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A selection of the latest education technology for teachers of language and literacy

The 2015 International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference in Philadelphia was filled with the latest education technology designed to help students achieve learning success. As electronic devices become increasingly prevalent in daily life, fluency in their usage becomes an ever more important part of education. Educators and educational publishers are constantly thinking of ways to optimize and implement new technologies for a learning environment. According to recent surveys sponsored by ISTE, PBS, Common Sense Media, and others, 91% of administrators say that effective use of edtech is critical to their mission of high student achievement, and 89% of teachers agree that technology improves student outcomes. We have selected some of the highlights most suitable for language and literacy educators.

Literacy/ESL:

Promethean: Modern Classroom Solution
Promethean’s Modern Classroom Solution is designed to support teachers, schools, and districts in achieving learning experiences exciting. At the core of the program is ClassFlow, an interactive lesson delivery system. Winning an ISTE 2015 Best of Show Award, ClassFlow is designed to increase the depth of student and teacher engagement by enabling the collaborative use of classroom devices, digital curriculum, and assessments for learning. The program supports project-based, blended, and flipped learning initiatives, and teachers can measure each student’s comprehension in the moment of learning and instantly differentiate instruction to groups and individual students based on the way students respond.

Copia Class 
Copia Class is a digital education platform that allows students and teachers to access all of their course materials, regardless of publisher or source, in a single environment. Furthermore, the course-centric platform provides users with a suite of tools that promote engagement with other users directly inside the course content. Textbooks (from major and smaller publishers), novels, study guides, open education resources, and custom materials can all easily be enhanced with assessments, live discussions, multimedia, and more. Web- and app-based activities can be accessed through single-sign-on integration. Copia Class’s performance-data reports help educators track student performance, assessment effectiveness, and content quality and can be used to implement district- or even state-wide curriculum adjustments.

Professional Development:

EDTRAININGCENTER and observe4success 
At ISTE, EDTRAININGCENTER and observe4success announced a partnership. For several years observe4success’ mobile observation and walkthrough tool has been used by schools to identify teacher strengths and areas needing improvement, giving immediate, targeted feedback for continual growth. Now, in addition to feedback, the principal or observer will also be able to search the massive EDTRAININGCENTER library of professional development courses and immediately enroll a teacher into appropriate courses from within the observe4success application. Not only is this efficient, it allows the observer to take action the moment that a need is identified, rather than scribbling down notes that may be forgotten or misplaced and never acted upon. Instead, professional development is provided just in time and on demand. Traditionally professional development has not been very targeted to the individual teacher. Workshops and conferences cover broad topics and teachers rarely have choice. With this solution, targeted professional development can be delivered to the person who needs it, at exactly the time it’s needed. In an industry that expects ever more from teachers and administrators, collaborative technology solutions like this can make differentiated professional development a reality.

Games4Ed
Games4Ed (G4E) was founded to facilitate collaborations between educators, researchers, game developers, publishers, and policy makers to further the use of games and other immersive strategies in schools. Games are a unique learning vehicle, combining high student engagement, learning of both content and 21st-century skills, and assessment. There is now a body of research that indicates students are very engaged when playing games, that when they are engaged in games they are operating at a much higher cognitive level, and that they are willing to expend more time and effort. All games are tracking what the players are doing, assessing their abilities, providing feedback, and suggesting next actions.

Hardware:

Mitch Weisburgh cofounded Edchat Interactive in late 2014 as a way for educators to share and spread best practices in a live and engaging format. His cofounders are Tom Whitby and Steve Anderson. Like webinars, Edchat Interactive uses live video, but with an Edchat Interactive, instead of a long presentation, the event is a live video discussion. The leader will present a basic concept in the first five to ten minutes of the event, then participants will break into small video chat groups to discuss the practicalities of the concept. After this time of small group discussion, representative of various groups will discuss their findings with the event leader(s) while the entire group watches and listens. This more interactive format incorporates social learning and reflection into the learning process, which facilitates deep learning, and greater engagement.