Browse Tag: K-12

laying-the-groundwork-for-esports-in-kindergarten

Laying the Groundwork for Esports in Kindergarten

The mention of esports typically conjures images of teenagers in headsets, positioned in front of colorful keyboards and brightly lit computer monitors. As competitive gaming grows popularity at high schools and colleges across the nation, it becomes even more important to lay the groundwork for these teams early on. Learn how to introduce game-based education to increase students’ skills.

In this article, Jen Dawson shares

  • the value of introducing esports in kindergarten;
  • potential tech strains and how to overcome them; and
  • how to build partnerships and forge a pipeline supporting students in esports.

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Teach Self-Management Skills

4 Ways to Personalize Learning and Teach Self-Management Skills

Although education has undergone rapid changes in the past few years, many of the processes have stayed the same. At this year’s Future of Education Technology ConferenceAlberto and Mario Herraez, also known as the eTwinz, opened with this thought starter in their Thursday session, “Fostering Self-Regulation Skills and Personalized Learning in an Elementary Setting.”

The Herraez twins noted that technologies have changed with time — from photocopies to Microsoft OneNote — but the delivery process remains the same for many schools. Teachers deliver information to students, who are expected to absorb and remember the lessons.

The Herraezes shared strategies they used when working as fifth and sixth grade educators in Utah. They argued that personalizing learning and teaching students self-management skills prepares them for the workforce they’ll one day enter. They cited data from the World Economic Forum’s 2020 report “The Future of Jobs,” which showed the increased demand for employees with self-management skills.

As they explained the ways they incorporated these pedagogies and skills into their classrooms, the Herraezes encouraged districts to follow their example.

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covid funding cliff

K-12 Schools Share Their Strategies for Addressing the Coming Federal Funding Cliff

The COVID-19 pandemic essentially ended the conversation about whether school districts should embrace one-to-one programs that put a computing device into the hands of every student.

“During COVID, a large number of individual devices were deployed,” says Amy McLaughlin, Cybersecurity Initiative director at the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN). “We exited the conversation of, ‘Should we do one-to-one?’ and entered the conversation of, ‘How do we maintain one-to-one?’”

Historically, many school districts have struggled to build device refresh cycles into their operating budgets. Often, new interactive displays or laptops are bought with one-time, nonrecurring funds, such as bond money for a school building project. More recently, schools received multiple rounds of federal government funding from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, the Emergency Connectivity Fund, and other grants to make necessary ed tech purchases.

As McLaughlin notes, the lifecycle for mobile devices such as laptops and tablets is much shorter — about three years, she suggests — than the lifecycle of a school building. In a 2022 CoSN survey, 75 percent of districts said federal economic stimulus funds were significant for supporting hybrid learning. Of those that relied on emergency funding for IT initiatives, 60 percent used the money to purchase devices.

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gamification and education

What Is Gamification, and Why Is It Trending in K–12 Schools?

Educators work hard to set students up for success in a world that is increasingly digital. A 2018 report by the Institute for the Future and Dell Technologies estimated that 85 percent of children entering today’s K–12 schools will eventually find themselves in jobs that don’t currently exist, making educators’ jobs even more challenging.

Add to that the new technologies vying for students’ attention in classrooms and on devices, plus the mental and emotional difficulties many students are facing following the pandemic. How can school districts engage students and set them up for success in a future world of advanced technology?

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Anyone’s Game: K–12 Esports Opportunities Abound for Girls

In recent years, esports has become increasingly popular. Its audience increased by 38 million from 2019 to 2020, and it’s projected to reach more than 576 million by 2024.

Female participation in the sport, however, hasn’t quite mirrored that pace. Sixty percent of female gamers in the U.S. and U.K. say there’s a significant lack of women participating in esports; nearly as many feel the gaming community isn’t doing enough to encourage female participation in the sport.

Ashley Hodge, who now coaches a 45-student esports team at Dodge County High School in Georgia, previously oversaw a large esports program at another high school in the state. Out of more than 125 students on that team, only five were girls, she says.

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Trends in K–12 Esports Arenas

School esports arenas are popping up across the country as competitive gaming teams grow in K–12 districts. Schools, administrators, and communities have begun to see the value esports provides to students and districts. As a result, district personnel who wish to start esports clubs are facing less pushback in making the case for these programs.

From school colors to shoutcasters, discover the popular elements in district esports spaces.


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