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Complimentary access to SMART Learning Suite Online

SMART Learning Suite Online enables students to connect remotely to live lessons delivered by teachers and engage in real-time with lesson activities. For more than just participation – true virtual collaboration. Access the suite anytime, anywhere – even at home. Students can access and contribute from any web-enabled computer, tablet or phone.

Collaborative Workspace activities empower students to work together from home on a shared digital canvas to co-create, add content and problem solve. Shout It Out activities enable students to send text and images from their devices to a lesson. Teachers can then rearrange, organize, and discuss contributions.

As school closures and schedules shift, lesson planning and learning can happen uninterrupted, anytime and on any device. Cloud-based classrooms powered by SMART Learning Suite Online easily enables student collaboration breaking down the barriers of distance learning with:

  • interactive, flexible lesson delivery
  • collaborative workspaces
  • game-based activities
  • formative assessments
  • integrations with familiar workflows including Google and Microsoft
  • and more

Please sign-up here for full access to SMART Learning Suite Online (www.smarttech.com/slsanywhere) at no cost. This will give you and your students access to powerful tools for active distance learning and lesson creation and delivery on any device including Chromebook™ computers. At https://www.smarttech.com/ there are also several resources to help quickly train teachers on how to best use SMART Learning Suite Online in a remote learning environment, as well as offer ideas, lesson plans and support.

Free access to literacy and math activities

Working to support students during unexpected school closures, Renaissance is offering several free programs including myON, myON News, and Freckle that enable students to access literacy and math activities and to complete assignments remotely. To further assist educators, they’ve curated a list of additional free resources that includes implementation guides, learning activities, family letters, and the 2020 What Kids Are Reading report to make the best use of their Renaissance programs to support student learning outside of school. For more information, visit https://www.renaissance.com/renaissance-at-home/

Nearpod offers extended access to platform and unlocked features

For impacted teachers, schools, and districts, Nearpod is extending platform access and unlocked features through the end of the standard school year. The company is also extending access to Flocabulary, its online library of songs, videos, and activities for grades K-12. Teachers can also join one of Nearpod’s daily, live webinars specifically focused on helping teachers prepare for home-based learning. Teachers can also view Nearpod’s new Home-Based Learning Info Site containing the most up-to-date information. For more information, visit https://nearpod.com/coronavirus.

Free Emergency Remote Work Kits including access to GoToConnect

LogMeIn announced the Emergency Remote Work Kit initiative in early March as part of the company’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic with the goal of helping customers and critical service providers accelerate efforts to keep their employees, students and citizens safe by shifting to remote work.  These free Emergency Remote Work Kits include solutions for meetings and video conferencing, webinars and virtual events, IT support and management of remote employee devices and apps, remote access to devices in multiple locations, and with the addition of GoToConnect, a full UCC platform for K-12 schools. These kits will be available at no cost for three months. Since announcing their availability, LogMeIn has given away millions of dollars’ worth of software as part of this initiative, totaling thousands of kits and serving more than 800,000 individual users around the Globe. For more information, visit https://www.gotomeeting.com/work-remote.

Free online curriculum including access to digital reading platform Big Universe

K12 Inc. is offering free online curriculum. That includes access to 17,000 ebooks through the company’s digital reading platform, Big Universe. Almost 2,000 of those titles are available in Spanish. Digital texts are accessible online by computer, tablet and smartphone.

K12 is also offering tuition-free summer programs to let students in grades 9-11 explore careers online while earning school credit. Careers cover business and marketing, healthcare and information technology. Students can begin their online courses Jun. 24, 2020 and must finish them by Jul. 22, to receive 0.5 high school elective credits.

There will also be free coding bootcamps for students in grades 8-11; a video game design and programming course runs from Jun. 15 through Jun. 27; a virtual reality course runs from Jul. 6 through Jul. 17. “Virtual campers” who finish at least one of the coding camps will be eligible to participate in an esports tournament hosted by the High School eSports League (HSEL) in late July.

For more information, visit https://www.k12.com/coronavirus.

Free access to K-12 practice and assessment program Study Island

Edmentum is providing free program access to its practice and assessment program, “Study Island,” for two months or two free courses in “EdOptions Academy,” its virtual school, to schools and districts affected by COVID-19. The company is also running a series of webinars to help teachers and families make the transition to online learning. For more information, visit https://e.edmentum.com/edmentumsupport2020/.

American Writers Museum Creates Online Exhibit, Includes Teacher Resources and Educational Materials

In the wake of COVID-19, the American Writers Museum is bringing its latest exhibit, My America: Immigrant and Refugee Writers Today, to viewers online so it can be enjoyed from home during this time of social distancing. From the comfort of home, viewers can hear personal stories about topics such as identity, community, language, storytelling and what it means to be an American from contemporary authors of our time. View the exhibit at My-America.org.

My America: Immigrant and Refugee Writers Today features more than 30 authors who delve into questions about writing influences, being multilingual, community, family, and what it means to be American. At a time when “immigrant” can be a symbol or slur, shorthand for any of a thousand complicated concepts, these writers explore what it truly means to cross borders. 

“The importance of immigrant and refugee writers in the last two decades is illustrated by the level of recognition their works continue to achieve,” said Carey Cranston, president of the American Writers Museum. “The American Writers Museum is honored to present this essential and relevant subject in an experiential way, which lets the writers tell their own unique yet universal stories.”

Originally opened Nov. 21, 2019, My America: Immigrant and Refugee Writers Today has received nationwide acclaim and high praise in the past four months for its one-of-a-kind interactive elements, its storytelling that bring viewers to the front lines and its celebration of diversity and different perspectives. The exhibit gives visitors and students a deeply personal experience, bringing them face-to-face online through interactive, intimate video conversations with contemporary authors who are immigrants and refugees from all over the world. The exhibit, which runs through May 2021, is designed to elicit thoughtful dialogue on a wide breadth of issues relating to the modern refugee crisis and the perception of immigrants in our country today. 

Authors featured in the exhibit include Juan Martinez, Vu Tran, Dipika Mukherjee, Laila Halaby, Edwidge Danticat, Louie Perez, Ligiah Villalobosand many more who emigrated from Cuba, Ghana, Japan, China, France, Mexico, Italy, Korea, Nigeria, Russia, Israel, Colombia, Vietnam, Iran, Nigeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

Companies Come Together to Provide Free School & District Licenses During COVID-19

On Thursday, April 2nd, RevRoad and its portfolio companies launched the official At-Home Learning initiative. Through this initiative, they will provide students around the country with digital learning tools by offering their products to schools and districts for free during this time—no strings attached.

There’s no question that these are difficult times. Hundreds of millions of students around the world are transitioning to at-home learning for the rest of the school year. “Educators around the world are now facing the most daunting challenge in 100 years. These programs and tools are ready to scale, and can provide valuable support for students, their families, and educators,” says RevRoad CEO, Derrin Hill.

Educators are quickly shifting teaching and learning to digital platforms to meet the needs of each student with equitable access, standards, and engagement. RevRoad’s portfolio has a unique compilation of edtech companies with the ability to assist in smoothing over the rapid transitions currently happening within education. Said companies include the following:

Literal
Keep students fully engaged in reading, even while at home. Literal makes books just as engaging as social media, and is temporarily offering every student and educator free & unlimited access to all of their classic books through July 2020. Easily track student progress remotely and turn reluctant readers into avid book worms.
Literal is offering schools and districts free access to the Classic subscription

SkillStruck
Skill Struck focuses on helping today’s students prepare for tomorrow’s workforce by developing their technical skills and helping them master the concepts of Computer Science. The platform is focused on project-based learning where students learn, apply and reiterate their newfound knowledge through additional practices to cement their skills.
Skill Struck is offering schools and districts one month of free access to their flagship Voyage service.

Education Lifeskills
If we never change negative thinking, we will never change negative behavior. Education Lifeskills creates cognitive-behavioral curriculum which helps students overcome their self-defeating thoughts and behaviors and achieve higher levels academically and socially.
Education Lifeskills is offering students free access to a positive thinking course pack.

Hallo
Practice English on the Hallo app! Has the Coronavirus pandemic interfered with your preparation for the TOEFL, TOEIC, or IELTS exam? Has your English class been canceled and now you are left with no one to practice with?

Students can practice English on the Hallo app. Hallo is a live streaming community for English learners and teachers. Students can learn from native speakers through live videos 24/7 and practice speaking in seconds with people all around the world. It’s the world’s largest classroom for English learners right in the palm of your hand.
Hallo is a free app available for iOS and Android.

To get started with At-Home Learning for free, visit revroad.com/athomelearning.
For more information about At-Home Learning and the companies involved, click here.

Guidance Requested on Use of Federal Education Funding for English Learners

The U.S. Department of Education has been asked to provide guidance on the use of CARES Act funding for English Learners (ELs) in K-12 public schools by an alliance of associations: ACTFL, CABE, Californians Together, CAL, JNCL-NCLIS, MPI, NAELPA, and TESOL International. The CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act) includes billions of dollars for K-12 public schools, but there remains some confusion as to how exactly the money should be spent. Based on the results of a Migration Policy Institute survey of English learner and bilingual education leaders’ key concerns about COVID-19-related school closures, specific areas are listed where it is believed funding would have “an immediate and vitally important impact on English Learners.” The areas are:

  • Support for increasing access to technology
  • Training for teachers on instructional strategies to support ELs in a distance/online learning environment
  • Information for ELs and their families, in their home languages, about preventative measures to minimize the spread of COVID-19 and to stay healthy
  • Information for ELs and their families, in their home languages, on school closures,social support measures such as meal distribution, and detailed instructions on home-based learning
  • Specific support for migrant ELs
  • Increasing family engagement through proactive measures by teachers and school and district leadership
  • Support for SEAs and LEAs to plan for mitigation of the effects of canceled and postponed testing of ELs, to include English Proficiency for placement and other purposes and testing for State Seals of Biliteracy

The letter was sent to Frank Brogan, assistant secretary of education, and copied to Aimee Viana, principal deputy assistant secretary of education and Dr. Supreet Anand, acting director, Office of English Language Acquisition in the absence of a permanent director.

New Republic Offers Free Webinars For Educators

New Republic will host two webinars, one April 15 and one April 16, for educators and administrators.

The topic for the webinar April 15 is Making Advising and Student Supports Accessible for Students in the COVID-19 Crisis.

At the height of the last recession, the federal government invested $2 billion in community colleges to create innovative workforce programs with the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grant program for community colleges in the U.S. A team researchers at New America spent the last two years researching the impact of the TAACCCT program and have identified lessons that can inform community colleges’ response to the current crisis.

Join in on April 15 from 2-3:30 pm ET to hear from community college leaders, student advisors, and grant evaluators about how lessons from TAACCCT are making a difference in our nation in the time of COVID-19 and informing the transition to fully online student support services.

The webinar will feature leaders from several TAACCCT grants with strong online advising and support presence who will share guiding principles for community colleges to adapt to a fully virtual environment. These grantees are using programs and practices developed through TAACCCT to offer students the guidance and support they need to persist, complete their programs, and prepare for employment at this crucial moment in our nation’s history. At a time when students are being forced to transition to online learning, supporting and guiding them while maintaining social distancing will make their continued success possible.

Sign up for the webinar here.

The webinar April 16 is centered around the topic Making Healthcare Education Responsive to Student Needs in the COVID19 Crisis, and will also cover aspects of TAACCCT. Join in on April 16 from 2-3:30 pm ET to hear from community college leaders, healthcare education experts, and grant evaluators on how the lessons from TAACCCT grants focused on healthcare can inform community colleges’ response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Sign up for the webinar here.

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