In this episode of THE Journal Insider podcast, host and THEJournal.com editor Kristal Kuykendall welcomes two former teachers who have been working on AI writing tools at Turnitin, a plagiarism-detection software used by thousands of K–12 schools and institutions of higher education. Turnitin is expected to launch a new AI writing detector and additional related features for educators in the next few weeks. David Adamson, principal machine learning scientist at Turnitin, and Patti West-Smith, senior director of customer engagement, have been working on Turnitin’s AI writing detection feature and related new tools to help educators better understand ChatGPT — and to show teachers how to use AI to save themselves time and how to tweak assignments so that ChatGPT cannot earn a good grade on writing homework. Adamson, who taught computer science and math at Digital Harbor High in Baltimore, and West-Smith, who worked in public schools for 19 years as a teacher, curriculum supervisor, and principal, both believe that ChatGPT has presented a growth opportunity — or perhaps more like a growth demand — for writing instruction, which they explained at length in the newest episode of THE Journal Insider podcast. THE Journal Insider podcast explores current ed tech trends and issues impacting K–12 educators, IT professionals, instructional technologists, education leaders, and ed tech providers. Listen in as THE Journal Editor Kristal Kuykendall chats with ed tech experts, educators, and industry leaders about how they are 'meeting the moment' in the U.S. public education system. Find all podcast episodes as well as K–12 ed tech news updated daily at THEJournal.com. Resource links: Academic Integrity in the Age of AI Writing — Turnitin’s guide for educators Texas Tech List of AI Writing and Research Tools Turnitin.com Video demo of Turnitin's AI writing detector at work Music by LemonMusicStudio from Pixabay Duration: 29 minutes

THEJournal.com editor and podcast host Kristal Kuykendall digs into a story of tutoring triumphs in Odessa, Texas, with guest Dr. Scott Muri, superintendent of Ector County Independent School District, which has 33,500 students and 44 schools. ECISD entered the pandemic already ramping up to tackle big challenges; the district was failing many of the state’s academic growth indicators. Under Muri — who took the helm at ECISD in summer 2019 — the district has implemented district-wide high-dosage tutoring strategically and quickly, with some unusual features such as pegging the tutoring providers’ payments to how much the students being tutored actually grow in their learning and on state assessments. Muri’s efforts — and the remarkable academic growth that has resulted from his tutoring strategy — are notable not only because of the unique outcomes-based contract tutoring; the Texas Legislature passed a law in 2021 that began requiring individualized intervention for every student falling below state standards on core subjects in several grades. The requirements and the urgency with which they went into effect have proven to be a heavy lift for many Texas districts, and ECISD has stood out as an early success story for what high-dosage tutoring implemented strategically and within the structure of the school day can accomplish. In this episode, Muri shares a number of valuable lessons his district learned along their journey — lessons likely to save time and money for any K–12 school or district selecting a tutoring provider, negotiating a contract, or deciding when and how the tutoring sessions should be held. He also explains outcomes-based contracting, which he and ECISD helped pilot in a study with Harvard University’s Center for Education Policy Research. Read the extended article at bit.ly/Texas-tutoring.  THE Journal Insider podcast explores current ed tech trends and issues impacting K–12 educators, IT professionals, instructional technologists, education leaders, and ed tech providers. Listen in as THEJournal.com Editor Kristal Kuykendall chats with ed tech experts, educators, and industry leaders about how they are 'meeting the moment' in the U.S. public education system. Find all podcast episodes as well as K–12 ed tech news updated daily at THEJournal.com. Video version available at https://youtu.be/ymEeiA3bVpA. Resources: High-Dosage Tutoring Beats Opt-In Tutoring for Learning RecoveryTexas Education Agency list of Vetted Tutoring ProvidersTEA primer on Texas HB 4545 (the law requiring learning acceleration such as tutoring)Learning Accelerator summary of Outcomes-Based Contract Tutoring pilotEctor County ISD Quick FactsEctor County ISD Accountability Standards and Growth Achievements (2019–2022)Sample Outcomes-Based Tutoring Contract (provided by ECISD)FEV Tutor

Cypher Learning, the company behind the NEO K–20 learning management system, was founded on the idea that the modern instructional model of public education is not, in fact, modern at all. Former classroom teacher Todd Ryckman, now global director of customer success at Cypher Learning, felt the same way when he was in a traditional classroom; he eventually attended an education conference that sparked a new vision of what education could be, and he helped start a competency-based education academy in his district. How, he's a full-fledged proponent of the CBE model of instruction and helps schools all over the world revolutionize learning in ways large and small using Cypher Learning's platforms. “The concept behind competency-based education is simple: learning is best measured by students demonstrating mastery of learning, rather than the number of hours spent in a classroom,” summarizes the Aurora Institute, a leading educator-led reform advocacy nonprofit and CBE proponent. “By redesigning the education system around actual student learning, we will prepare each student more effectively for a future in an increasingly global and competitive economy.” In this episode of THE Journal Insider podcast, Ryckman joins THEJournal.com editor Kristal Kuykendall for a discussion about the CBE movement, what it looks like in school districts that have been implementing CBE over the past five years, and how Cypher Learning’s NEO LMS empowers educators and students, regardless of whether their school uses the traditional or “modern” instructional model or more of a CBE approach. THE Journal Insider podcast explores current ed tech trends and issues impacting K–12 educators, IT professionals, instructional technologists, education leaders, and ed tech providers. Listen in as THEJournal.com Editor Kristal Kuykendall chats with ed tech experts, educators, and industry leaders about how they are 'meeting the moment' in the U.S. public education system. Find all podcast episodes as well as K–12 ed tech news updated daily at THEJournal.com. Resource links: Cypher LearningAurora InstituteKettle Moraine School DistrictKettle Moraine’s Personalized Learning GuideDigital Promise: An Analysis of Kettle Moraine’s CBE experiment Music by LemonMusicStudio from Pixabay Duration: 30 minutes

As education leaders around the globe call for more emphasis on STEM education, and as government statistics project millions more tech jobs than trained workers in the next decade, the REC Foundation is changing the way K–12 students learn about technology by making robotics both accessible and fun for students from every background, all over the world. REC Foundation has been helping K–12 schools start their own VEX Robotics education programs and participate in competitions since 2008 — and over 1 million students each year now participate in more than 70 countries, about three-quarters of those coming from the United States. The foundation is also devoted to changing the face of STEM, with programs designed to make robotics more equitable, such as the Girl Powered initiative launched in 2016. Six years later, half of all elementary school students participating in VEX Robotics teams are girls. Last year, REC Foundation added a drone program and competition in Texas, and this fall the drone competition program expanded to Maryland and Michigan — with more states expected to be added soon. For this episode of THE Journal Insider podcast, THEJournal.com editor Kristal Kuykendall visited with REC Foundation CEO Dan Mantz who explained the foundation’s recent adjustments to its mission and vision, the addition of drones, and how exciting student competitions for robotics and drone teams are helping prepare the workforce of tomorrow. THE Journal Insider podcast explores current ed tech trends and issues impacting K–12 educators, IT professionals, instructional technologists, education leaders, and ed tech providers. Listen in as THEJournal.com Editor Kristal Kuykendall chats with ed tech experts, educators, and industry leaders about how they are 'meeting the moment' in the U.S. public education system. Find all podcast episodes as well as K–12 ed tech news updated daily at THEJournal.com. Resource links: RoboticsEducation.orgGirl Powered robotics initiativeRobotEvents.comAerial Drone Competition 2022-23 informationBell Advanced Vertical Robotics Competition overview videoVEX Robotics Music by LemonMusicStudio from Pixabay

In this episode of THE Journal Insider podcast, editor Kristal Kuykendall visits with several K–12 educators, instructional coaches, and education technology specialists who participated in the Apple Learning Coach pilot program last year before it was launched publicly this past March. Apple Learning Coach has just opened up applications for its fourth cohort, and any U.S. educator with the capacity to coach K–12 teachers can apply through Nov. 16, 2022, or learn more at Apple.co/alc-apply.   This episode’s guests share deep insights and inspiring stories about how the Apple Learning Coach program has been a change agent at their schools: from helping spark new enthusiasm among students and teachers, and improving the frameworks of existing teacher coaching programs, to building technology-powered instruction that dramatically increases student engagement, creation, and collaboration.   Maranda Ralph and Jessica Keller from Berkeley County School District in West Virginia start off this episode sharing how they, as coaches and technology integration specialists, benefitted from Apple Learning Coach and the evidence of its impact they’ve seen as the coaching methods and the iPad apps they learned about during the ALC program have trickled down into classrooms and throughout their district’s teaching staff.   Next you’ll hear the director of educational technology at the Los Lunas, New Mexico, school district, Bill Hays, explain how his participation in the ALC pilot program led to the creation of a student film festival that has been a huge hit with students and the community.   THE Journal Insider podcast explores current ed tech trends and issues impacting K–12 educators, IT professionals, instructional technologists, education leaders, and ed tech providers. Listen in as THE Journal Editor Kristal Kuykendall chats with ed tech experts, educators, and industry leaders about how they are 'meeting the moment' in the U.S. public education system. Find all podcast episodes as well as K–12 ed tech news updated daily at THEJournal.com.   Resource links: Overview of the Apple Learning Coach program Apple’s Everyone Can Create guides for K–12 classrooms Apple resources for K–12 educators: Apple.com/education/k12/ Apple Learning Coach details and program application Music by LemonMusicStudio from Pixabay Duration: 30 minutes

In this episode of THE Journal Insider podcast, host and editor Kristal Kuykendall talks with YouScience Chief Operating Officer Jeri Larsen about how their Discovery aptitude assessment platform works and why it helps both educators and students. We learn how the assessment insights help students "discover" their aptitudes and then take ownership of their learning and their futures by more closely connecting their schoolwork to their skills and aspirations. NOTE: This episode includes a few minutes of video, where Larsen demonstrates the YouScience Discovery assessment results and platform. Listen and watch on YouTube (https://youtu.be/WrKDxbKMuW8) to see what she is talking about!  WHY THIS MATTERS: An enormous study published in July by student aptitude and career guidance platform YouScience analyzed almost a quarter-million Discovery aptitude assessments taken last year by high-schoolers nationwide. It’s easy to see how this kind of data is deeply relevant to the larger curriculum goals of K–12 schools and also to the individual choices that students are asked to begin making as early as ninth grade, as they choose electives throughout high school. The analysis revealed that students have the innate abilities to excel in today’s in-demand jobs but often lack interest in those fields, either because they’ve not been exposed to such career options or had no idea they possessed aptitudes in those fields. The findings of aptitude assessments are helpful both at the upper levels of curriculum decision-making and at the granular level, in classrooms with students. Educators and guidance counselors can see the gaps in so-called “career exposure” — where students have innate aptitudes but no career interest indicates they may need more information about career possibilities — and they help schools better tailor each student’s courses in high school to the career paths they are both suited for and interested in. Resources Gap Between Students’ Aptitudes and Their Career Interests Focus of New ReportYouScience Student Ability Report (July 2022)YouScience Discovery assessmentsYouTube version with mini-demo of the YouScience platform Music by LemonMusicStudio from Pixabay

Kristal Kuykendall, podcast host and editor at K-12 ed tech news site THEJournal.com, digs into the ways that ClassVR virtual reality headsets are helping educators get students excited about learning — and some incredible and surprising benefits of using ClassVR in schools, particularly for special education students, students with autism, and those with limited mobility. Guests are digital learning specialist Charley Suter from Spaulding Academy & Family Services, a special education school in Northfield, New Hampshire, and Michael “GoogleMan” Jaber, instructional technology coordinator at Sheboygan Area School District in Wisconsin. Jaber and Suter explain their vetting process and why they settled on ClassVR headsets, the training and set-up required for teachers to start using them in classrooms, how easy it is for educators to create custom content, and the endless possibilities for using ClassVR headsets to boost learning outcomes, particularly among special-needs students. THE Journal Insider podcast explores current ed tech trends and issues impacting K–12 educators, IT professionals, instructional technologists, education leaders, and ed tech providers. Listen in as THE Journal Editor Kristal Kuykendall chats with ed tech experts, educators, and industry leaders about how they are 'meeting the moment' in the U.S. public education system. Find all podcast episodes as well as K–12 ed tech news updated daily at THEJournal.com. Resource links: ClassVR ClassVR Ideas for Educators blog Avantis World CoSpaces ThingLink Music by LemonMusicStudio from Pixabay Duration: 34 minutes

Since January, two reported cyberattacks targeting ed tech providers have resulted in the breach of private information of more than 3.5 million U.S. K–12 students — and likely millions more. No one knows for certain how many students had their personal data compromised, and it’s probable that we will never know. Such data breaches — even if they don’t include a Social Security number — are very dangerous for students and can impact their financial futures for many years to come, explains podcast guest Doug Levin, national director of K12 Security Information Exchange, the leading nonprofit advocate for K–12 cybersecurity resources in the United States. Levin discusses the expanding impact of recent ed tech data breaches, what it means for public school leaders and parents, and what policy changes K12SIX is advocating for to protect students. Data privacy is also an important consideration in school district procurement, and podcast guest Dr. Tim Clark, Vice President of K12 Programs at 1EdTech, explains how their ed tech marketplace for school districts might soon see some changes to address growing concerns about student data privacy. Resource links: K12 Security Information Exchange, aka K12SIX 1EdTech (formerly known as IMS Global) TrustedApps.org Illuminate Education Breach Included Los Angeles Unified & Riverside County Districts, Pushing Total Impacted to Over 3M Music by AudioCoffee from Pixabay Duration: 38 minutes Transcript