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COVID-19 Reminds Me of 1994 Report, ‘Prisoners of Time’ As much as schools have adopted to COVID-19, their underlying one-schedule-fits-all educational model remains the same. A 1994 report, and several recent examples, hint at what could be changed for the better. Shutterstock We’ve all experienced COVID-related events and circumstances we never predicted. We’ve had to change everything, and the stresses and strains are not over yet. Parents and students have a very understandable and very intense desire to go back to their pre-COVID education system. They miss their fri...

Ginkgo and Helix Partner on Pooled COVID Testing for Schools The biotechnology company Ginkgo, in partnership with the diagnostics company Helix and its automated lab, aims to provide pooled COVID-19 testing programs in 2,000 school districts on the West Coast. TNS As millions of K-12 students return to in-person learning, school districts across the country have looked to pooled testing as a cost-effective means of monitoring the deadly virus. The method  – which minimizes the number of tests by using combined samples, and only testing individuals if a combined sample turns...

Philadelphia Uses Innovation Fund to Inspire Agencies to Take Action To encourage city agencies to reimagine and transform their internal and public-facing services, Philadelphia, Penn., has established an accessible and flexible innovation grant process. Shutterstock For years, the city of Philadelphia, Penn., has worked to foster innovation among government agencies to facilitate delivery of improved services. A key factor in this effort has been the Innovation Management Team (IMT), which uses the Innovation Fund (IF) to create low-barrier opportunities for city departments t...

Opinion: Tips for Starting a Drone Program for K-12 As use cases for drones continue to multiply, and more businesses incorporate them into regular operations, there’s a case to be made for teaching K-12 students how to use them. Here’s how schools can get started. by La'Quata Sumter, education technology consultant, Adorama Business Solutions / April 16, 2021 Shutterstock There has been a rise in K-12 schools introducing drones to the classroom as experimental use cases have shown their educational potential in science, techno...

Answer: Yes. Shutterstock/Krakenimages.com A research team at Stanford has been exploring how different people are affected by multiple video calls, specifically in terms of fatigue or burnout. After a year of conducting our lives remotely, everyone is feeling a little bit of “Zoom fatigue,” but the researchers found that certain demographics are likely to be feeling it more than others.     The team surveyed more than 10,000 people in February and March about their video call fatigue. About 14 percent of women (one in seven) said they felt “very” to “extremely” ...