“A group of researchers recently published the findings of a 25-year study looking at the effects of preschool and up to six years of follow-up service,” according to Psychology Today for a group of over 1000 children in inner-city Chicago.” Children who received preschool education and follow-up services were more likely to have health care and were less likely to have criminal records than children who did not receive preschool education and follow-up services.”

As you commence your preschool search, you may also be unaware that preschools differ not only in terms of cost and schedule but also in terms of their distinct philosophies. There are various types of preschool programs, each with its own promise to ensure your child’s development. Today, we will concentrate on the six most common types of preschool programs.

1. Maria Montessori (The Child-Centered Approach)

The Montessori program, founded in Rome by Maria Montessori, is one of the most well-known preschool programs. Montessori education is child-centered, with educators merely serving as guides to learning. Through play and manipulatives, each child learns at his or her own pace. This philosophy also implies that children of varying ages may be in the same classroom.

2. Waldorf-Astoria (Structured Creative Learning)

Waldorf preschool programs combine creative learning and structure. In mixed-age classrooms, children learn through play-based learning with regular routines (such as music class, art class, and so on). Rather than traditional academics, Waldorf Schools place a strong emphasis on creativity and the outdoors. In fact, in Walford Schools there is no homework, tests, or grading.

3. Reggio Emilia (Project-Based Learning)

This preschool program, which began in the northern Italian town of Reggio Emilia, focuses on the development of good citizens. Children learn by experimenting with new ideas and participating in project-based activities. For example, these programs may include gardening so that students can collaborate to learn about how plants get bigger and how food maintains the body. Furthermore, Reggio Emilia intends to document learning throughout the year with photos, videos, and observations for later review.

4. High Degree (Academic Learning)

High Degree preschool programs are well-liked in community-based programs such as the YMCA or local community centers. It focuses on academic learning by giving children the opportunity to learn academic skills like counting and telling time.

5. Bank Street is a street in New York City (Active Learning Through Social Sciences)

In 1916, the Bank Street model was born at the Bank Street College of Education in New York City. This out-of-the-box program helps children learn from their surroundings by introducing them to social sciences. The program promotes active learning and imagination while being guided by educators (who are viewed in this program as facilitators).

6. Emergent

The educators and students in emergent preschool programs vary. It is because educators plan activities based on the skills, needs, and interests of their current students. There will be no two identical classrooms. This approach incorporates both play-based and project-based learning.

You, as a parent, are aware of your child’s requirements. Choose a preschool that will best support your child’s learning style and the values of your family.

The post Six Different Types of Pre-kindergarten Programs. appeared first on The Tech Edvocate.

Does the Child Have Emotional Problems?

Preschool educators are never going to meet a parent on the first day of school and ask about emotional issues. It isn’t exactly proper to ask that sort of question and many parents are likely to be offended too. It is, however, something the teacher needs to know about. 

Often, teachers can be gentle and adapt to the needs of the child. You need to put your trust in the educator so they can support your child. 

Sick Children Shouldn’t Be in School

Educators don’t blame the parent for sending a sick child to school. Sometimes, they come to school sick but others without so much of a sniffle, and then the symptoms manifest themselves as the day goes on. Most PreK educators, however, don’t want to see children walking into class with runny noses or stomach bugs. They would much prefer to keep the child at home to prevent the bug from spreading around the class. 

Let the Child Do More

Educators get frustrated when they see parents babying their children, even at the elementary age. The fact is some children are more advanced than their parents give them credit for. So, while the teacher is unlikely to say it to your face, they think it’s time you let the child do more for themselves. It isn’t about being a lazy parent, it’s allowing a child to have some independence. 

Don’t Freak Out Over Muddy Clothes

Children get dirty. They play around with friends and end up with grazed knees and muddied clothes. It isn’t a big deal; however, you don’t see it that way, especially when the clothes cost a lot of money. PreK educators won’t say it, but they think it’s a bad idea to send four-year children to school with expensive clothing. If they do get dirty, don’t freak out, it’s natural. 

Listen to the Teacher’s Point of View

Parents get angry when they hear their child has been hurt. It worries you someone has put a hand on your child or unfairly treated them. You never want to think maybe there is more to the story than meets the eye. While the PreK educator won’t say it, they want you to listen to their side of the story before you jump to conclusions.

Think Before you React

Preschool is tough for children, parents, and teachers alike. Children are overwhelmed by their new surroundings, and you worry about if they’re getting along with others. PreK teachers, however, must monitor and educate each child. It is hard work and requires patience on a whole new level. They won’t say all the things they should, so be a smart parent and your PreK teacher will be very grateful.

The post Things That PreK Educators Won’t Say appeared first on The Tech Edvocate.

If you belong to the league of the majority, perhaps early childhood education doesn’t get the importance it deserves. One reason could be that you possibly grew up in an era when Kindergarten met several needs that are now earmarked for preschool.

Kindergarten has transformed over the past few decades. Puppet shows, dramatic play centers, and costumes have made way for systematic learning, testing, and educational work. These days, Kindergarteners are anticipated to do a lot more than you probably did in your times.

This change in elementary school has made early childhood education highly crucial to academic success. This is due to preschool being a place where kids learn how to study and function in a school environment. It’s a place where toddlers start building their attitudes toward school and teachers, in addition to practicing social skills.

For toddlers, “play” is an intrinsic part of their learning. This is how they digest new information and try and decipher where their place is in this big world. This means kids dressed in costumes and running around aren’t just enjoying revelry but also learning creativity, considering career paths, working on body awareness and self-awareness, and doing a lot more.

Children of Color

Toddlers from minority homes have several disadvantages right from the start. Their homes might not have English as their native language. These kids could also have no access to books and other study materials. Additionally, their parents’ education levels could be lower, and they may work long hours. As preschool attendance is linked to parental education level, kids whose parents have higher education levels are more prone to be enrolled in an early childhood program.

Latino and Black kids are almost a year behind their Caucasian peers in reading and mathematics. Consequently, they are at a considerable disadvantage when transitioning to Kindergarten. This gap generates lifelong discrepancies.

Research proves that prioritizing early childhood education triggers long-term intergenerational effects on minority communities, which helps remedy societal inequalities by giving kids of color a significant advantage.

Becoming Socially Mobile

Social mobility is crucial for minority kids to have opportunities to change their communities and usher in real cultural change. However, America stereotypes black kids as troublemakers, which adversely affects their education. In preschool or even beyond, black boys are much more likely to be punished.

A recent report says black kids constitute almost 20% of preschoolers but almost 50% of all out-of-school suspensions. Similar disparities exist across age groups. Another study revealed black male kids being punished more severely often as they are believed to be much older than they actually are.

Conclusion

To help kids of color have upward social mobility and find equity in our culture, we must ensure their access to education at all levels. However, a preschool could be the most important educational institution for these kids due to its fundamental nature. 

The post Why Pre-K Matters for Children of Color appeared first on The Tech Edvocate.

Problems

Quality

What makes up a “quality early education program” is still vague and needs to be worked upon. The core matter is related to teacher quality, though who’s a “good teacher” is debatable. Pre-K programs need to emphasize kids’ experiences, like their interactions with teachers and other kids.

Frequency

Studies in Minneapolis revealed that the frequency or duration for which kids attend early education programs plays a decisive role in remembering what they were taught in Pre-K. The first year is the most vital time in an early education program. The possibilities for higher academic achievement increase as they attend the program in the subsequent years.

Other variables to think about include the child’s age when he was first enrolled, the number of days each week, and the hours per day he spends in school. These, along with the availability of a wide variety of early education programs, make it difficult to guarantee that students will regularly build on their development.

Transitioning

Transitioning from Pre-K to kindergarten and, subsequently, to elementary school is inconsistent. If there’s a gap between early education programs and their next learning environment, children will be unable to retain what they have learned. Additionally, the curriculum, assessments, and requirements of teachers and students in Kindergarten and elementary schools don’t always align with early education programs, thus making the students’ transition difficult.

Triumphs

To understand what quality Pre-K education entails, a close look at some successful early educational programs, like those in New York, can help. The common factors binding these programs are:

• Strong leadership

Early education programs with strong administrators and adept professionals at the helm are successful as these people are knowledgeable in child development and early education.

• Child development-centric approach

These programs executed curricula backed by child development-centric literature and theories and addressed overall student development and their everyday communications and lives.

• Prioritization of professional growth and progress

These programs executed concrete procedures to meet their clearly-set goals. Extra training was offered where required or appropriate. Additionally, resources and support were made accessible to everyone, including administrators, faculty, staff, and even those with more transient or smaller responsibilities like assistants.

• Accountability

For the programs’ consistent and successful performance, the administrators stayed updated with new developments in early education, regularly collected data, evaluated it, and applied it to their programs.

Parental Involvement

Parental involvement is crucial to making early education programs successful. Conducting home visits for at-risk families, getting the community involved, and organizing events in libraries and museums can make the families feel adequately supported. This way, they could become more interested and involved in their kid’s education.

Conclusion

It’s worth investing your time and effort in early education programs as they offer several benefits. Pre-K learning gets the children ready for academic success and empowers them for adulthood. Children who have attended early education programs are more likely to pursue higher education and receive higher salaries when they join the workforce, thus securing a better life for themselves.

The post Making the Benefits of Pre-K Education Last appeared first on The Tech Edvocate.

Now, look at it from the other angle. Have you ever tried to learn something—learn with all your might and still come up short? Maybe you were trying to figure out genetics… or your mom’s favorite pancake recipe. Perhaps it was Algebra 2… or how your dad always hit the target just right and made it look so easy. Maybe you were battling one of the two main barriers against deep learning.

What Is Deep Learning?

“Deep learning” is actually a machine term. It’s an AI (artificial intelligence) function. Artificial Intelligence is programs that allow machines to do the things that it typically takes a human to do. 

Machine learning is a field of AI and is defined as when a machine can learn new things through experience without the involvement of a human. 

Deep learning is a subset of machine learning. Deep learning takes it a step further. Deep learning actually allows a machine to mock the human brain, allowing it to learn through repeating the same task multiple times, tweaking it each time, depending on the data it receives. Deep learning requires “thought.”

Examples of deep learning in technology include:

• Facial recognition
• Driverless vehicles
• Chatbots
• Virtual Assistants
• Medical Research
• Translation

How Does This Apply to Students in the Classroom?

Deep learning is the learning we receive through the higher levels of cognitive work found in Bloom’s Taxonomy. These are analyzing, creating, and evaluating. When learners travel these paths, they are repeatedly working with the material they have learned until it has become part of their thought patterns. In this way, these facts become part of their learning process, which can be drawn upon at later times.

What Are These Barriers?

Although we want our students to use deep learning with every piece of material we give them, it seems that there are barriers against them achieving that goal. Let’s look at the two main barriers and how we can overcome them.

Lack of Interaction

The first main barrier against deep learning is the lack of interaction. I believe that there are three reasons for this. One, sometimes, our students do not lend themselves to interaction. Sometimes they just don’t feel well, or they are having an “off” sort of day. Then, there are those students who just refuse to interact regardless of the day or hour.

Secondly, there may be a lack of interaction on the side of the educator. To up your game in the area of interaction, put yourself out there. Be animated. Really get into your learners’ shoes. Get to know them. Get one-on-one. Give them individual time. This is what our students need—now more than ever.

Lastly, there is a lack of interaction due to remote learning. When we are teaching our students from several miles apart, it can be challenging to have that teacher/student interaction that fuels learning. However, it is vital if you are going to drive deep learning.

Lack of Motivation

The second main barrier against deep learning is a lack of motivation. Unless a learner wants to learn about a specific subject, they do not seem to be motivated in any way.

It is the educator’s job to fix this, and there are so many fixes. You must get them excited about the topic. 

• Make it applicable to them or something they love. 
• Use something they like to teach it. 
• Show how fun the subject is.
• Use games to teach the principle.
• Let them learn through debate.

There are so many other great ideas.

Conclusion

When students learn through deep learning, they remember the material longer and can recall the material more easily. When you work to overcome these two main barriers against deep learning, your students will be able to access deep learning. They will better understand the material, and their grades will rise.

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Why Is Layout Important?

There are three reasons that the layout is vital, besides merely the fact that a good layout lends itself to beauty. The first reason is that when you have a good design, it merits your company with credibility. When you see a website that looks like a novice built it, it makes you think of the company as a lower-end company. The same is true with a learning management system (LMS) or online course. However, a higher-end online course must belong to a more pronounced, better-known, all-around better company, right?

Secondly, learners perceive a beautifully designed online course to be more usable. This fact was proven through a technical study. This perception is known as the “halo effect.”

Lastly, people make snap judgments about people and products within the first half-second of seeing them. This is known as their “first impression.” A person’s first impression of an online course can send them packing in horror to never return with the idea that your course is unfriendly and untrustworthy. On the other hand, it can have them warming up to the idea of using your portal and the possibility of taking more courses than they originally came in search of.

Online Course Layout Templates

The best way to build a course is to use a template that already lays everything out for you. One company that does this is Miami Visuals. They have several course templates from which to choose. This way, you don’t have to worry about layout. All you have to do is click the placeholding text and images and replace them with your own. It’s as simple as uploading your own to the website and clicking replace! 

Another great thing about Miami Visuals is that they are also a website, funnels, E-Commerce store, CRM, and more all in one place for cheaper than you can get through Teachable, ClickFunnels, or Kajabi!

Creating Your Own Layout

When there isn’t a template available, or if you choose to create your layout from a blank page, there are a few things that you want to keep in mind.

Guide Your Learner’s Eye

Titles, subtitles, introductions, headlines, paragraphs, sub-headlines, more paragraphs… There’s a specific flow to the way things go. We like to be warned of what’s coming first, and then we want to get the content. This is just human nature.

This hierarchy does two things. It gives learners the ability to scan the content. It also helps them to understand which pieces of the content is more important to their learning experience.

Another way you guide the eye has to do with the images you use in your course. These images should further direct the eye down the page rather than outward and away from the content.

Use White Space

Remember that you need white space. Clutter is not your friend. You do not need to fill every area of your screen with graphics and text. When you use white space, otherwise known as negative space, correctly in your online course, it can boost interaction, comprehension, and focus. Digital reading is already tricky enoughfor learners, and clutter only increases confusion and frustration and lowers the attention span.

Use Focal Points

The focal point is the point that attracts your learners’ eyes upon arrival to the page. It should consist of what you want your learners to focus on in that particular lesson. You should only have one focal point per lesson.

To create a focal point, you can:

• Insert an image;
• Present a vital concept in a few words; or,
• Arrange multiple statistics in an infographic.

Use this focus point to then gradually draw their eye down the screen to the rest of the content. 

Be Consistent

Your graphics, fonts, colors, images, spacing, and button styles should be consistent throughout the online course. Your course should only have two different types of fonts total. There should only be three colors total used in your online course. The images should consistently be of similar lighting, and you should not mix hi-resolution and hazy pictures in your course. Also, be careful that your heading sizes, sub-headings, and paragraph fonts are the same throughout the course. Being inconsistent in any of these things will make your course look unprofessional.

Be Organized

Lastly, you want your content to line up. Your headings should all line up with one another. Your pictures should all be aligned. If you have a column or table, be sure that the contents in it are appropriately aligned. Make sure that everything looks organized and neat.

Conclusion

Remember, first impressions are essential! If you want to create a beautiful online course that leaves a good impression, you must master your layout—whether by using a template or building it yourself. Though failing in the layout of your course isn’t one of the seven deadly sins of online course design, it could keep your learners from getting to the point where they can even consider them.

The post How to Create Beautiful Online Courses: Layout appeared first on The Tech Edvocate.

Creating a beautiful online course has a lot to do with colors, font, and layout. Today, we are going to talk about the font that you should choose for your design.

How Many Fonts Should I Use?

The number of fonts you use plays an integral part in your design. If you have too many, your course will appear tacky.

It will also stimulate your learner’s brain if there are too many fonts. This is not something that you want. Why? If the students’ minds are stimulated by the fonts that you choose, then their brains will not have sufficient energy to focus on what they should be learning.

I know that you want your online course to be beautiful. I know that you think “the more variety, the better,” but I am here to tell you that the opposite is true. Rather than going with what you think would be aesthetically pleasing, go with this sound advice. Don’t use more than two fonts on your learning management system (LMS), learning portal, or Social Learning Management System (SLMS) period. You’ll thank me later.

Which Font Should I Use?

There are several things to consider when choosing a font for your course. 

Use the Branding Fonts.

Firstly, consider which fonts are used in your company’s branding. If they use a simple, readable font, this is the font you should use in your learning management system (LMS). If their font is not easy to read, for instance, if it is a script-style font, or if your company does not have branding fonts, then think about the next suggestion.

Use Simple, Readable Fonts.

Some fonts are difficult to read. Script fonts are an example. You want to make sure that the font is legible. If it’s too difficult to decipher, it becomes frustrating to the learner, and they are liable to give up on reading that portion of the LMS or leave your learning platform for another completely. Another example of a font that’s difficult to read is “Curlz.”

Use a Positive Font.

Some fonts carry a negative connotation. For instance, you do not want to use a Halloween-style font, like “Chiller,” for your online course. Not only is this not necessarily a beautiful font, but it carries with it the idea of fear, murder, and, well… Halloween rather than education.

Avoid Overused Fonts.

Some fonts are used so often that they get old and “turn learners off.” They become boring and dull. When you use a font that students are used to seeing on every website imaginable, they get to the point that they think of it as “just another website” and groan at the thought of “another lesson.” An example of an overused font would be Comic Sans or Courier.

Use Modern Fonts.

You don’t want to use antique fonts for your online course. They can make your students think of your learning platform as something to be taken flippantly rather than taken seriously. An example of an antique font might be “American Typewriter.”

Use These Fonts Instead.

When choosing fonts, there are a few that are typically safe to go with. Here are a few:

• Droid Sans
• Helvetica
• Roboto
• Calibri
• Lato
• PT Sans
• Georgia

There are also a few font choices that are not necessarily fonts that are on the top of my list, but they are usable if your options are limited. These are Arial and Times New Roman.

If you don’t have the font you want, you can sometimes install more fonts through Google!

Conclusion

When creating a beautiful online course, the font plays a big part. Now you can choose your font correctly and, yet, with a fashionable flair. Now, all you need to do is choose which instructional design tools you’re going to use!

The post How to Create Beautiful Online Courses: Font appeared first on The Tech Edvocate.

1. Identify All of the Learning Objectives in the Course

You are going to have to take some steps to do this. Let’s break them down. Take your time and answer them one by one.

• What problem do your learners have? Your job with this course is to fix that problem. That brings us to the next question.
• What is the course’s primary purpose? The main objective is to fix that problem, of course, but how? Put it in words. Also, state the why. Why are you fixing that problem? Who are you fixing it for? How long will it take you?
• What are the exact concepts that you want to teach? To take your learner “from problem to fix,” there will be a specific path that you must take them on. This is where you are going to list those steps.
• How well should they learn them? How much should they know by the end of the course? Should they be an expert in the field? Should they still be a novice? Will there be another course to follow this one up? If there will be, you don’t want to make them an expert just yet. Don’t plan to give them all of your best stuff!
• Use verbs from Bloom’s Taxonomy to help describe the learner’s behaviors during and after the course. Bloom’s Taxonomy has six steps that a course’s objectives should follow to adequately, efficiently, and effectively teach a student. Use these steps and these verbs to expound on the previous step.
• What criteria will you use to measure achievement? If you know what your learners should know and what they should not know, you have your criteria. Write it here.

After you answer all of these questions, you can then convert them into learning objectives. Take those objectives that you have created and break them down into lessons or modules. Give each its own related activity.

Write down the objectives for each lesson or module (what they’ll learn). Also, note what they will still need to learn. This way, you’ll be sure to cover it later.

• Outline Your Online Course

This is the most vital part of the process. Everything starts and ends here. If you’ve done Step 1, this step will proceed more smoothly.

Outlines can be created in several ways: conceptually, chronologically, topically, or by the learning process. You must decide how you are going to present your material before you can begin creating your outline.

After you decide this, you must decide a few other things:

• How long will your course be?
• Who is your target audience?
• How will you keep your learners interested and engaged?
• What do you need to teach in each module for your learner to progress to the next module?
• What will the outcomes be from each module? 
• Are you trying to teach too much at once?
• How can you scaffold up or down?
• How will you assess those outcomes?

Now that you know your objectives and outcomes for each lesson, provide an overview for your learners of those things at the beginning of each lesson. This will give your learners an idea of what is to come, motivate them to keep going, and help them retain the information since they are introduced to it more than once.

Keep your lessons to about five minutes apiece. If you go over or under by a little, that’s fine, but keep the average thereabouts. This way, your learners can get used to a specific pace of learning and settle in.

Make sure that your outline plans for the assessments. A mistake many amateur course-creators make is that they forget to plan out the assessments. You should have an assessment (at the least) at the midpoint and the end of each unit. Some course-creators have them more often to encourage interactivity and engagement.

Lastly, the information that you present should move in a particular flow. The content should flow from general to specific, from simple to complex, and from concrete to abstract. And it should be presented, and thus flow, in an easy to follow, clear, and concise manner.

• Design Your Platform

Depending on your Learning Management System (LMS), learning portal, or Social Learning Management System (SLMS), you may have an abundance of options in color, fonts, and layout. A few places you might be considering are Pedagogue, Miami Visuals, or Teachable.

Pedagogue is an SLMS. A Social Learning Management System (SLMS) merges the traditional aspects of an LMS with the features of social media (social streams, chat, groups) to supercharge learning.

Miami Visuals is a course creator (learning portal), website builder, and funnel builder. Therefore, you can get the benefit of all three in one. Miami Visuals is very simple to build in, has excellent customer service, and is much cheaper than Kajabi or Teachable.

Teachable is also an online hosted platform, like Miami Visuals. They are better-known and used more, but they are more expensive.

In designing, you don’t want to forget to add that color. Don’t use a lot of bold or intense colors. They draw the eye too many directions. If you do use bold colors, use them on a neutral background.

Your fonts should be legible. By this, I mean the colors need to be easily seen, and the font needs to be easy to read. I know that curly fonts are pretty, but some are difficult to decipher and remember that younger learners may not yet have the ability to read cursive handwriting.

• Design Your Layout

Lastly, I want to talk about the layout of your platform. There is a lot that goes into this. 

Some of it has to do with the number of pictures and graphics you put on your page. Make sure your page is not cluttered.

Be careful to design your lessons’ layout so that there is not one, big block of text. Your lessons should have titles, subtitles, introductions, and conclusions. When there is merely a wall of text, the eye gets lost, and the brain gets fatigued. Additionally, these add an extra element in that they allow the learner to rescan the material to get a better idea of what they have just learned.

Conclusion

I realize that creating online courses can seem overwhelming. However, if you follow these four principles, it will be much simpler than without. You’ll have your course up and running in no time! Good luck!

The post 4 Design Principles to Keep in Mind When Creating Online Courses appeared first on The Tech Edvocate.

With all of the excitement out there as well as the possibility of scholarship money for students, more high schools are looking into how to start their own sports programs.  Here are a few areas to consider when starting an esports program at your school. 

Getting Teachers and Students Involved 

The first step in starting an esports program is to get teachers and students on board.  Just like any sports programs, esports teams need coaches who have the time and background to help guide the team.  A teacher or administrator is also necessary to navigate the application process and register the team, including making any necessary payments.

In terms of student involvement, the HSEL recommends a minimum of five students to start an esports team but says that having at least 10 members is deal.  There is no maximum number of participants, but the technology infrastructure and staff support may put limits on the number of students that a school can have in its esports program.  

Deciding Who to Partner With 

There are a number of esports leagues out there, so schools should do their research before committing to one.  Esports leagues differ in a variety of ways, such as geographic coverage, cost, tech support, training for coaches and students, and games played.  For example, the North America Scholastic Esports Federation includes schools and community-based organizations from all over the US, Canada, and Mexico.  

Getting the Right Technology for Esports

The amount of equipment you will need to purchase will depend on your school’s existing tech infrastructure.  Some schools report that students were able to use laptops and connect to the Internet via Wifi while other schools have opted for laptops with Ethernet connections.  It may be necessary to increase the capacity of existing school computers by adding extra memory or acquiring better video cards.  In addition to a computer and Internet connection, it may be necessary to purchase specialized peripheral equipment for gaming, such as mice, keyboards and headsets.  Alternatively, some students prefer to use their own equipment.  

Getting Parents on Board 

With all of the concern about teenagers becoming addicted to the Internet and online gaming in particular, it may be necessary to present the benefits of esports to parents.  Some esports leagues have materials, such as presentations and flyers, that will help you make the argument to parents.  In addition, you can point out the skills required to be a successful esports team, such as collaboration, communication, and strategic thinking.  

Another argument often given in favor of esports programs is that it gives students who don’t want to participate in traditional sports programs the chance to contribute to their school community and feel proud about their participating in a school-sponsored activity.  

Is your school considering starting an esports program?  What steps would your school need to take to start an esports program?  Let us know!  

The post How to Start an esports Program at Your K-12 School appeared first on The Tech Edvocate.

There seems to be an onslaught of danger, and it’s coming from every direction: physical, emotional, and digital. School leaders and teachers want to look after students and take care of their needs. They recognize that safety must come first. After all, they learn that safety is one of the basic needs of survival, according to psychologist Edward Maslow.

It seems logical that using technology to secure campuses and keep kids safe is a good step to take. Edtech has already reduced the time spent on clerical tasks and improved the quality of personalized instruction for students. Can it not also protect everyone on the campus?

Schools already rely on popular technologies like social net watchers and mass messaging to maintain a safe school environment. This edtech saves times and makes communication easier. Why couldn’t facial recognition software be equally welcome on campus?

A litany of problems

According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), facial recognition systems are nothing more than a passive surveillance system that silently gathers data about people. The ACLU opposes the software for use in airports and in schools, like Lockport School District’s attempt to install the technology in their schools.

The problem, according to the ACLU, lies in protecting the privacy of minors and treating students as though they are already criminals by tracking their movements throughout the school building for months at a time.

Furthermore, there is a worry about who can access the collected data and how it might be shared across databases. Children just now entering school in Kindergarten, for example, could generate an enormous file of digital information that can be linked with other agencies.

Finally, facial recognition software is not as accurate as you might hope it would be. The software makes errors when it comes to people of color, youth, and women. Children are most likely to be identified incorrectly, possibly receiving consequences for infractions they didn’t commit.

When facial recognition software comes to your school

If you’re worried about the adoption of facial recognition in your school, don’t be afraid to ask questions about privacy and security.

·      What exactly will be monitored?

·      How long will the data on children and adults be stored?

·      Where is the collected data stored, and for how long?

·      Who else has access to this data? Can it be sold or breached?

·      What other organizations (like the state education agency) will have access to the data files and photos?

·      Will facial recognition software be the only way students are held accountable for their behaviors?

·      What other programs and initiatives will the district have to cancel to pay for the facial recognition software?

·      How is facial recognition software addressed in the school’s Acceptable Use Policy?

·      What harm may result in using facial recognition software on children?

Keep asking the questions until you get a satisfactory answer or you can help to come up with a solution that protects everyone.

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