Tagging equipment can actually help educational institutions save money. For instance, tracking assets allows an educational institution to know exactly when new equipment is needed, thus limiting unnecessary purchases.

This is particularly helpful during the pandemic because many schools have adopted a "no sharing equipment" policy, where each student needs their own classroom equipment. In many cases, this requires schools to make extra purchases, which can add up quickly when buying costly items such as microscopes. But RFID tagging allows schools to easily identify when equipment is sitting in an empty classroom and can be moved to another classroom to support a different class. A simple scan of an RFID tag can even mark the exact time that equipment was sanitized to ensure it is safe for use.

Finally, when high-value assets have RFID tags, schools know immediately when a tagged asset leaves the facility. This can reduce theft, which is a problem in more than 86% of high schools and 69% of middle schools, according to the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice.

In the past, some have voiced concerns about RFID tracking, particularly when it comes to student privacy. But the emergence of COVID-19 has shed new light on how the responsible use of RFID technology can provide multiple benefits and cost savings for educational institutions. Not only can the technology help educators fight COVID-19 and help keep children safe and in school or on campus, it can also help them reduce unnecessary equipment purchases, secure critical funding and protect their high-value assets.

To learn more about RFID solutions that help schools ensure student safety and protect high-value assets, please click here.

Bree Bergman is the Director of Vertical and Field Marketing for Zebra Technologies.

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Educational Technology Gaps Revealed by the Pandemic - DevPro Journal

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During the pandemic, schools are doing everything they can to keep students and teachers safe from contracting COVID-19. From taking temperatures as students arrive, to sanitizing surfaces and shared equipment, the number of new processes schools are following is endless.