Author: Hope

HOW AI CAN HELP STUDENTS LEARN DIGITAL SELF-REGULATION

Posted on | by Hope

This post is sponsored by Deledao.

Can AI help students learn important skills like digital self-regulation? Artificial Intelligence (AI) is more than just a buzzword; it’s changing the way we think about what is possible in education. This includes the support students need to make sure they can navigate digital spaces effectively – both inside and outside of the classroom.

This past year, over a thousand students participated in a study powered by AI to help them improve their self-regulation skills in a digital environment. The study was made by Deledao and showed that 82% of students improved their self-regulation skills. Today on the blog, we’ll take a look at Deledao, their AI tools, and how their technology can support students with digital self-regulation skill-building this school year.

What is Digital Self-Regulation?

Digital distractions are a major obstacle to effectively integrating technology into classroom instruction. It’s easy for students to become distracted with multiple tabs open on their browser and the Internet at their fingertips. Digital self-regulation is a skill that students can develop in the classroom and take into their everyday experiences navigating online spaces.

Digital self-regulation requires them to self-assess, make choices that are right for them in the moment, and stay focused on the task at hand. Students can employ this skill in multiple settings both inside and outside of their classroom. This skill-building doesn’t happen by accident but through the intentional choices teachers, schools, and districts make to prepare students to navigate digital spaces effectively.

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Contact your dedicated Account Manager:

Deledao Education
Jasen Whetstone
Account Executive
469-525-5208
sales@deledao.com

New Paper Pallet & Case Pricing From Quill

Posted on | by Hope

Quill is reducing the awarded bid pricing for paper pallets at least through the end of the year. Take advantage of this limited-time offer on Quill Brand® Copy Paper, Model #: 720222PL1, by mentioning you are an ILTPP member or referencing contract number AEPA 023-C.

  • Copy paper for everyday use and large jobs
  • Paper weight: 20 lbs.
  • Sheet dimensions: 8.5″ x 11″ (US letter)
  • Brightness rating of 92 for sharp, clear print results
  • 500 sheets per ream, 10 reams per carton, 40 cartons per pallet
  • Acid-Free
  • 1-5 Pallets
  • White color
SALES FLYER

Contact your dedicated Account Manager:

Samra Cejvan
Strategic Partnerships Manager
847-876-5451
samra.cejvan@quill.com

Learn More About Quill

Find The Right Chromebooks For Your School

Posted on | by Hope

Explore a variety of Chromebooks for your specific education needs—optimized for video conferencing, coding, and content creation, always connected devices with built-in cellular broadband functionality and more.

Chromebooks offer a new way for teachers to manage their classrooms and instruct their students. Your school can choose from a full range of sleek, powerful, and ready for anything models with varying power levels and capabilities that help technical leaders effectively manage a fleet of devices and keep everyone safe without sacrificing performance or sophistication.

  • Simply Versatile – Customize each device with a variety of tools, applications, extensions, and preferences that can serve student needs and fit teaching styles.
  • Fast and Reliable – Rapid boot-up and charging, long battery life, durability, repairability, and offline mode keep devices ready for daily use.
  • Productively Efficient – Stay connected to the school community while maintaining an organized virtual desktop with separate work streams and exceptional storage capacity.
  • Safe and Secure – Built-in security keeps sensitive files and personal data safe from cybercriminals without having to install additional antivirus software.
DOWNLOAD YOUR SELECTION GUIDE

Contact Your Dedicated ILTPP Resellers For More Details:

Joel Anderson
Bluum
Sales Director- Central Territory
612-455-3668
joel.anderson@bluum.com

John Buttita
CDW Education
Sales Manager
877-325-3380
johnbut@cdw.com

Maggie Matherne
Howard Technology Solutions
K-12 Inside Sales Representative
601-399-5814
mmatherne@howard.com

Matthew Butler
ITsavvy
Client Executive Public Sector
630-396-6307
mbutler@itsavvy.com

Christine McConnell
JourneyEd
Senior Account Manager
636-238-5606
cmcconnell@journeyed.com

Kyle Thomas
SHI
SM SLED Manager
732-564-8526
Kyle_Thomas@shi.com

Tim Peters
Trafera
Account Manager
651-209-1098
tim.peters@trafera.com

Discover STEM/STEAM Wonders: Embracing Innovation

Posted on | by Hope

By Abi Dreyer / November 07, 2023

Greetings, explorers of the STEM universe!

Mark your calendars because November 8 heralds the arrival of National STEM/STEAM Day! Get ready to embark on an exhilarating expedition into the realms of innovation and discovery. On this special day, we celebrate the profound impact of science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEM/STEAM) in the lives of young learners.

At first glance, it might seem like just another entry in the calendar of national observances, but STEM Day is far more than that. It holds immense significance, especially for our dedicated educators.

Inspiring Futures

National STEM Day offers educators a unique platform to demonstrate the real-world implications of STEM. Teachers can guide their students to focus on problem-solving, teamwork, and perseverance, sparking inspiration that could shape their future paths. It’s about fostering a mindset that encourages resilience and fuels a passion for exploration.

Students and teacher problem solving image

Captivating Engagement

Engaging students with captivating STEM activities is key to nurturing their curiosity. By designing activities that resonate with their interests, we can create authentic connections between students and STEM fields. These interactions foster genuine enthusiasm, making learning a delightful journey of discovery.

For instance, get inspired by Chocolate-covered learning: Seven STEM activities for kids or for younger learners you might try The Dot: Read-Aloud STEM kits.

Opening the Doors to Careers

One of the most significant impacts of this celebration is its ability to unveil diverse career opportunities. For many students, these paths remain undiscovered until exposed by their teachers. By introducing them to various professions, we empower them to explore their true calling, equipping them with insights that can shape their future careers.

Student thinking about careers image

Consider working with your local businesses and industry all year round to fill workforce gaps in your area.

CONTINUE READING

Contact your dedicated Account Manager:

Erica Lopez-Negrete Smith
Illinois Sales
800-835-0686
elopez@pitsco.com

Learn More About Pitsco Education
Pitsco Education Blog

Download The Complete MTSS Toolkit From Otus

Posted on | by Hope

The Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework is crucial in addressing students’ varying needs. Download this free toolkit to set MTSS meeting norms and agendas, analyze data, and set growth action items. Every student deserves the right support – use our toolkit to ensure they get it.

What’s in the toolkit?

MTSS has become a vital framework in classrooms nationwide, addressing the diverse needs of students. By combining academic and behavioral strategies, MTSS ensures that every student, from those who excel to those who struggle, receives the right level of support.

This toolkit will provide you with everything you need to:

  • Understand and create MTSS meeting norms
  • Examples of MTSS meeting norms
  • Plan and prepare for MTSS meetings
  • Analyze and discuss MTSS data
  • Meeting agenda template
  • Data discussion guide
  • Set action items to support student growth
DOWNLOAD TODAY

Contact your dedicated Account Manager:

Paul Kaskovich
Account Executive
paul@otus.com
773-789-5444 x110

Learn More About Otus

How To Recover From A Cyber Attack: 8 Tips For K-12

Posted on | by Hope

Worried about what might happen if your school district suffers a data breach?

You’re not alone. Schools across the United States are bracing for impact, awaiting the day a malicious incident puts their cybersecurity strategy to the test. And, as cybercrime rises worldwide, it’s only a matter of time before it does. In the spirit of planning ahead, let’s discuss how to recover from a cyber attack so that you can better protect your students from a future security breach.

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Contact your dedicated Account Manager:

David Waugh
Sales and Marketing Vice President
303-415-3643
dwaugh@managedmethods.com

Learn More About ManagedMethods

CENTEGIX®, Leading K-12 Safety Provider, Introduces New Platform

Posted on | by Hope

ATLANTA – October 19, 2023 – CENTEGIX, the industry leader and largest wearable safety technology provider for K-12 education, announces the launch of its CENTEGIX Safety Platform™. The cloud-based, integrated solution initiates the fastest response time to safety incidents campus-wide.

The CENTEGIX Safety Platform™ unites powerful market-leading solutions including:

The design of the Safety Platform is grounded in CENTEGIX’s experience supporting school districts with rapid incident response for hundreds of thousands of everyday and extreme emergencies.

“Time is the single most critical factor in an emergency, because every second matters,” said Brent Cobb, CEO of CENTEGIX. “Districts spend years preparing for and working to prevent emergencies. When an incident happens, it’s the time that it takes to respond that matters the most. With our CENTEGIX Safety Platform, we’ve taken linear phases of response and compressed them to happen all at once, so that help can arrive as quickly as possible.”

CENTEGIX built the Safety Platform specifically to reduce response time during an incident:

Identification Time: CrisisAlert provides the ability for all staff to quickly, easily, and discreetly indicate that there is an emergency. With CrisisAlert, all staff are empowered to identify incidents by simply pushing the button on their CrisisAlert badge. CrisisAlert is always available and works anywhere on campus because it operates on a private, managed network and does not depend on Wi-Fi or cellular, which have coverage gaps.

Notification Time: For a campus-wide alert, CrisisAlert accelerates emergency communication to everyone onsite through full audio and visual notifications, directing all to follow safety protocols and directly alerting local 911 emergency resources, also with precise location information. With Emergency Response Integrations, the Safety Platform automates notification steps to reduce human error and delays with manual hand-off steps.

Response Time: Onsite response teams immediately receive the CrisisAlert alert notification with a Safety Blueprint map showing who needs help and precisely where they are located. The Safety Blueprint map also displays where safety and security assets are available to eliminate time spent searching for these resources. Local 911 takes action to neutralize the situation.

“Using the CENTEGIX Safety Platform has helped us strengthen our culture of safety and improve response times for everyday and extreme emergencies. Staff appreciate having a CrisisAlert badge so they are empowered to improve safety in their schools. Our Response teams value Safety Blueprint for the precise location of incidents notified by CrisisAlert and the ability to see the location of safety assets,” said Chris Farkas, Deputy Superintendent of Operations, Hillsborough County Public Schools (FL), the 7th largest district in the U.S.

About CENTEGIX 

CENTEGIX is the industry leader of wearable safety technology for K-12 education with over 600,000 badges in use. The cloud-based CENTEGIX Safety Platform™ initiates the fastest response time for emergencies campus-wide. Leaders in over 11,500 locations nationwide trust CENTEGIX’s innovative safety solutions to empower and protect people. To learn more about CENTEGIX, visit www.centegix.com

Contact your dedicated Account Manager:

Matt Young
RVP Midwest
586-713-7513
myoung@centegix.com

Cybersecurity best practices for K-12 schools

Posted on | by Hope
John Solomon
VP, ChromeOS and Education

Earlier this year, we joined private sector and government cybersecurity leaders at the White House for the “Back to School Safely: Cybersecurity for K-12 Schools” event. There, we shared a K-12 Cybersecurity Guidebook that includes best practices to help school IT administrators prepare to return to school safely.

For Cybersecurity Awareness Month, we’re sharing a few highlights from the guide — now available in more than 30 languages — plus other helpful resources. Admins can also sign up for our Safer Digital Learning event on October 25, where we’ll demo more of the guide’s security features and best practices to keep schools safe from cybersecurity threats.

The importance of cybersecurity tools for schools

Educational institutions are top targets for cyberattacks, with bad actors looking to exploit schools for their own profit. Forty-six percent of schools which have yet to be targeted believe they’ll eventually be attacked.

We’re committed to helping schools keep data secure and digital learning environments safe. Our education products, like Google Workspace for Education and Chromebooks, can improve schools’ cybersecurity and make it easy to implement the recommendations in our guidebook.

With Google Workspace for Education, admins can get a complete view into security with notifications, alerts and actions in the alert center. They can also manage access to tools with two-factor authentication, single sign-on and password management, set their own data rules and policies with data loss prevention.

Meanwhile, Chromebooks are highly secure, scalable and easy to use thanks to their built-in security features. In fact, there has never been a reported ransomware attack on any business, school or consumer ChromeOS device. And they help protect schools from evolving threats with 10 years of automatic software updates.

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Six Cybersecurity Tips for a Successful School Year

Posted on | by Hope

Headshot

By Jeff Janover
VP of Security & Interoperability, ClassLink

In today’s digital landscape, hackers and bad actors have developed increasingly sophisticated methods. Their main goal is to steal personal information for malicious purposes and wreak havoc on your system. There are many digital pitfalls. However, there are plenty of protective measures you can take to keep your school safe. Fortifying your cybersecurity skills can help shield school systems from cyber attacks. Below are some cyber preparedness tips to help safeguard your school’s data:

  1. Identify fake websites. Bad actors often create deceptive sites aimed at harvesting personal data, employing URLs that closely mimic legitimate ones. Always double-check a URL before engaging with a website. Fraudulent URLs might use subtle variations like numbers, letters, and dashes that may go unnoticed.
  2. Dodge phishing emails. Be wary of phishing emails that often ask for login credentials or other personal information. Phishing attempts are deceptive because an email domain may appear similar to a trusted email account. For example, an email from staff@sunva11ey.edu is not the same domain as staff@sunvalley.edu. 💡 Notice the letter “l” is replaced by 1s in the phishing email’s domain. If you receive an email from ClassLink requesting personal information such as your login credentials, it is a phishing attempt.
  3. Avoid suspicious links. Only click links you trust. For increased security, add commonly used links to your school’s website for students, educators, and staff to access easily. For even more security, transform any link into a LaunchPad application, bolstering both convenience and safeguarding!
  4. Implement MFA. Use multi-factor authentication whenever possible to add layers of identity protection. ClassLink offers extensive MFA options that help secure online accounts, even if your username and password get compromised.
  5. Implement cybersecurity training. Require mandatory cybersecurity training for all staff and students. You can create your own training or use a training service to help keep your school secure. One option is ClassLink Academy, available in your LaunchPad account! The following courses offer a robust understanding of how to protect against cyber attacks:
    • Security Awareness Anthology (available for ClassLink Administrators, educators, and staff)
      • 1.1 Online Security Fundamentals
      • 1.2 How to Protect Your Data
      • 1.3 Phishing Attack Protections
      • 1.4 What is Social Engineering
    • Directory Services (available only to ClassLink Administrators)
      • 2.1 Scope Your Google Directory
  6. Report suspicious activity. Unexpected logins, changes to passwords, and other unauthorized actions are examples of suspicious activity. If you notice any login attempts or password changes that seem out of the ordinary, reach out to your tech team. At ClassLink, we take all reports seriously and will work to investigate any unusual activity. Thanks for helping us keep everything safe and secure!

Take your cyber readiness to the next level with the Cybersecurity Rubric. The Cybersecurity Rubric is a free self-assessment tool that you can use to assess your school’s cyber preparedness.

Contact your dedicated Account Manager:

ClassLink
Lyle Dadian
Director of Instructional Technology
M: 414-588-9181
O: 862-203-2099
ldadian@classlink.com

Learn More About ClassLink

Chromebooks will get 10 years of automatic updates

Posted on | by Hope
Prajakta Gudadhe
Senior Director of Engineering, ChromeOS
Ashwini Varma
Senior Director of Engineering, ChromeOS

When Chromebooks debuted in 2012, their affordable price tags helped make personal computing more accessible. That also made them a great fit for the education world, providing schools with secure, simple and manageable devices while helping them save on their budgets. In fact, Chromebooks are the number one device used in K-12 education globally, according to Futuresource. Plus, they’re a sustainable choice, with recycled materials that reduce their environmental impact and repair programs that help them last longer.

Today, we’re announcing new ways to keep your Chromebooks up and running even longer. All Chromebook platforms will get regular automatic updates for 10 years — more than any other operating system commits to today. We’re also working with partners to build Chromebooks with more post-consumer recycled materials (PCR), and rolling out new, power-efficient features and quicker processes to repair them. And at the end of their usefulness, we continue to help schools, businesses and everyday users find the right recycling option.

Let’s take a closer look at what’s coming, and how we consider the entire lifecycle of a Chromebook — from manufacturing all the way to recycling.

10 years of automatic updates

Security is our number one priority. Chromebooks get automatic updates every four weeks that make your laptop more secure and help it last longer. And starting next year, we’re extending those automatic updates so your Chromebook gets enhanced security, stability and features for 10 years after the platform was released.

A platform is a series of components that are designed to work together — something a manufacturer selects for any given Chromebook. To ensure compatibility with our updates, we work with all the component manufacturers within a platform (for things like the processor and Wi-Fi) to develop and test the software on every single Chromebook.

Starting in 2024, if you have Chromebooks that were released from 2021 onwards, you’ll automatically get 10 years of updates. For Chromebooks released before 2021 and already in use, users and IT admins will have the option to extend automatic updates to 10 years from the platform’s release (after they receive their last automatic update).1

Even if a Chromebook no longer receives automatic updates, it still comes with strong, built-in security features. With Verified Boot, for example, your Chromebook does a self-check every time it starts up. If it detects that the system has been tampered with or corrupted in any way, it will typically repair itself, reverting back to its original state.

You can find more information about the extended updates in our Help Center, Admin console or in Settings.