Cyber incidents at K-12 schools over the last few years have put the personally identifiable information (PII) of students at risk, with breaches primarily resulting from intentional actions by students and unintentional actions by staff, according to a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.

A new survey from George Mason University Law School’s Law and Economics Center found that while nearly all teachers were using EdTech in the classroom in recent years, more than half said they didn’t receive training to use the technology.  

In an Oct. 12 letter to parents, Hawaii Department of Education (DoE) Superintendent Christina Kishimoto said that the state was discontinuing its use of the online curriculum Acellus Learning Accelerator.

Michigan’s Ferris State University is using a $669,216 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to fund a new virtual reality (VR) initiative.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is investing $72 million in distance learning and telemedicine infrastructure in 40 states, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues into the fall, schools are relying on remote and hybrid learning to stem the spread of the virus. This has forced teachers to radically overhaul their lesson plans and teaching styles, nevermind requiring them to become IT experts in the process.

State of California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond announced that the California Department of Education (CDE) will provide more than 500,000 additional computing devices to California students in need.

The Dothan City, Ala., School District announced the creation of a virtual help desk to provide technical support for devices provided by Dothan City Schools (DCS).

Before most of the nation’s K-12 schools closed their doors in March, sending students to learn from home while the COVID-19 pandemic raged, school leaders confronted a job that no one imagined when the school year began. They had to facilitate remote work for hundreds or thousands of professional staff and remote learning for exponentially larger numbers of students – none of whom were used to working outside of the traditional school environment.

While technology in the K-12 classroom is nothing new, COVID-19 has heightened the role it plays in education. New research from the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) found the vast majority of parents support the use of education technology, but also have serious concerns.