Soon, the class of 2023 will arrive on college and university campuses nationwide. Unlike past generations, today’s incoming college-age students encounter fully wired campuses with plenty of opportunities for online and blended learning. On many campuses, student success and advising are also increasingly being carried out online. But these aren’t the only things the class of 2023 should anticipate as they look forward to moving into their dorms in just another few weeks. 

Some Coursework Will Be Completed Fully Online

In recent years, the number of undergraduates who report completing at least one online course during their degree has steadily increased. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, as of 2017, roughly one in six students were completing their degrees entirely online, and roughly 18% of on-campus students were completing at least one course online. This suggests that whether a student stays at home or moves away to college, they have a higher chance now than ever before of completing some of their coursework online.

Blended Learning Will Be the Norm

Blended learning was once a newfangled concept that referred to on-site courses that included some online element. As of 2019, virtually all postsecondary-level courses are blended. After all, unless taking a course with a faculty member who refuses to use his or her institution’s learning management system (LMS), at least some coursework will be completed online. What this looks like may range from simply submitting assignments online to carrying out regular online discussions or engaging in collaborative online projects with classmates.

Work Skills Will Matter—Even In the Liberal Arts  

In the past, college was often treated as a time for pure exploration. The class of 2023—and a growing number of university administrators—are less interested in exploration than they are in work skills. As a result, the class of 2023 can also expect to find a growing focus on studies tailored to lead to future careers, especially in tech-related fields. This means that even liberal arts students can now expect to spend a lot more time acquiring tech skills for the future world of work.

Metrics Will Drive Student Success

In an age of big data, it is no surprise that metrics are increasingly transforming life on campus. The class of 2023 should expect to encounter many different ways to track their course and degree progress online. Along with these metrics, they will also encounter a growing number of tools to leverage metrics to drive their success. In other words, for the class of 2023, there were be fewer surprises and more opportunities to monitor and respond to the constant feedback they are increasingly receiving about their course and degree progress.

For-Profit Companies Will Be a Growing Presence On Campus

While most U.S. students still study at not-for-profit institutions in the private or public systems, the presence of for-profit education providers is increasingly difficult to ignore. From partnerships with coding schools like Trilogy, which are teaming up with colleges and universities to offer targeted tech-related programs, to entire degrees administered by online program management (OPM) companies like 2U, the class of 2023 is more likely than previous classes to end up taking a course or program managed by a for-profit education company even if they are studying at a not-for-profit institution.

Facial Recognition and Emotion-Detecting Technologies Could Transform Higher Education

While it is still unclear which U.S. campuses will adopt facial recognition and emotion-detection technologies, it is certainly possible that over the coming four years, these technologies may begin to leave their mark on higher education. The most likely use of facial recognition technologies will be attendance. After all, why ask students to sign-in for class when facial recognition technologies can do this work on behalf of faculty? A more sinister development, however, entails the use of emotion-detecting technologies that track student engagement. Although it seems unlikely that U.S. institutions will adopt these technologies as widely as they have already been adopted in China, the prospect that student engagement–and lack of student engagement–may soon be monitored by machines is certainly a prospect that is on the horizon for the class fo 2023.

Photo by Caleb Minear on Unsplash.

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Today, there are a lot of companies competing for space in the online and mobile training markets. One company that increasingly stands out is Cerego. The San Francisco-based company offers users in the education and training spaces a highly effective adaptive learning technology platform driven by insights from AI, neuroscience, and cognitive science. While Cerego may have recently gained increased attention, it is by no means a new player.

The Back Story

Officially, Cerego was founded by Andrew Smith Lewis and Eric Young and launched in 2013, but the company’s real history starts a lot earlier.

Cerego grew out of a company that dates back to 2000. At the time, the Japan-based company focused on English language-learning and was best known for Iknow.co.jp. Over the years, the company raised an impressive $28 million and eventually moved to the Bay Area to shift focus from a language-learning platform to a more broadly defined learning technology platform that could be used in schools, colleges, universities, and any training context. As Cerego expanded its mission and rebranded, they also recruited new talent, including Paul Mumma.

Mumma joined Cerego in 2012. Previously, Mumma had attended Harvard University where he majored in Classics and once even gave an entire speech in Latin. Mumma also completed a short stint at McKinsey & Company before arriving at Cerego. In just two years, he had stepped into a key leadership role at the company. Since Mumma’s arrival, the company has rapidly expanded and, in many respects, finally clearly defined its mandate. This past week, Cerago announced that Mumma is now the company’s CEO.

How Cerego Is Working to Keep Learners’ Data Safe

With any AI-driven platform, security issues naturally arise. When eLearning Inside recently talked to Mumma to learn more about Cerego’s current mandate, he emphasized that the company’s approach is guided by a simple principle: “We only keep information about learners that is necessary to deliver the very best learning experience.” Mumma also emphasized that the company is committed to ensuring that the data it does collect about learners is never used for purposes that are not part of the learning mission.

When asked about the potential ways in which the platform might be used to predict a learners’ future performance and how they might be put to ill uses, Mumma was also clear that this is not part of Cerego’s mandate. As Mumma explained, “Unlike many similar platforms, Cerego is not an assessment or testing platform—our focus has always been on learning.”

What’s Next for Cerego

At present, Cerego is deployed by more than 1,000 educational organizations in the United States and continues to grow at an exceptionally rapid pace. The company also increasingly has a global reach. Earlier this year, eLearning Inside reported on BBC Bitesize’s expansion—Cerego is driving this growth. Cerego also recently partnered with the African leadership University, which has a bold mission to prepare more than 3 million future African leaders over the coming 16 years.

Moving forward, the company hopes to continue expanding the platform’s ability to redeploy existing curricular materials.  As Mumma explains, “At Cerego, we believe that everyone should have the ability to enhance their potential through learning, and I look forward to expanding this mandate over time.”

While Cerego certainly hopes that boring PowerPoint presentations and lectures will soon become a thing of the past, the company doesn’t expect organizations to abandon their existing curricular materials. Indeed, Cerego offers users a sophisticated authoring tool to help turn their existing curricular materials into interactive and engaging personalized assignments.

“With Cerego, you can upload any type of digital content, including PDFs, to create customized content. The platform can also automatically create assessments from these materials,” says Mumma. In this sense, Cerego may be a future-oriented educational platform but it has also been carefully designed to help schools, postsecondary institutions, and any organization engaged in training embrace a fresh start on their approach to learning without entirely starting from scratch.

Photo by Haidan on Unsplash.

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Hundreds of educators, designers, and other leaders in the edtech field are currently preparing to head to Austin, Texas for the 2019 BbWorld event. The event, which will start on July 22 and run through to July 25, will include more than 100 sessions, several high-profile keynotes, and ample opportunity for participants to test-run Blackboard’s latest innovative technologies.

2019 BbWorld Highlights

One of the largest and longest-running online learning events in the world, BbWorld attracts over 1500 participants from around the world, including North America, South American, Europe, and Asia. This year’s event will include approximately 150 sessions, primarily designed to showcase Blackboard’s products in context, and an invitation-only leadership summit for university leaders.

This year’s BbWorld keynotes will include talks by Robert Reich, Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at UC Berkeley Berkeley, and Kimberly Bryant, the inspiring founder and ED of Black Girls CODE. Bill Ballhaus, Blackboard’s Chairman and CEO, will also give a keynote during the four-day event.

In a press release issued by Blackboard Inc. on July 18th, Ballhaus said, “I am thrilled about this year’s BbWorld as we will showcase how we are accelerating innovation and laying the foundation for the next wave of innovation in education technology. Ballhaus also emphasized, “BbWorld is also a unique opportunity for our client community from around the world to come together, share knowledge and discuss opportunities.”

Another highlight of this year’s event will be DevCon, which runs at the same time as BbWorld. This year’s DevCon will feature 30 sessions that highlight Blackboard’s latest offerings, including Blackboard Data.  Angie Jones and Tim Tomlinson of Blackboard will both speak at the DevCon event.

At previous BbWorld Events, the company has used the forum to announce new innovations (in 2018, they launched a new version of Blackboard CourseSites). As such, it seems likely that this year’s BbWorld will also include a few surprises and announcements.

The Catalyst Awards

Another highlight of the annual BbWorld is official announcement of the Catalyst Awards, which celebrate innovation in the Blackboard global community. This year’s winners come from institutions as diverse as the U.S. Army, the Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas in Peru, Wake Technical Community College in North Carolina, the Davidson Academy Online, and North Dakota University System in North Dakota.

In a July 16 press release issued by Blackboard, Lee Blackmore, Chief Client Officer and President of Global Markets at Blackboard, had this to say about this year’s winners: “Clients like these inspire us to accelerate innovation that drives student success and we’re proud to be a part of their story.”

Blackboard’s Evolving Mandate

Blackboard is among the world’s most popular learning management systems (LMSs). While the company has faltered slightly in the U.S. market in recent years as other LMSs (namely, Canvas by Instructure) has gained ground, the company’s global dominance is difficult to ignore. From Australia to Northern Europe to the Middle East, Blackboard continues to be a LMS of choice on college and university campuses.

In recent years, the Blackboard Inc. has also attempted to branch out. Briefly, Blackboard also started to offer institutions access to Blackboard Mobile Credentials–an app that offered students an easy way to make purchases on campus and institution’s an easy way to keep track of students, including their attendance.

To learn more about the 2019 BbWorld event or to register, visit the BbWorld website.

Photo by joe wyatt on Unsplash.

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In late June, the Robo Wunderkind team was in the United States to demonstrate their innovative robotics product for children at the International Society for Technology in Education’s annual conference and exhibition. eLearning Inside used their visit as a chance to connect and learn more about Robo Wunderkind’s product and mission.

Developing Robo Wunderkind

Cait Etherington – How would you explain Robo Wunderkind to the average K-5 school teacher or parent who is not a STEM expert?

Anna Iarotska – Robo Wunderkind is a K-5 oriented education tool that teaches children the ABC’s of coding and robotics through fun play. Our product is a game changer in that it combines easy-to-use hardware (color-coded blocks that can be assembled in any way you like), intuitive software (2 free apps) and a professional curriculum based on the most relevant educational theories, compliant with US curriculum standards. Our product is a powerful solution that can be implemented at the very start of the growth of children’s’ cognitive awareness to achieve the best possible results.

We are aware that coding and robotics are the essential skills of the future. There will be so many more computing jobs on offer in the near future, and the truth is, we’re not teaching the skills required for them soon or fast enough to keep up with the trend and demand! So, we believe it is key to start with young kids at an early age through a playful engaging teaching method and make sure they are ready for the world that they will grow up in. 

A Robotics Kit Made Just for Kids

CE – Could a kid engage with Robo Wunderkind out of the box on their own or do they need a lot of teacher or parental support?

AI – The kit itself is constructed in a very easy-to-use manner, and a child can absolutely start using it straight out of the box. The apps require no language skills. The curriculum consists of 70+ hours of core lessons, workshops, special lessons, summer camp programs, and as you can probably guess, the difficulty of these lessons varies. They are appropriate for children as young as 5, who are just getting acquainted with the world of technology but can also challenge a 10-year-old who is somewhat experienced. Robo grows with children, which makes it a wonderful long-term investment for their education.

With the lessons, it’s naturally required that they be taught by a teacher figure. At home, however, it’s very easy for children to get started on their own or with minimal parental support. The color-coded blocks make it very simple for children to understand what each block does, while the in-app tutorials explain the individual steps in achieving the build clearly.

Preparing the Future Workforce

CE – In a news release published last month you note that with your product, children can construct and program a basic robot and that this, among other things, is important to prepare them for tomorrow’s job market. At what age should we begin to prepare children for the future’s STEM-focused job market and why is this important?

AI – At present, there are an estimated 2.4 million unfilled computing jobs in the United States, and this number is only expected to grow in the near future. The United States will need to generate millions of new computing experts in the coming decades. In fact, computing skills are currently the most wanted skills in the U.S. job market. With all this in mind, it’s crucial that we teach kids the basics of computing skills, which coding definitely is, as soon as we can (our product is appropriate for children as young as 5. Robo Wunderkind does this in a way that their young minds can easily digest and remember because it’s done through play. Moreover, Robo Wunderkind can also be implemented in the teaching of other disciplines, such as art or math, which really goes to show that coding is not just the future of computing skills, but of the whole interdisciplinary learning process. We’re excited to be leading this trend.

Image of Anna Iarotska and co-founder courtesy of Robo Wunderkind. 

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It has been a hectic week for Frontline Education. First, on July 16, the company announced that it was appointing Mark Gruzin as CEO. Then, just two days later, the company announced that it had signed an agreement to acquire Perennial EdTech. The deal is expected to close in the coming weeks.

Mark Gruzin’s Appointment

On July 16, Frontline announced that they had a new CEO.  Gruzin will spearhead strategy and serve as a board member. Gruzin has previously held leadership roles at Blackboard.

In a press release announcing his new role at Frontline Education, Gruzin emphasized that he is “excited to build upon the vital work that Frontline Education is doing to support and strengthen educational organizations across the country.” He added, “As a special needs advocate and parent, I feel especially aligned to the Frontline mission https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mark-gruzin-joins-frontline-education-as-chief-executive-officer-300885687.htmland have a deep first-hand appreciation for the important value that innovative technology solutions can provide to support programs and processes, to drive better outcomes for K-12 students, teachers, parents and administrators.” Notably, in addition to his leadership roles in edtech, Gruzin has served on the board of the National Fragile X Foundation and as a Special Olympics Coach

While Gruzin may be Frontline Education’s latest appointment, he is not the only newcomer. Recently, the company also appointed a new chief product officer (Kevin Haugh) and a new chief client success officer (Garland Hall).

Frontline Education Acquires Perennial EdTech

If Frontline Education is currently revamping its leadership, it may be because the company is also rapidly growing.

On July 18, Frontline announced that it had plans to acquire Perennial EdTech. Perennial EdTech is actually an umbrella company for five edtech companies: Escape Technology, Digital Schools, eDoctrina, Software Answers, and Healthmaster.  While Escape  Technology and Digital Schools are both forms of enterprise resource planning software, eDoctrina is a curricular and assessment tool, Software Answers assists with classroom management, and Healthmaster is designed specifically to support the work of administrators in nursing schools. As a result, Frontline Education’s latest acquisition holds the potential to broadly expand the company’s reach across several distinct educational markets.

In a press release announcing the planned acquisition, Gruzin emphasized, “The Perennial EdTech acquisition enhances our commitment to providing school administration software that empowers the K-12 community.”

Ali Jenab, CEO of Perennial EdTech, is also excited about his company’s future as it prepares to join Frontline Education: “We are thrilled to join the Frontline Education family and know that this partnership will benefit the education community.” Notably, despite the acquisition, all of Perennials’ software products will continue to operate under their current brands.

What’s Next for Frontline

While Frontline’s most recent purchase will add five new software products to its line, this isn’t the first time the company has gone shopping in the past two years. Since Frontline was acquired by the private equity firm, Thoma Bravo, in 2017, it has also acquired two other companies in the edtech space: Teachers-Teachers.com and School Improvement Network. Moving forward, Frontline Education will certainly be a company to watch in the ever-expanding educational software and school enterprise resource planning markets.

Photo by J. Kelly Brito on Unsplash.

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In the past, spitballs, nasty notes, and paper airplanes may have been the biggest classroom distractions. In 2019, educators have a lot more competition. After all, students now arrive in classrooms with devices that are one-stop shops for communication and entertainment. A new study by two Canadian researchers confirms that digital distraction is a major problem, but the study also suggests that putting the brakes on digital distraction may not be easy since the right to be online is increasingly being framed by students and educators alike as a personal right.

Study’s Methodology

Elena Neiterman and Christine Zaza are based at the University of Waterloo. While Waterloo may not be Canada’s most well-known university, in the world of technology, the university is well-known for turning out highly trained computer scientists and engineers. The university also happens to be located in a small but notable tech hub. Waterloo has long been home to the Blackberry headquarters. More recently, Google has moved into the small city to also take advantage of the region’s local tech talent pipeline.

Given the university’s location and reputation, it is no surprise that students on the University of Waterloo campus, like most North American campuses, are a highly wired population. In the 2016-2017 school year, Neiterman and Zaza decided to find out just how distracted the University of Waterloo’s students are in the classroom.

Focusing on their own faculty (the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences), the researchers distributed surveys to be completed by students and instructors. In the end, 478 surveys were completed by undergraduate students and 36 surveys were completed by instructors in the faculty. Students completed a 15-item survey, and faculty completed a 9-item survey; in both cases, respondents were asked to respond using a 5-point Likert scale.

Key Findings

Not surprisingly, many students admitted that the use of digital devices during class time was distracting. On average, 22% of students found other students typing during class to be very or somewhat distracted. In addition, close to 10% reported seeing students engaged in off-task online activities during class. and nearly half said this was somewhat or very distracting. However, most students surveyed considered the use of digital devices during class time, even for off-task activities, as inevitable.

In general, faculty were more likely to be bothered by these of digital devices during class, and especially likely to be bothered by the use of phones. Indeed, while only a third were bothered by the use of laptops, close to 70% found the use of phones during class time to be very or somewhat distracting. Despite the fact that faculty were more likely to be bothered by the use of digital devices during class time, nearly a quarter said that they incorporate the use of digital devices on at least some occasions.

Digital Device Usage as a Right

One of the surprising findings of Neiterman and Zaza’s study is that a majority of students and instructors surveyed in their study were uncertain how to control off-task digital device use in the classroom since they viewed the problem as one ultimately about “individual freedom, personal decision-making, and matter of personal autonomy.” As a result, there was no clear consensus on whether digital device use should be controlled by educators, by the university itself, or self-regulated by students. 

In fact, rather than focus on regulations, Neiterman and Zaza’s study suggests alternative approaches. For example, fostering a strong sense of community in the classroom may, in turn, heighten engagement and lower students’ reliance on digital devices during class time. They further encourage open discussion about digital device use in the classroom as a way to established shared expectations. 

While Neiterman and Zaza’s study may not offer any concrete solutions, it certainly reframes the problem of digital distraction. The complete study is available in the most recent edition of The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

Photo by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash.

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Anyone who has ever taught at the K-12 or postsecondary level will appreciate that one of the most time-consuming but least-celebrated parts of any teaching job is the preparation. Most prep is only partially compensated and much of it takes place at home. Now, one company–TeachersPayTeachers–is helping teachers crack the prep problem and make money in the process.

Teachers Are Compensated for a Fraction of Prep Time

A 2016 survey carried out by the National Council on Teacher Quality found that most teachers are only compensated for 45 minutes of prep time each day. While this may sound like a lot of time to someone who has never taught, given that most k-12 teachers have a 7.5-hour workday and spend much of that time in the classroom, 45 minutes is actually just the tip of the iceberg. If only given 45 minutes to prepare for an entire day of teaching, teachers need to prepare for each hour of instructional time in less than 10 minutes. In reality, it can often take over an hour to just prepare a one-hour lesson and copy just a few worksheets.

To make matters worse, the National Council on Teacher Quality found notable disparities across districts. While 45 minutes of prep time may be the average, some elementary teachers are given just 15 minutes of prep time each day. Others are given up to 75 minutes. Likewise, at the secondary level, average daily prep times range from 30 to 75 minutes.

To be fair, over time, most teachers do develop an archive of curricular materials to which they can return each year. For new teachers, however, prep time remains a major obstacle to their success. Over a decade ago, a study carried out by the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future found that over half of teachers quit the profession during their first five years. Along with low compensation, inadequate prep time is often cited as a reason.

The TeachersPayTeachers Solution

TeachersPayTeachers was founded by former teacher Paul Edelman. When Edelman started teaching back in 2001, he soon realized that the best curricular resources were those produced by other teachers. The problem was finding these resources outside his own network. This led Edelman to establish TeachersPayTeachers in 2006. The online platform enables teachers to find great resources online anytime and from any location.

In addition, the platform was designed to help teachers earn a bit of extra money on the side. But some teachers did more than top up their salaries. In 2012, Mashable reported than one TeachersPayTeachers user–Deanna Jump, a kindergarten teacher from Georgia–had made a staggering $700,000 selling her lesson plans online. Notably, Georgia is home to some of the most poorly compensated teachers in the United States. In 2018, the mean average salary for a kindergarten teacher in Georgia was still just over $54,000.

While Jump’s exceptionally high revenue may be an exception, she is not alone in her decision to turn to TeachersPayTeachers. The company claims that three out of four teachers working in the United States, Canada, and Australia now rely on the platform. Parents and tutors also turn to the platform to locate quality curricular resources. But the platform’s popularity among educators, tutors, and parents should not come as a surprise. It currently has more than 2 million curricular resources available for download and most can be purchased for just a few dollars.

Beyond attracting educators, tutors, and parents, TeachersPayTeachers also continues to do well on the investment front. Tiger Global Management and Spectrum Equity are among the platforms’ more recent investors. While TeachersPayTeachers has run into some minor problems regarding copyright infringement, by and large, the site continues to thrive by helping teachers save time and top up their incomes.

Photo by Nicole Honeywill on Unsplash.

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In the past, Udacity has teamed up with both Facebook and Lyft to launch challenges leading to scholarships. Last summer, for example, Udacity launched the Lyft Perception Challenge. This summer, Udacity is launching a new challenge—this time with Amazon Web Services. The focus of the latest challenge–the DeepRacer challenge–is reinforcement learning.

Amazon Web Services’ DeepRacer 3D Racing Simulator

In recent years, there has been a lot of news about the arrival of autonomous vehicles and the need to train workers for this emerging field of research and development. Unfortunately, developing and testing autonomous vehicles has also run into more than a few problems. One town in Arizona that originally welcomed testing has had such a huge change of heart that locals have even started attacking autonomous vehicles.

As a way to scale autonomous vehicle development without putting humans at risk, simulations continue to gain ground. This is essentially the point of Amazon Web Services’ DeepRacer–a 1:18-scale model for exploring the potential of reinforcement learning or RL.

RL is a form of machine learning that enables machine’s to adapt and learn based on complex incoming data. Rather than experiment in life-size models and in real environments, however, DeepRacer offers a way to develop the same technologies in a fun, gamified environment. For those who want to get competitive, Amazon has even launched a DeepRacer League that invites developers to test out their products on a competitive track. Now, Udacity is teaming up with Amazon to explore DeepRacer’s educational potential.

Udacity’s DeepRacer Challenge

Udacity’s latest challenge, the DeepRacer Scholarship Challenge, will offer scholarships to students interested in honing their machine learning skills. Indeed, winners of the latest Udacity challenge will have a chance to win a full scholarship to Udacity’s Machine Learning Nanodegree program.

To win a scholarship, students will need to develop, train, and troubleshoot a reinforcement learning model in the context of Amazon Web Services’ DeepRacer 3D racing simulator. Along the way, learners will also have access to support from Udacity, including peer feedback and webinars.

Like other recent Udacity challenges, the new Amazon Web Services’ challenge consists of two parts. First, thanks to Amazon, anyone will be able to enroll in the AWS-designed course, DeepRacer, for free. Second, 200 top performers will be offered a scholarship to pursue Udacity’s Machine Learning Nanodegree. Without a scholarship, students usually pay $399 per month to complete Udacity’s three-month program in machine learning.

Whether or not one wins Udacity’s latest challenge, everyone has a lot to gain by signing up. Specifically, learners will acquire experience working with reinforcement learning models and develop the skills needed to apply their new knowledge to a scaled physical car. By the end of the course, learners will also be ready to join Amazon Web Services’ DeepRacer League.

Udacity’s Partners

In recent years, Udacity’s business model has increasingly relied on rolling out programs with corporate partners. In 2018, in addition to its challenge with Lyft, Udacity launched a partnership with WorldQuant, a quantitative asset management firm. In 2017, Udacity partnered with Infosys to offer a FastTrack Program to scale technology training.

Ready to join Udacity’s DeepRacer? Details are available on the Udacity website.  Applications for Udacity’s newest scholarship challenge will open on August 1.

Photo by Jake Blucker on Unsplash.

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Instructure, the Silicon Slopes-based company best known for its popular learning management system, recently announced the winners of the 2019 Canvas Educator of the Year awards.

Canvas Educator of the Year Awards

The Canvas Educator of the Year awards were handed out at the conclusion of InstructureCon, the company’s annual best practices forum. This year’s winners included six innovators working at the K-12 and postsecondary levels.

As Melissa Loble, Instructure’s SVP of customer success, said in a press release published by the company on July 11, “Each winner is dedicated to their students’ success and is using Canvas to improve teaching and elevate learning.” Loble added, “Their inspiring stories showcase the role that technology plays in education and how we can use it to prepare students for the world outside of the classroom. Congratulations to all of our winners!”

The Canvas Educator of the Year Awards are judged on three key criteria: The extent to which the educator is reimagining the classroom to prepare students for the future; the extent to which the educator is supporting at-risk students; and finally, how the teacher is driving engagement and achievement.

2019 K-12 Winners

At the elementary level, Instructure’s Educator of the Year for 2019 was Wilfredo Padilla Melendez. The fourth-grade language and math teacher is employed by Claremont Immersion in Arlington, Virginia. Padilla Melendez was honored for leveraging data-based insights, which he uses to create personalized lessons.

At the middle school level, Jon Kelley, a sixth-grade science teacher from Dempsey MS in Delaware, Ohio, took home the top prize for his innovative blended approach to learning.

Finally, at the secondary level, Jennifer Willis-Nichols who teaches high-school level science at Wentzville Holt High School in Wentzville, Montana was the winner.  As part of her mandate, Ms. Willis Nichols is using Canvas to help prepare her high schoolers for the postsecondary experience, where reliance on LMSs is even more likely.

2019 College- and University-Level Winners

There were also three winners at the postsecondary level: Gregory Beyrer, an adjunct professor of history at Cosumnes River College; Jared Colton, an associate professor of technical communication and rhetoric at Utah State University; and Laura Deeter, a professor of agricultural technology at Ohio State ATI.

Beyrer was honored for this use of metrics. Colton was primarily honored for his commitment to teaching technical skills, such as HTML. Deeter was recognized on several accounts, including her use of flipped classrooms and gamification.

All of the educators honored were predictably enthusiastic about Canvas and how it has transformed their teaching. As Deeter explained in Instructure’s July 11th press release, “I took Canvas and all of the tools that come with it and turned my plant identification course into a game about plants and zombies. I learned a lot about how the students use the technology and the students felt that they engaged more with the class.”

Colton notes that Canvas may be especially important for reaching at-risk students: “The biggest thing that technology and tools like Canvas do for me in the classroom is to increase accessibility, not only in terms of who’s able to access higher education but also for students with disabilities.”

Other Awards Handed Out at InstructureCon

In addition to recognizing six educators, three students were honored at this year’s InstructureCon awards ceremony. In the “You: To The Power of Education” contest, students were asked to upload videos to Twitter or Instagram using the #powerofedu hashtag in which they explain how a college education will enable them to achieve their dreams.

Nominations for the 2020 Canvas Educator of the Year awards will open next March. Also, visit the Instructure site to learn more about future student scholarship opportunities.

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash.

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is currently being embraced as a solution to a wide range of problems. Indeed, from traffic congestion to literacy, there are high hopes that AI can help. It is not entirely surprisingly, then, that AI is also being embraced as a way to solve a widespread workplace challenge–training in the retail industry. eLearning Inside recently talked to Carol Leaman, the CEO of Axonify, to find out how her company is leveraging AI to help tackle retail training challenges and reduce the high rate of churn that has historically plagued the retail sector.

Low Retention Rates and Training Challenges in Retail

Retail has historically had one of the lowest retention rates of any industry. The industry’s high turnover has been the result of several key factors. First, many retail positions are seasonal. Second, retail positions are often viewed as entry-level jobs or as a stepping stone to a higher position. Finally,retailers have often struggled to retain employees due to the industry’s low wages (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2018, the mean average annual salary for a retail associate was just $24,340), limited benefits, and lack of training and advancement opportunities. But according to Leaman, the situation may be getting worse as automation continues to disrupt the retail industry on multiple levels.

“There are numerous challenges retailers are facing today when it comes to training their frontline associates,” says Leaman. Notably, a recent Korn Ferry survey of 53 retailers who collectively employ more than 2 million employees found that turn over, specifically among part-term employees, rose 5% between 2017 and 2018.

How AI Is Transforming the Retail Sector

“Basic tasks like taking inventory or checking out customers will be outsourced to technology as machines can handle these tasks with higher consistency and accuracy. The human connection, one where the retail associate knows you personally and can guide your shopping experience assisted by AI, will help with product recommendations and real-time inventory analytics. What’s really exciting is that by blending the use of technology and human interaction retailers can provide the best customer experience to meet expectations. The future associate is mobile trained and equipped to provide a consistently seamless retail experience to each customer that walks through the door.”

From Ad-hoc to Personalized Training With Axonify

“This can include bursts of learning content for general onboarding, customer service best practices, the latest technologies and features in your newest product, proper basket-building approaches or even tips to identify credit card or return fraud. In a few minutes a shift, modern training platforms can personalize and adapt training to each employee based on which topics they are proven experts in and which areas of the training they need reinforced.”

Axonify’s Approach to Retail Training

Recognizing the need for consistent yet personalized training for sales staff, the Axonify platform uses AI to offer what Leaman describes as a “deeply personalized learning experience for every frontline employee.” But Axonify’s platform isn’t just personalized. As Leaman notes, it was designed to “measure what has long been unmeasurable—the true impact of training on bottom-line business results.”

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