News Article - In the summer of 2022 as part of the Voices of Change project, EdSurge Research convened 80 Asian American K-12 educators in a series of virtual learning circles to listen to their stories. Our conversations spanned the gamut of topics that are top of mind for educators in all corners of the U.S. these days, including the fallout from COVID-19 and America’s ongoing racial reckoning; teacher burnout, low pay, and systemic teacher shortages; and how best to utilize new tech and curriculum...

News Article - I remember the first and only time I’ve ever yelled at a teacher in class. Growing up in the U.S. as a female child of immigrants from Taiwan, this kind of behavior is practically sacrilegious; certainly scandalous and wildly antithetical to my traditional upbringing...

News Article - “When the murders happened in Atlanta, my school said nothing.” On March 16, 2021, a 21-year-old white man went on a targeted shooting rampage across Atlanta, driving 30 miles to three massage businesses and killing eight people, the majority of whom were Asian women. Upon capture and questioning, the shooter evoked long-standing, entrenched tropes of sexual violence, racism and misogyny to justify the slaughter. In a year where hate crimes targeting Asian Americans spiked over 300 percent...

News Article - "Students come to us regularly and share the trauma that they have gone through this past year and a half. And so, what do I do with that trauma that I'm literally taking or trying to carry and absorb from the kids?...Where do I go to share it? Where do I go to leave it?"

News Article - Considering the ongoing traumatic upheaval on school communities in recent years, and the unrelenting pressure on educators to work under difficult, uncertain and constantly vacillating circumstances, it is not a matter of if educators will experience the corrosive effects of prolonged and extreme stress, but rather when. The question is, what can schools do to prioritize and support the mental health and well-being of the invaluable educators at the heart of their school communities?

Sponsored Feature - “We think college should be affordable and low risk. Everybody should get to go. That’s the DNA of StraighterLine,” says Chief Learning Officer Dr. Amy Smith. There are 36 million Americans who have some college credit but no degree. StraighterLine aims to change that by supporting degree completion for non-traditional, returning adult students. “They started, they stopped, they had lives, they went back to work—all the myriad reasons why people start and stop college,” observes Smith. “How do you get them back in college and have them be successful? How do you make it low risk, low cost and unburdensome?"

Sponsored Feature - K-12 technology integration specialists like Jill Hill and Kim Logie-Bates are always on the lookout for new and compelling ways to integrate tech into learning for the thousands of students in their diverse Metro Detroit area school district. For them, signing up for AI Explorations and Their Practical Use in School Environments—a professional learning course by ISTE and General Motors—was a no-brainer. “It was just a great chance to learn more about artificial intelligence and machine learning and how to encourage K-12 teachers to use more AI tools in their classrooms,” said Hill, the technology integration specialist at her middle school.

Sponsored Q&A - "Digital skills are vital for students today because this is what their jobs will look like in the future," says veteran middle school teacher Kay Vanzant-Bradney of Nelson Academy in Long Beach, California. "And given our circumstances right now, with the pandemic and remote learning, if you don't have digital skills, you literally can't connect with your education." This is why her students use Google's Applied Digital Skills, a free, video-based, online digital literacy curriculum.

Sponsored Q&A - Artificial intelligence is an increasingly prevalent part of our everyday lives. From live-updating, turn-by-turn driving directions to responsive voice-controlled digital assistants—all in the palms of our hands—we are constantly interacting with computer programming where machines learn from experience and adjust to new data to perform human-like tasks. For children growing up right now, AI will undoubtedly be a part of their future lives and jobs. It impacts every field of study in education. So it's critical students understand computational thinking and know how machine learning works.

Sponsored Q&A - “Instructional coaching is like sports coaching,” says Teresa Engler, K-12 Instructional Technology Coach for McGuffey School District in southwestern Pennsylvania. “From the sideline, a coach gives the team a play, explains how it will work in the field and then watches as the players execute. The coach then huddles up with their team to talk about whether the play was successful, and then guides players through how to approach future situations,” she explains.

Sponsored Q&A - When creating the transformative, deep learning experiences we all want for our students, relationships matter. Intuitively, we know this to be true, but what does it actually look like in schools?

Sponsored Feature - Recently, we profiled the six finalists competing for the top prize in the Amazon Alexa EdTech Skills Challenge, each hoping to transform education with their new Alexa skill. Now, the votes have been tallied, the judges have made their decisions, and the results are finally in! For their cutting-edge use of voice technology, SayKid captures the Judge’s Choice award, worth $50,000 in AWS Promotional Credit, and VOGO Voice takes home the People’s Choice award...

Sponsored Feature - When Amazon Web Services (AWS) and SXSW EDU collaborate to issue a challenge, the edtech world answers. In July 2019, the Amazon Alexa EdTech Skills Challenge gave developers a chance to make cutting-edge Alexa skills for creative educational improvements. Edtech companies across the U.S. submitted innovative ideas to bolster student learning, teacher productivity, accessibility and the home-school connection. The winners for this competition will be decided in two parts...

Sponsored Feature - In July 2019, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and SXSW EDU issued a challenge to the edtech world: Design an Alexa skill to transform education. Developers across the U.S. presented an expansive range of innovative ideas for using voice technology to address the most pressing problems facing education today. Their solutions for the Amazon Alexa EdTech Skills Challenge focused on improving the home to school connection, teacher and administrator productivity, accessibility and student learning.

Sponsored Q&A - We are just getting started with voice technology in education. From simple commands that retrieve stored information to a future where voice-activated AI coaches help us set and reach educational goals across a lifetime, the potential for growth is undeniable. Voice, after all, is one of the most natural ways to interface with technology, says Coursera’s Alexander Sanchez.