Clever is an education technology company that has created a simple developer interface (API) for third party education technology software. It helps schools connect data from their student information systems (SIS) to other programs.
Lindsay Unified School District worked to provide at-home connectivity through a community Wi-Fi program.
Roots ED and Founder, Jonathan Hanover, discusses how the school thinks about time spent online for learning (currently roughly 25% of the day).
Transcript: Jon Hanover: the 25-percent is by no means a magic number; it’s kind of a – that’s really driven by where we see the quality of digital content out there and kind of what mix makes sense for an individual. And it varies by scholar, right? There’s some kinds who, just like ST math is their jam and like they’re just cruising through it and really deeply retaining the information, and so they might spend, you know, as much as 35 or 40-percent of their time on digital learning. There’s other kids who like physical manipulatives really make a big difference, they want to be able to like physically write in a portfolio, and get more out of that experience, and they might be spending 10 to 15-percent of their time on digital apps – on digital learning. So it varies by scholar, and I think as I would expect over the coming years, as the market for digital curriculum improves, that number will probably go up as there’s more kind of high-quality instructional experiences available online.
Roots teacher, Mackenzie Wagner, shares how iPads are introduced to and used by students throughout the school day and year.
Transcript: Mackenzie Wagner: In the beginning, it was really tricky. The iPads are obviously something that are totally new in terms of scheduling for them, so they use their iPads – their world is centered around that iPad throughout the day. It always tells them where to go, and most of our students, we notice, spend probably a month of having the iPad schedule, pretty much knew when it was time for a small-group flex center versus when it was time to switch into content time. But, their iPads are not the same day-to-day either. So, they’re always at content at the same times, but what they’re doing in between those times for flex is always rotating. So, they’ve basically run their whole world around the iPad. They have to make sure that they scan it at every center they go to because that’s how their iPad updates and changes to give them the next station. But yeah, they use their iPads have a color splotch on them that corresponds to the colors on the ceiling above that center. And then also, the teacher’s face, and the actual written activity of what they’re gonna be doing, which is nice because in the beginning of the year, they got everywhere based on the color that they saw because they weren’t reading yet. And then once they began to start reading, they can look more at the specific activity that’s right in front of them there.
Roots Director of Operations and Innovation, Jill Tew, shares the importance of Google Apps to Root’s instructional and operational model.
Transcript: Jill Tew: I think Google and its kind of skeleton will always make sense for us as kind of the core engine that we’re building our tools around, especially the calendaring tool as the most extreme example. So, the calendaring tool that we use for scholars to each have their own personalized schedule of where they’re going from Grove Center to Grove Center, to small group classroom, to large group classroom, et cetera – the guts of that – the data behind it is all powered by the Google calendar API so that teachers can just schedule a lesson like literally using Roots e-mail addresses for all the scholars for a small group lesson, or for a large group lesson, or for recess – for kind of every part of their day. We’re using Google calendar for a lot of that. And so, that to me will always make sense – that we don’t need to create Google calendar – like Google spent a lot of money and time creating Google calendar and they’re always improving the interface and how it works. I think for us to shift our core competency from being a really phenomenal school to being a phenomenal school and a side team that develops software doesn’t make a ton of sense for us, at least at this stage. So, I never want to duplicate something that’s already out there, because it’s just going to be extra resources for us to maintain it and to grow with it. So, if Google’s going to handle the calendaring and the API and the data behind that, that’s great for us. What might change and what I think will change a lot as we learn more and our kids get older and kind of continue to push us on how we’re personalizing learning for them is the skin on top of that – so, the interface and how scholars are experiencing the tool.
