Topics of Interest
1EdTech is actively involved in helping all learners at every stage of their journey. These are just a few of the multiple topics that we offer expert advice. Together, we move innovation further faster.
Data Privacy
With new edtech tools coming out every day, it can be difficult to keep up with which ones are valuable to education, as well as safe to use. 1EdTech helps lift some of the burden from educational institutions through the TrustEd AppsTM program. The program asks suppliers the questions educators want answers to, before trusting any company with student information. Moving that one barrier out of the way, allows educators time to focus on the effectiveness of the tool, without worrying about giving away too much student privacy.
City Schools of Decatur
City Schools of Decatur feels more confident about the security of its digital learning tools thanks to its membership with 1EdTech. Instead of having IT employees pouring over contracts, they can reference the TrustEd AppsTM Management Suite as an initial screener to see if a given application is likely to be able to meet the district's data privacy requirements. It saves time and allows them to respond more quickly to educator requests as they work to build their classroom resources. District leaders also gain innovative inspiration, as well as lessons learned, from other 1EdTech members as they continue working to improve the digital learning ecosystem for all.
“By allowing IT to take on more of the technical work of investigating vendor privacy practices, rather than putting that responsibility on teachers who aren’t equipped and who just want to use good tools, we free up time for the educators to focus more on students and teaching.” – Eston Melton, Chief Information Officer, City Schools of Decatur
Georgia Tech
The National AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education (AI-ALOE) is headquartered at Georgia Tech and is developing a new model of online adult learning that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to make education more available, affordable, achievable, and equitable. To realize this potential, AI-ALOE and Georgia Tech work with 1EdTech to help standardize data across various tools and partners’ systems. With data that can be easily shared and compared, the project hopes to realize the potential of next-generation instruction and assessment that supports lifelong learning.
“The Center for 21st Century Universities (C21U) is a research and innovation arm of the Office of the Provost at Georgia Tech, and if we think something will improve learning we're willing to test it out. To do that kind of research we need data, but it can take months to identify one piece of data across different platforms, so being able to clean that data, manage, and standardize it is beneficial when working with various systems and partners,” says Dr. Steve Harmon, Interim Executive Director of C21U
Student Engagement and Retention
Technology has the ability to provide an endless amount of data, but it can be difficult to understand what that data means, especially when different tools speak different languages. 1EdTech helps to connect the information in a meaningful way, so educators can better understand when and how a student may need extra support, what lessons or tools are most effective, or what areas need improvement.
Improving Employment Opportunities
1EdTech wants to help learners tell their stories by ensuring they have a record of skills and accomplishments they earned throughout their lives, both in and out of academia. We work with educational institutions, edtech suppliers and employers to create a system that can be used across the board, and ensure that employers can understand and verify exactly what skills a potential employee brings to the table.
Western Governors University
Western Governors University helps students find success by making direct ties between what a student learns at the university and how that knowledge can be valuable in the workplace, through verifiable digital credentials. Following 1EdTech Open Badge standards, WGU learners have a way to tell their stories, and share their skills in a way that’s more meaningful to employers. The badges also give the learners agency to show exactly what skills they gained and how it may align to specific job roles, as they earn them. The university plans to grow the program and give learners even more opportunities to achieve their professional goals.
“Many of our students are already employed and looking for promotional pathways through their current employers. Being able to assert their job readiness through a verifiable record is what is most meaningful to them,” says Darin Hobbs, Vice President of Academic Records, Western Governors University
VitalSource
VitalSource, a leading provider of digital course materials and e-textbooks, allows educators to get a better sense of what their students understand, and what material needs more explanation, by leveraging 1EdTech standards. The company launched its Bookshelf CoachMe capability that utilizes AI-generated practice questions to enhance the reader’s experience within the context of a textbook. The tool presents formative assessments that help the learner better understand their assigned content. Now educators can view practice data and reading data to make real-time adjustments based on what their students need. VitalSource plans to continue leveraging 1EdTech standards and enhance the capabilities of products like this now and into the future.
“Using the standards, we can share learner content engagement and performance information with educators securely. That information helps them assess how their students are doing in their classes, as well as understand where students haven’t mastered the content,” says Andrew Alfers, Vice President of Product Management, VitalSource
See how others leverage a 1EdTech membership to serve students here.
