COVID-19 Coverage for Education and Technology


Landmark Study Calls for Increased Bandwidth for At-Home Learning

The current FCC definition of home broadband — 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload speeds — is inadequate for at-home learning, according to researchers who conducted a first-of-its-kind study of district data for students engaged in remote learning.

Report: COVID Learning Loss Beginning to Shrink

A new report using data from 3.8 million students reveals that, in large part, students are performing near pre-pandemic expectation levels in reading, in particular in elementary grades, while they lag a bit more in math. But students in middle school are performing poorly as measured against pre-pandemic expectations, as are students who are members of underrepresented and at-risk populations.

Google Classroom Getting Integration with Clever

Starting this summer, Clever will be providing automated rostering for Google Classroom. Clever provides a single sign-in portal, roster syncing and other services used by 65% of K–12 schools in the United States.

Flexible IT Infrastructure for an Evolving Education Environment

As education institutions aim to become more flexible to meet modern demands, teachers will continue operating under hybrid learning models — making the need for disruption-free virtual lessons and network access all the more critical. To best accommodate these needs, investing in a flexible IT infrastructure that can support remote-learning, especially as our country undergoes one of the most pivotal time periods in history, will be an important factor.

Department of Education Seeking Best Practices for Reopening Schools

The U.S. Department of Education has issued a request for information on how schools, colleges and universities, and early education providers are reopening, operating safely and supporting students during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Virtual School Is Weighing on Teachers

With no immediate return to normalcy in sight as vaccines are slowly rolled out, teachers’ stress level appears to be rising. So is their feeling that others—from administrators to the general public—aren’t taking their concerns to heart, beyond lip service about how valued teachers are.

Instructure Intros Assessments to Help Schools Identify Learning Gaps

A December 2020 purchase of Certica Solutions is bearing fruit for learning management company Instructure. The maker of Canvas has announced a new collection of formative assessments specifically intended to help teachers measure "learning loss," built by the curriculum and assessment experts who joined as part of that acquisition.

Even Where Schools Open for In-Person Instruction, Students Stay Home

The permutations of K-12 instruction being delivered are many right now, and so are the choices families are making for the education of their students. By mid-March 2021 more than three-quarters of fourth- and eighth-grade students (76%) were being offered the chance to attend public schools open at least some of the time for face-to-face lessons. But just a fraction of those students attended in-person instruction. The remaining 24% of grade 4 and grade 8 students were in schools that were only online.

Global School Recovery Tracker Monitors Education Status

The purpose of the tool is to help 200 countries and territories make decisions about school reopening and recovery planning.

Two-Thirds of High Schoolers Want Only In-Person Learning

A new survey has found that a one in three high schoolers (33%) would like to keep online learning as an ingredient in their education. The remaining 67% – almost all of whom shifted to virtual education to some degree amid the pandemic – prefer learning completely in-person, while 29 percent favored a hybrid arrangement with up to half of their time in a virtual learning environment. Four percent said they would be happy learning virtually full time or much of the time.

Whitepapers