Kivuto and Pearson Partner to Offer Open Access to Digital Learning Resources

Kivuto - Manage Users, Software & Licenses On One PlatformKivuto, a leading provider of academic digital resources, has partnered with Pearson, Canada’s leading educational publisher, to open access to digital resources during the current COVID-19 pandemic. At a time when educational institutions, public spaces, and collaborative environments are closing to help combat the spread of COVID-19, individuals will have complimentary access to these important digital learning resources to continue their online learning.

“For several years, Kivuto and Pearson have partnered to enhance the digital learning experience by offering access to curriculum-based K-12 textbooks covering such topics as literacy, math and science via Kivuto’s Texidium platform and eReader,” said Jeff Blacklock, president and COO at Kivuto. “We are now extending these learning resources to teachers, students, and school boards so they can continue to immerse themselves into a truly digital learning environment.”

Starting today, via Kivuto’s Texidium platform, access to more than 70 of the most widely used curriculum-based K-12 textbooks will be available as an open resource for families to access. These resources can be downloaded to a central location where you can manage and learn through an enriched eReader experience.

Open access to these resources will be available until May 30, 2020, and can be accessed at www.pearsoncanada.ca/athome.

Long-Term Effect of COVID-19 On Education and Technology

Responses from Stewart Elliot, CEO, Modo Labs.

Because most schools have moved to virtual learning environments in response to COVID-19, what are the likely long-term outcomes of this?

There will be many long-tail outcomes of moving so much online so quickly.

We’ve noticed two. One is the urgent need schools have to keep their community informed and connected in real-time and the need for one source of truth. There are many communication channels, and messaging can quickly become fragmented.

They need to quickly distribute, get quality information directly into the hands of students, staff and community members with no delay and no technology hurdles. The app becomes the hub for everything in a distributed model. Schools are learning now that if they don’t have the central campus experience in an app, they need one. They need a very strong communications system in place for mobile devices, systems that use approved, branded, established applications.

The second is related. No matter how residential a campus was, everything is distributed now. Schools have academic, community and social needs they never imagined they’d have. With school professionals and students spread around the world, being able to make that feel like one unit still, in a way that reaches everyone but does not overwhelm anyone is very important. That lesson is not going to fade either – the need to be able to have one global community no matter where they are.

Will more schools embrace distance learning once we’re beyond the pandemic? If so, what will that look like? Will some educational entities move beyond physical classrooms altogether?

Distance learning will continue and the campus app will be the cornerstone of learning. Connecting students to the information they need to be successful will continue and it will be more important than ever, as we are seeing now. Keeping students motivated requires real-time dashboards and personalized communications that will automatically nudge them to stay on track academically. Online learning will surely be accelerated post-CV-19 and there will likely be a deeper integration of tools that enable a modern, asynchronous approach to online learning. The mobile app—not the website or LMS—will be the critical connection of systems.

Online learning tools will change in that they need out-of-the box functionality and customization options, along with the ability to easily integrate with learning management systems, enrollment, and finance systems. We will see the app as the bridge between academic and campus life. A good app is as useful off campus as it is on campus.

Could in-classroom learning go the way of the dinosaur or is that panic-stricken hype?

It is too early to forecast that outcome, but I will say that we value community and the experience of being on a college campus. An app can build some of that campus experience digitally, and we have examples of those at Penn State and the University of Central Florida and a hundred other campuses.

But college is a life experience, and learning is still a human experience that we all crave. It is probably a safe assumption that in-classroom learning will return because of the genuine benefits to face-to-face engagement and team collaboration.

In essence, what is the future of classroom-based learning and the technology that plays a role in providing instruction?

We think things will become more connected, more personalized, and generally faster and more efficient. That has been the path of technology generally and we’ve seen it in education too. Soon, not only will class schedules and dining menus be customized for you, your learning will be, also – tailored based on your interests and past performance.

You’ll be able to study on your phone, take a test on your phone, ask professors or classmates questions and find out where to park for the basketball game, all in the same place, all in your unified experience. That’s where we are headed. Some campuses are pretty much there already.

Long-Term Effects of COVID-19 On Education

Dov FriedmanResponse from Dov Friedman, co-founder, CirQlive.

Because most schools have moved to virtual learning environments in response to COVID-19, what are the likely long-term outcomes of this?

The first outcome will be that teachers and students and administrators see how difficult teaching remotely or online can be. It’s challenging technologically, logistically, socially and academically. As a result, many will seek out and start to use tools that have been designed specifically for online teaching. And as that happens, the barriers to quality online instruction will fall and comfort and use will increase. It will start hard but end very well.

When people find and use the right tools for virtual learning, they will want to do it more often.

That will probably also incentivize and reward companies built specifically for education systems and teachers. The increased use and trial and error will, I hope, clean out the market a bit. The best products will rise to the top. That would be good for everyone. I believe there will be statewide purchases of products to standardize offerings and make them easier to manage.

Will more schools embrace distance learning once we’re beyond the pandemic? If so, what will that look like? Will some educational entities move beyond physical classrooms altogether?

Yes. Many already have.

This is an awful situation, but that can have some good, indirect consequences sometimes. One is that now teachers and students will see the power of video when it can be built in with a learning management system to record attendance and allow one-touch confirmations, while being powerfully hosted on smartphones or other devices. For many teachers, it’s a game changer – changing a classroom to a class in any room.

Could in-classroom learning go the way of the dinosaur or is that panic-stricken hype?

That may be too much change too quickly. In person, classroom learning will persist. We may just see less of it compared to other, technology-enabled options such as video.

Think of it this way, movie theaters still exist because they offer experiences that streaming video can’t. But streaming services made more content more available to more people, faster and cheaper than theaters ever could. Once that technology broke out, things never went back to the way they were.

In essence, what is the future of classroom-based learning and the technology that plays a role in providing instruction?

Classroom based learning will be more and more in-person optional. There won’t be any specific need, any hard requirement to be physically present in a classroom. There may be reasons to be there, but the quality of the technology will make a video experience just as good, perhaps even better and definitely easier than being there.

Integrated remote video will, for example, allow a student to access supplemental resources in real time, materials that may not be available in person, all while being able to see a class, ask questions, and engage with students. Soon there won’t be much difference between being there and being somewhere else – everything will be one thing, the way you may buy shoes online but return them in a store. Or find something online but reserve it at the store. The actual way you get that item won’t matter much anymore.

Teaching and Technology In The Time of Coronavirus

Responses from Noreen Lace, professor, California State University, Northridge.

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Noreen Lace

I’m a professor at California State University, Northridge. We went online pretty quickly. We had little notice; however, in addition to my traditional classes I’ve been teaching online for a number of years, so making the transition was pretty easy for me. Even in my traditional classes, I use a variety of online methods, including ebooks, websites, and online activities.

A large number of our faculty have never taken any sort of training. Our tech department is great. They were able to schedule back to back online trainings for people to be able to set up their classes during spring break, so they could be ready for returning students. Since then, they seem to have kept up with the demand. I called the other day and there was no hold/no wait time. My questions are answered right away.

We use Canvas as our learning management system. It’s simple to use. I tell my students, if you can upload an attachment in email, you can do this. 

Many of the faculty have been using Zoom (in conjunction with Canvas). They’d hoped to use it to hold live classes — and I do believe some people are; however, we’re finding the system is becoming overloaded and not working well. Furthermore, we’ve recently found people have been hacking — or somehow crashing the live class and sharing/posting inappropriate screens and pictures within the live zoom sessions. They’re calling it zoombombing. 

Because of the drain on the system, one of the methods I use is to record within the Canvas program and have the students respond the same way. I also use the traditional methods of written lecture notes along with their written responses. We have discussion boards, live chat features, as well as document sharing available to us within the program. 

My students were supposed to do a presentation in class. I’ve since given them creative freedom and they can use any program they want and present in any way they feel works best for them. One of my students just asked me if they can use animation — so I’m quite excited to see the results.

How Schools Are Using Technology Responding To COVID-19

Photo of Michelle ReedResponses from Michelle Reed, online video strategist, Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) in Cleveland Ohio.

How are school districts and colleges and universities responding to COVID-19?

At Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) in Cleveland Ohio, the Online Learning and Academic Technology (OLAT) team has been engineering their online learning environment for over 4 years now to move the college to a more mobile friendly and seamless way to offer online classes to students. With the college’s decision to switch to all online learning due to COVID-19, the structure was already there. The technology was in place. We did increased manpower for our SmartView help desk level 2 support system.

What technologies are they using to connect with students and even parents in an attempt to minimize the disruption? 

Tri-C is utilizing our currently engineered online learning technologies including Blackboard Learn (LMS), Mediasite (Lecture Capture), Webex (video conferencing), ProctorU (for proctored testing), Respondus (lock down browser), Qwickly (single hub distribution point in the LMS to post announcements, distribute content and create discussion topics)

What have been the results? What works? What only causes more friction?

We have had great success with our currently engineered technologies. We worked with our vendors to increase storage, licenses, users, etc., to accommodate the fact that we more than doubled the amount of classes and users in our online environment.

One area that we have seen as the most challenging is getting technology in faculty and students hands. Tri-C worked with faculty and staff to ensure they were equipped with technology and internet at home to telework. Tri-C teamed up with PCs for People (a nonprofit dedicated to getting computers and affordable internet service into the homes of low-income individuals. www.pcsforpeople.org) to provide computers to students.

Are your IT and service teams able to meet the need in the new era or have you been caught flat footed?

Our support team in ITS and in OLAT did not increase but we were prepared to bring in other areas of the college to help assist at a level two support with our SmartView Blackboard support cases. We have created video repositories to house training videos for the technologies our faculty and students are using.  This allows the support team to send one to three minute videos links that can address their concerns and give them a screencast of the process to follow which results in the increased amount of faculty that can be served.

We created a weekly training schedule that consists of training sessions on the hour, using Webex, to allow faculty the ability to connect in to learn and ask questions which are recorded for on-demand viewing. We have created an extensive online document that includes information faculty and students need, located all in one location.  We have also extended the hours that level 2 and level 3 support are available to meet the needs of faculty and students that are jumping into the use of the online tools that were mostly using the face-to-face modality.

Schools and Education Technology In The Time of COVID-19

Christopher Lazartic
Chris Lazartic

Responses from Chris Lazartic, middle school STEAM coach, student leadership and enterpreneurship coach, Aspen Academy

Are you moving to e-learning platforms? Which vendors are you partnering with to deliver these solutions?

 On March 16th, Aspen Academy transitioned to a virtual learning platform. Luckily, most teachers, students and parents were already familiar with their learning management system (LMS): Canvas. This online tool allows teachers to communicate grades, assignments, and much more to students and parents. Aspen has also purchased Zoom Education host accounts for every teacher, which allows them to teach live classes and record those lessons if needed.

Additionally, all students in grades two and above are provided with Google accounts, which allow them to use Google apps, such as Docs, Classroom and Slides. Students can also continue to use nearly all of their texts and academic learning tools because they are available online. In some grades, students were issued iPads or loaned computers.

Are your IT and service teams able to meet the need in the new era or have you been caught flat footed?

Two weeks prior to this transition, Aspen Academy began proactively communicating, training and preparing for virtual learning and created a Virtual Learning Hub with FAQs for parents. Although the technologies and systems did not work perfectly the first week, teachers were flexible and quickly adapted to this new style of teaching. The middle school, lower school and programs directors, along with the school’s technology manager, were available around the clock to help all users.

In the event of a significant technology issue, Aspen also supported by an outside IT company, Alerio Technology Group. We’ve received more than 90 testimonials from parents who felt the technology and teaching exceeded their expectations, like this one:

“It went surprisingly SO much smoother than I anticipated for the first day! There were no technical difficulties, you all had your lesson plans organized and were able to clearly explain the work the kids needed to do! THANK YOU for your dedication and hard work to all of our kiddos – you are so greatly appreciated!” — parent of third-grade student

Any and all perspectives wanted. Good and bad, lessons learned, best practices and guidance for others.

Our teachers host online office hours, and one thing we’ve noticed is that students are wanting more connection and support during this social distancing. In some cases, teachers are Google Hangouts with students until 7 p.m. For the teachers, it can also be a balancing act if they’re teaching from home and have their own children at home. Many are working longer hours than anticipated to create lessons and provide the personalized experience they pride themselves on. The school sent our faculty GrubHub certificates after the first week as a way of saying, “thank you,” for teachers’ Herculean efforts to go live over the weekend.

How We’ve Responded To The Challenges Brought On By COVID-19: Touro College

Marian Stoltz-Loike, Ph.D., Dean of Lander College for Women
Dr. Marian Stoltz Loike

Responses from Dr. Marian Stoltz Loike, vice president for online education at Touro College and dean of Touro’s Lander College for Women.

How are you responding to the present crisis, and what technologies are you using to connect with students and even parents in an attempt to minimize the disruption?

We are delivering synchronous zoom classes to most students since school was shut down. There are also students who take asynchronous online courses.  Most faculty teaching the synchronous courses have not taught online previously. Faculty teaching asynchronously have been well-trained and often have been teaching online for many years.

Faculty lectures to students over Zoom, integrating interactive exercises to keep students engaged.  They use online tools, like surveys or breakout rooms to enable students to interact with material and one another.

Through combined efforts of the Instructional Design and Instructional Technology teams, faculty have been trained and supported in teaching online. We have produced video and print tutorials and peer-to-peer training. We have also offered online support.

Because Touro has been ahead of the curve in moving online we have had a smooth transition, lauded by both students and faculty. We are also helping other schools succeed in online pedagogy. For example, last night one of the division of the graduate school of education held a webinar for more than 85 middle and high school teachers to help them build skills in online pedagogy by teaching them about online tools, like quizlets, quizis, edpuzzle, cahoots, and other tools.

What have been the results? What works? What only causes more friction?

Very successful. One-on-one training for novices, webinars and group sessions for more advanced faculty.  Broader helpdesk support has been important for students. Students and faculty have reported tremendous satisfaction with the transition to remote learning.

Nothing is causing more friction; however, some students report that the demands at home make it difficult for them to focus on learning. Parents want them to help with watching younger siblings or doing household chores to provide parents with bandwidth to work.

Several faculty members have lost their babysitters and are unable to deliver classes to students while they take care of young children. In each case we have found a way that is sensitive to both the faculty member and students’ educational needs.

Please name the technology you’re using in your response and the approaches you are taking. Are you moving to e-learning platforms?

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How To Engage Schools and Students In The Time of COVID-19

Rick Merrick
Rick Merrick

Response from Rick Merrick, chief information officer, TCS Education System

We have been in a race to respond to coronavirus and its impact on our colleges.

We were seeing the virus spread in other countries and watching their response, so we knew it was only a matter of time before the U.S. took social distancing measures and issue stay at home orders.

Given that reality, we focused our efforts on the following items:

  1. Ordering laptops and other equipment to support a remote workforce
  2. Reviewing/ordering necessary licenses to support a remote workforce
  3. Reviewing bandwidth requirements and networking devices to support increase VPN demands
  4. Developing and scheduling necessary technology training for all employees to prepare them for first day at home
  5. Reviewing security practices to respond to new attack vectors
  6. Meeting with academic leaders to develop a plan to transition all students to distance education using new tools

To assist with the transition, we trained the organization on Microsoft Teams. This is the primary tool we use to manage remote employees and departmental teams. We also use two additional video conferencing solutions to help with meetings and delivering synchronous distance education, they are GoToMeeting and Zoom. All students, faculty, and staff have a license for GTM.

Our e-leaning platform is Canvas. We have implemented new ways of using Canvas to support on-ground programs to assist with the transition to online. We are exploring other learning tools to help with the transition, like Respondus, depending on the department or programmatic requirements. We are still exploring new solutions; however, we have seen our colleges adjust curriculum rather than try and solve every problem with technology.

The community has been exceptionally patient throughout this process. They understand the tremendous challenge everyone is facing through this transition, including the strains on the IT department. Many of the challenges have been outside of our control, such as outages with Zoom, Teams, GTM, and home internet providers. These outages are a result of millions of new remote workers using these platforms for the first time, causing unprecedented traffic on the platforms. Most employees have been very understanding of this reality.

Our organization did not anticipate this pandemic, as our business continuity plans did not account for a remote workforce transition that would be nationwide. This provided unique challenges for everyone, including our technology team. However, we have been able to respond quickly to the crisis and keep the organization operating and able to serve our students and faculty.

COVID-19’s Impact On Technology For Students At Cicero District 99

Responses from Superintendent Rodolfo Hernandez, Cicero District 99 (D99).

Rodolfo Hernandez

D99 is a public elementary school district in Cicero, Ill., a near-west suburb of Chicago that is home to more than 82,000 residents. The district includes 16 schools and educates more than 13,000 students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, most of whom (95%) come from bilingual or English-learning households.

The district is transformative and has been a statewide leader in providing innovative, 21st-century learning opportunities to empower the young people of its diverse, bilingual community. It arms its students, the majority of whom are low income, with skills, tools, knowledge and mindsets to effectively prepare them for global opportunities of the future — in education and the ever-changing workforce.

How are you responding and what technologies are you using to connect with students and even parents in an attempt to minimize the disruption? What have been the results? What works? What only causes more friction?

Our response to wide-spread school closures has been seamless, as we’ve transitioned to instructional delivery, remotely. As a 1:1 device district for several years now, teachers and students are familiar with the various online platforms, resulting in online content delivery requiring minimal adjustments from both staff and students. Through the creation of an eLearning group within the Schoology learning management system, we were able to provide a curriculum repository where all staff has access to a variety of informational items and resources, related directly to the district eLearning expectations. The collaborative feed within our platform allows for the open exchange of ideas between group members, while also providing the platform to pose questions or challenges. Due to the open nature of this forum, information exchanged remains visible to all group members, thereby casting a wider communication net.

While the familiarity with our online platforms and resources has supported a smooth transition into eLearning, our structures for effective communication have served as a pillar to bolster our systems. Our public relations team continues to communicate with our stakeholders through social media, with our district website serving as an up-to-date resource for all information related to the district. Additional communication occurs through the use of robocalls and the implementation of a district hotline, which funnels all incoming calls to appropriate personnel. To provide consistency in messaging across all tiers, District personnel provide daily updates to all administrators and staff, summarizing pertinent information from state and federal agencies.

Although the transition to a remote learning and working environment has been a change in practice for everyone involved, the outcomes have been extremely positive. This success can be attributed to the foundational work of both curriculum and technology departments, in order to provide a strong foundation in the event conditions necessitated a move to eLearning for the district. Cicero District 99 was one of the few districts in Cook County to have an eLearning Plan already in place and approved by the Regional Office of Education.

In addition to having a dedicated administration and teaching staff, committed to meeting the needs of our students during this challenging period, we credit a stable and reliable infrastructure, the delivery of countless hours of professional development in the area of technology integration, a dedicated technology support arm, and effective processes and procedures for the smooth transition to eLearning.

Are you using technology? If so, what are the approaches you are taking? Are you moving to eLearning platforms? Which vendors are you partnering with to deliver these solutions?

District 99 teachers have access to numerous online platforms to deliver instruction. Teachers can choose to hold class discussions and deliver classroom assignments through Schoology or Google Classroom. This flexibility allows teachers the autonomy to use the tools that work best for their course and their students.  The results demonstrate that our students have the opportunity to be engaged in learning while at home.

An additional layer of support for implementation has been real-time coaching in this eLearning environment. While teachers and students have been immersed in digital learning in the classroom, the transition to full time eLearning has presented new learning for the teaching staff.  The coaching support staff in our district has quickly moved to digital coaching through platforms such as Google Meets, Google Chats, and through Schoology.

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School Technology In The Time of COVID-19

Response from Gabriela Martorell, professor of developmental psychology, Virginia Wesleyan University and a textbook author.

Gabriela Martorell
Gabriela Martorell

Like many people, we’ve been asked to shift our face-to-face (FTF) classes to an online format. Generally, teaching an online class is something you approach thoughtfully. It’s not a matter of just uploading a few documents and calling it a day. Not all approaches that work well in a FTF format work well online. Plus, we’re asking students to adapt to a format they didn’t sign up for.

Prior to teaching a class online, there’s generally a checklist of technology provided in the syllabus. So, students know from the beginning what type of technology they’ll need and they can opt to either not take the class or get access to the technology. With switching midway through the semester, there may be issues of access to computers and reliable internet service for some students, all against a backdrop of a global pandemic and the fear and anxiety that inspires. So, there need to be alternatives and contingencies provided to students who may have more difficulty with making the switch.

There are a number of platforms that can support the switch to online instruction. Many textbook companies sell books that can be bundled with online platforms. While you generally must pay an additional fee to access the platforms in light of the pandemic some textbook companies are offering free access to their online platforms for those students who already purchased hard copies of books for their classes. This is a great option for faculty that are already using these books and need supplementation.

The website platforms are designed to integrate with the existing texts and can be used to switch learning online, similar to what happens in a flipped classroom (where content is learned online and then applied or integrated in the classroom). So, for example, McGraw-Hill has a system called Connect, which has interactive learning modules — kind of like flashcards — that walk students through material. They also have interactive activities that can be used to supplement course content.

For instance, in developmental psychology courses they can play a “game” where they make choices for animated characters and get to see the consequences of those choices. Similar options are available in other fields. For faculty that have used a traditional FTF format, this might provide a way to supplement course materials.

Discussion postings are frequently used, but unless you are very careful with how you structure them, they tend not to be very interactive or substantial. You get a lot of “I agree with so-and-so” type of comments which aren’t very intellectually stimulating. A different option I’ve used that works much better is online annotations. I use a platform called Perusall. It’s set up like social media, so students highlight a passage, and can then comment, ask and answer questions on, use emojis, link material, and “like” other students’ comments.

Generally, I find the discussions that result in that format are far more natural and complex than most discussion boards, I think in part because the format is familar to students. You can upload your own content for free, or Perusall has paired with textbook companies and students can purchase their e-books directly off there. Because of the pandemic, textbook companies have agreed that if you are already using their books (either electronic or hard copies) for a course, they will pair the books with Perusall for no added cost.

Another alternative to discussion postings is Flipgrid videos. With Flipgrid, you can ask a discussion question, but rather than answering in writing, students are asked to upload a video. It’s easy to do with a smart phone, which almost all students have. The videos can be set up in a grid, and you can provide options for length, and whether or not students can respond to each other in a sort of delayed conversation.

Zoom, of course, is also a great option. The free version allows you to hold a video meeting for up to 100 people for up to 40 minutes, and there are various pricing plans for other options. While actual conversations are hard if too many people are on a Zoom meeting, you can provide an online synchronous lecture, and even record if if someone can’t make the meeting time and wants to watch it later. You can also provide a chat bar on the side for students to make comments on as you speak. That can be more effective than just having everyone chime in with verbal questions.