05/20/21
BrainPOP
has released BrainPOP
Science, a new tool for grades 6–8 designed to help teachers
navigate changes in “standards, assessments and learning
environments” in science, engineering and technology.
The new tool offers “scaffolded investigations,
embedded assessments and actionable diagnostics,” according to
BrainPOP.
According to the company: “Each BrainPOP Science
investigation includes student-driven activities: examining
phenomena, collecting evidence, articulating claims and reasoning,
and checking for understanding along the way. BrainPOP Science was
designed with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in mind
and can be aligned to all state standards. Districts will also have
the option to align BrainPOP Science units to their unique curriculum
According to Vernier: “Designed with the three-dimensional learning
approach in mind, these new investigations will help students work
towards meeting the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
performance expectations and build a cohesive understanding of
science with hands-on investigations.”
Among the new offerings are seven new teaching supplements designed
to enhance digital curricular units offered through OpenSciEd.
According to Vernier: “Each of the seven units includes more than a
dozen ready-to-go investigations that support the three-dimensional
learning approach, and the Vernier supplements help teachers
incorporate data-collection technology. The free units explore common
middle school science topics such as weather, climate, metabolic
COVID restrictions have had a negative impact not just on students’ learning progress, but also on their emotional well-being, according to a report issued this month by MUSE Academy.
05/13/21
Students have been moving around quite a bit during remote learning
sometimes studying at friends houses, sometimes studying from
multiple states.
That’s one of the ancillary findings of a report the Consortium for
School Networking (CoSN) issued this month, the Student
Home Connectivity Study. The findings are based on data collected from 13 school districts representing some 750,000 students.
According to the report: “During the study, many students
participated in online school activities from locations outside of
the student’s home. Students accessed school learning resources
from other student homes and even other cities, states, and
countries. In the study, many students shared an IP address with
05/13/21
More than 9-in-10 students learning from home are using WiFi rather
than wired connections. But the quality of their wireless connections
varies greatly. According to a new report, there are steps schools
and districts can take to help improve their students’ home WiFi performance some at a cost, some using
IT staff expertise and legwork.
The report, the Student
Home Connectivity Study, from the Consortium for School
Networking (CoSN), studied data from 13 districts representing some
750,000 students in the United States. Among many significant
findings, the researchers discovered that 92% of students working
from home use WiFi rather than wired connections for their internet