What’s working for business may also work in the classroom.

At least, that is what schools with shrinking budgets and expiring tax levies are hoping for. Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is a growing trend in multiple industries, established companies, and startups as well.

The reasons just make sense. Mobile technology is changing the way companies do business, in marketing, advertising, and sales. But it’s not often we look at education as a business, even though it is.

Our product as teachers is education, our measurement of return on investment is graduation rates and student test results, and our public image is created by how we interact with our communities. With shrinking state budgets, and rural schools challenged with passing levies to cover costs, schools are looking for ways to cut expens…

Since the beginning of his Administration, President Obama has joined educators and families across the country in asking for a bill to fix and improve No Child Left Behind to better serves our students, schools and educators. No Child Left Behind has long been broken, and it’s time for it to be replaced. This week, the Senate is considering the bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act to fix No Child Left Behind, and we’re calling on them to move quickly to send the bill to the President’s desk.

The Every Student Succeeds Act will reduce over-testing and end the one-size-fits-all federal mandates of No Child Left Behind. It also guarantees that all students will be held to high academic standards that prepare them for college and careers and that, when students fall behind, states redirect resources into what works to help them and their schools improve. Finally, the bill makes one of the best investments we can make in our children’s future by providing high-qualit…

Teachers, parents, and students often felt powerless when it came to government-mandated standardized tests such as the Michigan Student Test for Educational Progress (M-STEP).

It was difficult for teachers and parents to understand if the amount of time spent on standardized testing was necessary and beneficial to students. Hours were taken away from teaching and learning time last school year in order to administer the M-STEP. This was a problem.

The M-STEP was also an online test. This took computer time away from teachers and students who needed them for instructional and learning purposes. This was another problem.

There were also technology problems such as software failures, which also ate up teaching and learning time.

Teachers across the state had issues with th…

One of the most innovative changes to the education system today is the use of video in a variety of different settings to help communicate knowledge, allowing for better distance-based teaching methods. Everything from a professor’s office hours to an entire seminar can be conducted online by using video. The use of video in education also comes with the promise of better long-distance opportunities for those who don’t have access to education right outside their front doors.

One piece of technology that is leading the charge in this video revolution is WebRTC, an open-source platform that allows you to integrate very high quality video, audio and data communication into the most popular education services and apps available today. WebRTC gives teachers and stude…