Ed Tech Developer’s Guide: A primer for software developers, startups, and entrepreneursOffice of Educational TechnologyOET_f4f0db24-de6e-11e4-b1bf-cd0e6bbdd6abInnovatorsDear Innovator, The Office of Educational Technology created this guide to assist you in gaining specialized knowledge about the education ecosystem that experienced developers have taken years to learn. Crowd-sourced from knowledgeable educators, developers, and researchers who were willing to share what they have learned, this guide is designed to help you apply technology in smart ways to solve persistent problems in education. It is our hope that this guide will answer key questions and highlight critical needs as you explore opportunities to develop digital tools and apps for learning.The demand for high-quality educational apps is increasing as communities become more connected, devices become more affordable, and teachers and parents are looking for new ways to use technology to engage students. Yet, many existing solutions don’t address the most urgent needs in education. Opportunities abound for software designers and developers to create impactful tools for teachers, school leaders, students, and their families. Creating apps and tools for education is different from other fields. A variety of federal, state, and local policies may shape the features you choose to include, and you will need to address some unique questions along the way. The aim of this guide is to help you navigate these complexities. The guide provides basic information about districts, schools, teachers, and students. In addition, it will help you consider questions affecting design and logistics: Do teachers have the training to use your app in the right way? How do privacy and accessibilty laws intersect with the features you want to include? Who makes the decision to purchase your tool, and how long does purchasing take? Can your app be equally effective at school and home? What features are most important to parents? Developers and entrepreneurs who choose to apply their talents to build tools for learning have the ability to help transform education in America and exponentially increase opportunities for all students. I hope this guide will help you do that. Looking forward to seeing your solutions!Richard CulattaDirector -- This report was developed under the guidance of Richard Culatta, Joseph South, Katrina Stevens, and Bernadette Adams of the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology.Joseph SouthKatrina StevensBernadette AdamsSRI InternationalMany thanks to those who contributed to writing the guide, including: Marie Bienkowski and Sarah Nixon Gerard of SRI International; Shawn Rubin, Cathy Sanford, and Dana Borrelli-Murray of the Highlander Institute; Tom Driscoll of Putnam Public Schools; Jessie Arora of Embark Lab; Mike Hruska of Problem Solutions; Katie Beck of 4.0 Schools; Thomas Murray of the Alliance for Excellent Education; and Jason Hoekstra of Actualize Technology. Stuart Gannes assisted with writing and editing. Edward Metz of the Institution of Education Sciences, Steve Midgley of MixRun, Stephanie Castilla of Metryx, Jason Tomassini of Digital Promise, Mary Jo Madda of EdSurge, and Zac Chase, Erik Martin, Marcus Noel, and Kathleen Styles at the U.S. Department of Education, provided additional content.Marie BienkowskiSarah Nixon GerardHighlander InstituteShawn RubinCathy SanfordDana Borrelli-MurrayPutnam Public SchoolsTom DriscollEmbark LabJessie AroraProblem SolutionsMike Hruska4.0 Schools Katie BeckAlliance for Excellent EducationThomas MurrayActualize TechnologyJason HoekstraStuart GannesInstitution of Education SciencesEdward MetzMixRunSteve MidgleyMetryxStephanie CastillaDigital PromiseJason TomassiniEdSurgeMary Jo MaddaU.S. Department of EducationZac ChaseErik MartinMarcus NoelKathleen StylesArne DuncanSecretary, U.S. Department of EducationSocratic LabsEarly thinking and editing were provided by Heather Gilchrist of Socratic Labs, Marissa Lowman of LearnLaunch, and Alan Louie of Imagine K12. Barbara Means, Robert Murphy, Daniel Humphrey, and Jose Blackorby of SRI International provided valuable information on educational research, training, and student accessibility. Heather GilchristLearnLaunchMarissa LowmanImagine K12Alan LouieBarbara MeansRobert MurphyDaniel HumphreyJose BlackorbyJames SandersJames Sanders of the EdTechTeam provided materials regarding the Open Data Initiatives.Brenda WallerBrenda Waller of SRI International provided administrative assistance.Mimi CampbellThe report was edited by Mimi Campbell of SRI International.Kate BorelliKate Borelli of SRI International produced graphics and layout and provided printing assistance.William M. Davies Jr. Career and Technical High SchoolStories from the field were provided by educators such as Dawn Casey-Rowe of William M. Davies Jr., Career and Technical High School, RI; Angela Estrella of Lynbrook High School in Cupertino, CA; Mary Moen and Jessica Geremia of the Chariho Regional School District, RI; Brad Waid and Drew Minock of Bloomfield Hills, MI; Brian Bennett of Okemos, MI; Kate Baker of Manahawkin, NJ; Jason Bretzmann of Muskego, WI; Steven Hodas of the Center on Reinventing Public Education; Brian Baldizar of Providence, RI; and Vanessa Waggenheim of Highlander Charter School, Providence, RI. Stories from the field were also provided by Ridvan Aliu of EDUonGo; Tess Brustein of Smarter Cookie; Vicki Davis of the Cool Cat Teacher blog; Matt Greenfield of Rethink Education; Alex Hernandez of the Charter School Growth Fund; Kim Jacobson of Stanford d.school; Michael Staton of Learn Capital; and Alice Wilder of Amazon Studios.Dawn Casey-RoweLynbrook High SchoolAngela EstrellaChariho Regional School DistrictMary MoenJessica GeremiaBrad WaidDrew MinockBrian BennettKate BakerJason BretzmannCenter on Reinventing Public EducationSteven HodasBrian BaldizarHighlander Charter SchoolVanessa WaggenheimEDUonGoRidvan AliuSmarter CookieTess BrusteinCool Cat Teacher BlogVicki DavisRethink EducationMatt GreenfieldCharter School Growth FundAlex HernandezStanford d.schoolKim JacobsonLearn CapitalMichael StatonAmazon StudiosAlice WilderCenter for Technology in LearningSupport for the creation of this document was provided by the Center for Technology in Learning at SRI International under the contract ED-04-CO-0040/0010. The mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations in this report does not imply endorsements by the U.S. government. This publication also contains URLs for information created and maintained by private organizations. This information is provided for the reader's convenience. The U.S. Department of Education is not responsible for controlling or guaranteeing the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of this information. Further, the inclusion of information or URL does not reflect the importance of the organization, nor is it intended to endorse any views expressed or products or services offered.School DistrictsSchool districts (also known as local education agencies, or LEAs, which oversee schools within a defined region), state departments of education (state education agencies, SEAs), and the U.S. Department of Education also have distinct roles and responsibilities in K–12 education. This section lays out a few basics on their respective roles, school funding, staff, and infrastructure elements as they concern ed tech. Local Education Agencies (LEAs)State Departments of Education (SEAs)Center for Education PolicyFor a more comprehensive look at the public school ecosystem, see A Public Education Primer: Basic (and Sometimes Surprising) Facts about the U.S. Education System by the Center for Education Policy.Ed Tech News SitesAs the ed tech space continues to grow, so does the number of media web sites and individual bloggers. Below are several sites useful for keeping up with ed tech news.EdSurgeThe EdSurge weekly online newsletter is widely read in the ed tech community. EdSurge also produces ES-Instruct for educators and the EdTech Index, a database that categorizes and reviews hundreds of ed tech startups, products, and services.Education GadflyWeekly ed tech updates produced by the Thomas Fordham Institute. EdTech TimesBoston-based group whose site features daily news updates and features.EdutopiaEdutopia focuses on practices and programs that help students acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, skills and beliefs to achieve their full potential.EdWeek Digital DirectionsPart of EdWeek, Digital Directions covers news, trends, and best practices for the K–12 tech audience.EdTech HandbookEdTech Handbook is a series of contributed articles hosted at edtechhandbook.com.eSchool NewseSchool News provides the latest educational technology news K-12 and higher education.Getting SmartCreated by Tom Vander Ark, the Getting Smart site covers formal and informal topics that cover K-12, higher education and lifelong learning. The organization has a particular focus on innovation and personalized learning.GraphiteCreated by Common Sense Media, Graphite provides reviews of ed tech products where educators can filter results by type (app or website), subject, grade level, and price. Product information provided includes setup time, skills addressed, intended student audience, and tech notes. Designed for educators, the products are reviewed by volunteer teachers who use a review system that examines pros, cons, engagement, pedagogy, support, and the bottom line. KQED MindShiftIf you’re looking for a deeper dive into topics related to learning, check out MindShift. Launched in 2010 by KQED and NPR, MindShift explores the future of learning in all its dimensions, including cultural and technology trends, innovations in education, groundbreaking research, and education policy.New Learning TimesNew Learning Times is produced at the Ed Lab at the Teachers College at Columbia University and provides daily coverage of learning opportunities to transformation education.Startup Digest EDUStartup Digest EDU shares the latest news and information about startups and innovations in education.Tech and LearningPublished by New Bay Media, Tech and Learning includes a website, newsletter and monthly magazine. Both a website and monthly paper publication, Tech and Learning focuses on ed tech professionals responsible for implementing and purchasing for K-12 schools. THE JournalTHE Journal is dedicated to informing and educating K-12 senior-level district and school administrators, technologists and tech-savvy educators on educational technology issues._f4f0dd40-de6e-11e4-b1bf-cd0e6bbdd6ab_f4f0e4f2-de6e-11e4-b1bf-cd0e6bbdd6abDesign ThinkingDesign Thinking as a Design Process -- Stanford d.school teaches Design Thinking a Design Process. Essentially, Stanford advocates that Design Thinking is creating a more desirable future and a process to take action when faced with a difficult challenge, a creative optimism well-needed in education. Classrooms and schools across the world are facing design challenges every single day -- the challenges educators are confronted with are real, complex, and varied. And as such, they require new mindsets, new tools, and new approaches. Here are steps in the Stanford d.school Design Thinking Process:EmpathyStep 1: Empathy = Really get to know your user -- Use human-centered design process, which puts the user squarely at the center of the process. When designing, you start with identifying who you want to design for (your user) and really get to know them. 3 ways to get to know our user: • Observation (what we observe them doing, in the environment we want to design for as well as in other similar and different environments, so we really get to know how they live and work, what they value, etc., and can use that to help us design solutions to problems that matter to them in ways that work for them) • Immersion (we walk in our users’ shoes, until we can experience firsthand the challenges they face that can inform our design) • Interviews (we listen to their stories to hear how they experience the challenges and opportunities they face, we focus on feelings in addition to facts, and we listen beyond what we hear directly). Don’t make average products for average people. If your users have a name and you’ve walked in their shoes, you can both design for them as well as get their feedback along the way. Problem DefinitionStep 2: Define = Define the problem your user is having that you want to solve -- * We always define the problem from the users’ perspective. Solve the problem they actually have, not the one you thought they have. * Reframe. Identify the underlying cause of a problem and solve that. If you only solve for the symptoms but don’t understand the true nature of the problem, you are less likely to create solutions that matter. * Aim for the Goldilocks Zone. Not too broad. Not too narrow. IdeationStep 3: Ideate = Open up the solution set -- * Ignore feasibility at this stage. An awesome but infeasible idea at this stage may lead you to a breakthrough idea you never would have considered. * Go for quantity. Like taking pictures, the best way to get a good idea is to generate a lot of ideas. * Embrace radical collaboration. A wider variety of ideas is generated from diverse minds. Find colleagues in different fields, different age groups, with differing perspectives. * Go for wild ideas. Unleash your creativityPrototypingStep 4: Prototype & Test -- * The best way to get feedback on an idea is to watch someone experience your solution. So what can you create quickly that someone else can experience…today? * Identify an important aspect of your solution, find a way to let someone experience its essence, and observe what they do.TestingIterationStep 5: Iterate -- On day 1 your solution is OK at best. By the time you launch, your solution will be AMAZING because it will really solve their problem!OpportunitiesChoose the best opportunities._f4f0e574-de6e-11e4-b1bf-cd0e6bbdd6ab1As you begin the process of designing apps and tools for learning, focus on solving problems that have a significant impact on your intended users. Apps that simply digitize traditional practice are less meaningful than apps that support more effective approaches to teaching and learning based on sound research. This section presents ten opportunities that technology has the potential to address. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it represents some of the most urgent needs that we hear from educators, parents, and students across the country. Each section describes the opportunity, shows why it is important, and provides some possible approaches to spark your creativity. Many solutions will address more than one of these opportunities. Academic SkillsImprove Mastery of Academic Skills_f4f0e575-de6e-11e4-b1bf-cd0e6bbdd6abOpportunity 1Perhaps the most obvious place for apps and tools to be helpful is in providing support for teaching academic concepts such as math, science, language arts, social studies, and world languages. New learning activities that help students increase academic proficiency are in high demand. In particular, teachers are seeking tools to help increase opportunities to practice skills in authentic environments and help students take more control of their learning. Each state posts its curriculum standards that show the specific skills that are taught in the state in each content area. Why is this important? Students need to demonstrate proficiency in certain academic skills in order to move from one grade to another and to graduate from high school and then from college or other training programs. These are skills that are important for students to have to be successful in their careers or postsecondary education. Yet international tests like the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) show that U.S. students are falling significantly behind those in other countries in mathematics, reading, and science (see LA Times article Are America's Students Falling Behind the World?). What would help? Create apps to teach academic skills in more meaningful ways than traditional textbooks and lectures. Give learners an opportunity to practice in realistic settings. This might be done through interactive simulations (e.g., models of ancient cities that allow students to experience history or virtual chemistry simulations that might be unsafe to reproduce in a classroom). Think beyond delivering content—are there tools that enable students to build and create projects that encourage deeper exploration of a particular topic? Consider merging teaching and assessing to pinpoint knowledge gaps along the way to mastery through probes of understanding or by identifying competencies through formative assessments that are seamlessly embedded in the learning materials. New forms of media such as educational games can break traditional molds, allowing students more freedom to explore, create, and collaborate, and can open the door to more immersive learning experiences. While research has been conducted to identify effective teaching methods for just about every subject, those methods don’t always make it into practice in the classroom. Creating apps that put research-based methods into practice can greatly impact instruction and learning.Lifelong LearningDevelop Skills to Promote Lifelong Learning _d4a606fe-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce344Opportunity 2Researchers and educators recognize that students need to develop not only academic skills, but also non-cognitive social and emotional skills and behaviors that lead to their long-term success. For example, what attitude do they have about learning? Do they feel like their abilities in a subject are fixed ("I’m just no good at math!"), or do they recognize they can grow ("I can succeed at math, but I will need to learn some new strategies in order to approach this problem set")? Non-cognitive skills such as perseverance, self-regulation, and effective strategies for approaching learning enhance student motivation and engagement, and there are many ways apps can be designed to support the development of these non-cognitive skills and behaviors, with promising results (see Readiness for College: The Role of Noncognitive Factors and Context from the University of Chicago and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). Why is this important? There are many non-cognitive skills that are critical for an individual to strive for and succeed in reaching long-term goals. Researchers have found that habits such as tenacity and perseverance can have just as strong an influence on achievement as intellectual ability. There is growing evidence that learning environments can be designed to foster development of these skills. In 2013, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the U.S. Department of Education hosted a meeting of researchers, practitioners, and industry representatives to discuss the impact of students’ beliefs about their academic abilities (see How Can We Instill Productive Mindsets at Scale?, a report from leading researchers in the field on the meeting’s research agenda regarding instilling productive mindsets). What would help? Identify which non-cognitive skills and behaviors you are trying to develop and build opportunities to do so into your apps. Growth mindset, for example, is more likely when students believe they can achieve and when they believe that intelligence is malleable rather than fixed (see Stanford professor Carol Dweck's work on fixed versus growth intelligence mindsets). Accordingly, an app might frame mistakes as opportunities to learn and reward students who persist through solving difficult problems. It might also support goal setting, allow students to choose learning activities, and encourage achievement against objective standards. To improve self-regulation, students may be asked to reflect on their effort and to consider how difficult they find the material. Apps that reward hard work and tenacity should be favored over those that reinforce simply getting the right answer in order for students to advance to a new level. Game designers are particularly adept at motivating persistence, and much can be learned from the methods they use to inspire players to persevere in the face of difficulty and frustration. Finally, behavior management is an important non-cognitive skill. Teachers, especially those new to the profession, may need help establishing a productive classroom environment and climate (see this article on Classroom Management from the American Psychological Association), and classroom management apps could reward positive behaviors, potentially decreasing unwanted behaviors. Family EngagementIncrease Family Engagement_d4a60d8e-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce344Opportunity 3FamiliesParentsCaregiversInvolving parents and caregivers in the learning process is a key element to ensuring student success. It is particularly essential for students who need special assistance, such as those who struggle with learning disabilities. Often parents feel left out of the education process, especially those whose work, school, or family responsibilities make it difficult to connect with teachers and school leaders during regular school hours. The Harvard Graduate School of Education published an article on the benefits of family engagement that included a summary of research on how to most effectively engage families. Family and community engagement -- for students of all ages -- is a focus for the U.S. Department of Education, and its family and community website provides resources for early learning in families overall and in special populations like military and migrant families as well as homeless children. Why is this important? Schools have a tremendous role in engaging and supporting students, and parents help in many ways, including making sure that children start on par with their peers. Providing parents with at-home activities (as PBS KIDS has done in its Parents Play & Learn app and Zero to Three has done in its Let’s Play! app) to support in-class learning reinforces the idea among families that not all learning has to take place in school. Parental engagement could come from daily progress updates, easy tools to communicate with a child’s teacher, and resources to connect school learning to practical home activities. Connecting parents of all backgrounds to school communities empowers them to become active, informed advocates for their children throughout their education. What would help? Familiarize yourself with ways to engage families (some ideas are provided by the Response to Intervention Action Network article) and then think about how to apply those principles to engage families through technology. For instance, could your app provide information to caregivers about student progress and homework in near real time and in languages spoken at home? Can your tool be used on a smartphone or in an offline mode for homes without an Internet connection? Does it help parents stay involved in their children’s school activities while balancing work or other responsibilities? For parents whose first language is not English or who may come from cultures outside the United States, can your app better help them understand and navigate the K–12 school system, including their local school?PlanningPlan for Future Education Opportunities _d4a61068-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce344Opportunity 4Preparing for college and navigating the application process can be challenging, and the sticker price for college can be overwhelming and misleading. For example, a more prestigious college that appears to be expensive may actually be cheaper than other options once scholarships and financial aid are factored in. Using technology to help students and their families make better decisions about their future education has great promise. Many students do not apply to college because they do not know what institutions they could qualify for or how to take advantage of financial supports that may be available to them. All students, but particularly underserved students, would benefit from tools that engage them long before their final years in high school to help plan their academic path to graduate and apply to and complete postsecondary education. Why is this important? Research, including a recent College Board study, has shown that students who graduate with a degree, even an associate degree, far outpace their peers in income generated over a lifetime of employment. Even career and technical education programs often require a two-year degree. Yet the process of planning for, applying to, and financing college can feel daunting—especially for first-generation college students and their families. What would help? Financial aid navigators, course planners, remote college counseling, and college-to-career maps all can help students plan for and be successful in their future education plans. Additionally, new tools and apps targeted at helping school counselors could increase both the reach and amount of support counselors can provide students (on average, half the number of counselors are available to high school students as is recommended by the American School Counselor Association). Additionally, open state and federal datasets can be used to create apps for managing college finances and to identify skills needed for different types of jobs. Imagine a “jobs available at graduation” tool that uses labor statistics about job growth. Also needed are tools that interface with college course catalogs and let students interactively plan various paths to college completion. Imagine an app that lets students identify and communicate with alumni of the institution that they are attending (or plan to attend) in fields that interest them so they can gain perspective and advice.AssessmentsDesign Effective Assessments_d4a6125c-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce344Opportunity 5Understanding what students know and how much they are learning is an important part of education. Traditionally teachers have made educated guesses about how much their students are learning based on classroom observation and reviewing homework. Teachers often struggle, mostly because of time, with creating assessments that truly align with the skills they want to measure. They also spend hours reviewing and grading student work that could be better spent preparing lessons and working with students. In addition, information from formal assessments is often not available quickly enough to inform instruction. Data from high-stakes assessments, for example, may actually come after a student has moved to a new grade and new teacher. Even grading quizzes or homework takes so much time that teachers often are not able to turn around the assignments quickly enough to change their instruction for the next day. True data analysis can also be time-consuming and difficult using many current assessment practices and formats. Why is this important? Well-designed formative and summative assessments provide teachers and students with just-in-time feedback on progress towards mastery of content and allow educators to personalize learning pathways for their students. With feedback that is almost immediate, educators can strategically adjust instruction more quickly to meet the needs of diverse learners What would help? Technology provides a variety of new opportunities to rethink the way we assess student learning. Tools that help teachers create and share formative assessments, automate grading, and streamline providing feedback to students allow teachers to focus more of their time on instruction. Expanding assessment item types (beyond multiple choice questions, etc.) can provide educators with a more detailed and sophisticated understanding of what their students know and can do. Simulations, heat maps, and ranking are all examples of technology-enhanced assessment item types that are beginning to be incorporated into digital assessments. Traditionally, education has struggled to develop meaningful assessments that measure non-cognitive skills such as persistence, creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking. (For more information on these skills, see the Partnership for 21st Century Skills Framework for Learning.) Consider creating tools that help develop and assess these kinds of skills. Aligning assessments with learning goals is crucial to success. Make sure you clearly understand what you are measuring. It is crucial to measure what is important not simply what is easy to measure.Professional DevelopmentImprove Educator Professional Development_d4a616bc-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce344Opportunity 6EducatorsThe same personalized, collaborative, anytime/anywhere learning that technology can enable for students should be available for educators and administrators. Advances in technology can make just-in-time personalized professional learning available to educators wherever they may be, putting teaching tips and access to educational experts in their hands. Technology-enabled professional learning can help educators find setting-specific answers and guidance for helping their students learn. For more on designing online communities of practice for educators, see the Department’s Designing Online Communities of Practice. Why is this important? Educators must constantly learn and improve their teaching skills in order to support their students. One-size-fits-all professional development sessions cannot meet the specific needs of each teacher in a school or college. Educators need tools that help them tap into the expertise of their peers by accessing networks of reliable professional support and resource sharing. This is particularly important for new and pre-service teachers. What would help? Tools to help connect educators to one another and to expert educational researchers are key to effective professional learning in a digital world. In addition, educators need job-embedded, differentiated, and on-demand access to content that supports their mastery of effective instruction. To be of greatest use, resources to support educators in their professional learning might include ones that: * connect educators with each other and to educational experts * help teachers reflect on their own practice * provide educators support to master new strategies, techniques and tools * are available on-demand * differentiate for a range of levels of readiness and expertise * curate content so teachers can find appropriate support and ideas quickly * showcase content-specific best practices Also consider aligning tools and resources to relevant professional standards (e.g., National Board for Professional Teaching Standards Certificate Areas). Finally, any tools built for teacher professional development should be designed according to principles of adult learning and foster a growth mindset similar to the concepts explained above for student learning. The Connected Educators web page features several channels and tools for helping educators connect to colleagues across the country.ConnectionConnect educators with each other and to educational experts_d4a61950-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3441.6.1EducatorsEducational ExpertsReflectionHelp teachers reflect on their own practice_d4a61b4e-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3441.6.2Strategies, Techniques & ToolsProvide educators support to master new strategies, techniques and tools_d4a61fe0-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3441.6.3ResourcesMake resources available on-demand_d4a622c4-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3441.6.4DifferentiationDifferentiate for a range of levels of readiness and expertise_d4a624cc-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3441.6.5CurationCurate content so teachers can find appropriate support and ideas quickly_d4a62a08-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3441.6.5Best PracticesShowcase content-specific best practices_d4a62cba-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3441.6.6ProductivityImprove Educator Productivity_d4a62ec2-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce344Opportunity 7In addition to the time spent teaching and interacting with students, educators have enormous administrative burdens throughout a school year -- preparing lessons, finding teaching materials, grading, reporting, communicating with parents, and supporting school functions to name a few. When administrative tasks are streamlined, teachers and leaders can spend more time working with students and deepening their professional learning. Some ways to boost educator productivity include creating tools that help teachers personalize learning for students (adjusting instruction for students who need extra time or different learning approaches), make it easier to provide feedback to students and parents, and helping teachers create, adapt, and share lesson plans, learning resources, and assessments with other teachers. Why is this important? Teachers are a critical factor in student success, and helping teachers reduce time spent on administrative tasks enables them to spend more valuable time with students. Teachers, especially in urban schools, are at risk of leaving the teaching profession or moving to other schools (as reported in a recent Education World article). Teachers need custom productivity tools similar to those found in other professions. With these tools, teachers will be able to spend more of their time and effort focusing on students and their learning. To hear what teachers say about their profession and how to reform it, see Educators Lead the Transformation of the Teaching Profession from the U.S. Department of Education website. What would help? Apps and tools to help teachers streamline workflow, personalize instruction, support needs of diverse students, create and share lessons, and communicate efficiently with parents and other stakeholders can all help productivity. To most effectively adjust instruction, teachers need to track student progress and identify areas of struggle. Student performance data are becoming increasingly available to teachers in real time, but without tools to help make sense of the data or quickly identify important trends, it can be too time consuming for teachers to find the value. Design tools that organize data visually for easier interpretation. Especially for new teachers, tools that make it easier to discover, modify, and share learning resources aligned with curricular standards would be a huge time-saver.AccessibilityMake Learning Accessible to All Students_d4a6334a-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce344Opportunity 8StudentsMany students have differing educational needs that must be addressed -- from physical disabilities to acquiring a new language -- in order to learn effectively. They may need special tools to interpret learning content (e.g., decoding mathematical notation and symbols) or support for taking notes or organizing information in structured ways. Technology can increase the ability for students with differing needs to participate in the same learning activities as their peers. App developers can address these needs in three ways. First, functionality can be added to all apps to make them accessible to students with diverse needs, such as the ability to increase the font size or have text read aloud. Second, apps can be created to address specific learning needs, such as providing a digital word-board to children who can't speak. Third, tools can personalize learning to adapt to a variety of learner needs, such as providing alternative explanations, examples, and visualizations to help a student understand difficult concepts. The National Center for Learning Disabilities is a good place to find information about learning disabilities, and more on web accessibility can be found at the World Wide Web Consortium. Accessibility needs to be considered as a feature to be built in from the outset; as these W3C videos demonstrate, watching users with disabilities navigate learning apps and tools with assistive technologies can be illuminating. Why is this important? Schools normally won't be able to use your app if it's not accessible to students with disabilities. The Department of Education has issued guidance describing how two civil rights laws, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, apply to technology used in schools. When you design with accessibility in mind, not only do you facilitate school district compliance with civil rights laws, but your apps will become much more beneficial to your users as well, even those who may not have specific learning disabilities. Consider how entrance ramps to buildings (designed to provide access for people who use wheelchairs) also benefit children on bicycles or parents pushing strollers. The text description added to a website to make sure a person who is blind can use a screen reader might also improve searchability for all users of the site. Apps developed to assist in communication could be a life-changing experience for learners with autism, cerebral palsy, or Down syndrome. With appropriate technology, English learners (ELs) have the ability to access the same content as their peers and can leverage their native language and academic skills to “transfer” to the work in English, as shown in this report produced by Cambridge University Press. Generally, content should be communicable in a variety of formats so as to increase the applicability of the tool. Specifically, this may be manifested as delivery of content in more than one of the following forms: text, pictures or illustrations, audio, and video (whereas any one format may be insufficient to meet an individual’s special needs). What would help? Think about the human-machine interface you are building. Are there multiple ways for users to interact with and respond within your app? Could a user control your app by voice? Will it interoperate with a screen reader? Does it take advantage of accessibility settings in device operating systems? Does your app support varying levels of complexity, interaction, and support? Making your content accessible is good. Solving fundamental access problems in communication, organization, and social interaction is better. Features that customize the delivery of learning must not clutter or confuse the delivery itself, and so developers may place such settings or controls within a separate functional area of the tool. Opportunity GapsClose Opportunity Gaps_d4a635f2-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce344Opportunity 9An opportunity gap refers to unequal access to resources or opportunities. Rural students often have less access to resources found in urban settings such as museums, cultural centers and industry experts, for example. Job shadowing and internship opportunities may be more limited in many communities. Less wealthy communities often cannot afford to provide the well-equipped libraries, rich educational experiences, and classroom equipment and resources found in wealthier communities. The technology gap is one form of opportunity gap. Despite the growing sense that digital tools are common in educational settings, access to them is far from equal. While some schools and students have access to top-notch resources, others, such as those in highly impoverished locations, are significantly lagging behind. Without the tools, content, and connections to high-quality learning tools and experiences, these teachers and students cannot be expected to provide and experience learning in ways equal to their peers. This opportunity inequity is addressed in greater detail in the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights’ October 2014 Dear Colleague Letter, which focuses on gaps based on race, color, or national origin but could be useful in approaching any opportunity gap. Why is this important? All students have the right to an equitable education. This right should not be affected by geographic location, family income, or any other demographic factor. Apps provide the opportunity for students to access content and expertise that may not be available within the bounds of a physical school building. What would help? While recent years have seen an increase in the amount of open education resources (OER), many teachers lack the training or time to comb through and evaluate them. The creation of pathways for the curation of content verified for quality and standards alignment and the sharing of curated sets or playlists would alleviate unnecessary stress on teachers and increase the availability of low-cost, high-quality learning materials for all. Additionally, tools designed to help students and teachers access expertise in all areas from curricular content to improved teaching practices could help better leverage the usefulness of Internet connectivity. Finally, be mindful of equity of technical accessibility when designing products. Users on slower systems should be able to access and experience an application or service with the same ease as those using more cutting-edge technology.Achievement GapsClose Achievement Gaps_d4a63818-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce344Opportunity 10Achievement gaps occur when one identifiable group of students outperforms another by a significant amount. For example, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP -- the Nation’s Report Card) provides data that show significant gaps in mathematics and reading ability between Hispanic and white students and between black and white students (results are on the U.S. Department of Education’s NAEP website). Gaps can also exist among groups such as children who are economically disadvantaged, in foster care (as reported by the Los Angeles Times in Students in Foster Care Face 'Invisible Achievement Gap'), or those belonging to a historically low-performing group (see the Michigan Department of Education’s African American Young Men of Promise Initiative website). Nationwide standardized tests are not the only place where gaps are evident. State and local assessments along with results from Advanced Placement course completion and testing can also help you understand achievement gaps and areas of need. For example, computer science Advanced Placement courses lack significant participation by girls and minorities, a gap described in this 2014 Slate article, No Wyoming Students Took the AP Computer Science Exam Last Year. Why is this important? Demographic factors should not systematically limit academic achievement and thereby future opportunities. All students deserve the chance to pursue college and careers in areas that interest them and should not be disadvantaged because of gender, race, economic status, or any other factor. Achievement gaps in the United States have persisted for many years and need to be closed. What would help? Everything we have discussed to this point can make a difference: helping teachers, involving parents, strengthening non-cognitive skills, targeting academic subjects, and improving accessibility help to promote equal education opportunities for all students. Illustrating how your product helps to achieve these goals while working to close gaps in achievement makes it more compelling to educators and more likely to succeed in schools.Design_d4a63ce6-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3442The Design Process: From Idea to Implementation -- Beginning: While the steps below are presented in a suggested order, development of your product may require rearranging the order and even repeating some of the steps multiple times to refine your vision, plan, product, or research base. In general, the basic process will look something like the following: 1. Surveying the field for existing products (successful and failed) and getting to know the world and concerns of your potential end users 2. Beginning from a research base supported by the most current available information from the learning sciences 3. Iterating your product based on user feedback and experiences 4. Conducting short-cycle efficacy trials to gather data that builds a case to support your product’s ability to solve the education problem or dilemma you’re attacking. (Given a longer time frame and greater resources, you may be able to conduct other trials and tests subject to specific regulations.)Market SurveysSurvey the field for existing products (successful and failed) and getting to know the world and concerns of your potential end users._d4a63fac-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3442.1Survey the Field Before you start coding a solution to a particular problem, do your homework to understand what apps and tools are already attempting to address the same issue. Even if your approach is better, you will want to be able to contrast it with the status quo. One way to get a feeling for existing educational apps and tools is to peruse app review websites such as the Edtech Index (by EdSurge) or Graphite (by Common Sense Media). These provide a description of the tools developers have already built and show you, for example, how crowded the mathematics and language arts spaces are and how few apps and tools there are for science, social studies, and world languages. Spend some time understanding what has already been tried, what succeeded or failed, and why (e.g., by browsing the U.S. Department of Education’s repository of reviewed research, the What Works Clearinghouse). Choose problems that will have the greatest positive impact on the intended users. Stakeholder InputTalk With Stakeholders_d4a641e6-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3442.2.1Even before designing a prototype, talk with teachers, parents, students, and educational researchers to make sure you are solving the right problem and that your tool or app will meet the needs of your intended users. Say you’re creating an app to help teachers assign tailored practice in reading. Start by visiting with teachers. Help them do what they do the way they do it now (i.e., volunteer) so you can observe what classrooms are like and empathize with teachers’ challenges. Talk to parents about how they support reading at home. Involve them in the process of developing a solution. With teacher and parent permission, talk to students about their experience and the kinds of features they want or need to allow your solution to become a seamless part of their learning. Ed tech blogger Audrey Watters created a checklist called, What Every Techie Should Know about Education, for tech entrepreneurs to assess their understanding of a variety of topics relevant to building tools for schools. The checklist explains the work that has led to this point in the ed tech movement and provides some food for thought for aspiring entrepreneurs. Once you reach the prototype stage, get as much feedback as possible as you move through testing your assumptions. Along the way, it is essential to continue to engage your intended users as you refine your app or tool. One approach for this is to create simple mock-ups of the tool or app that you are planning to develop, including user-case scenarios that are examples of how students and teachers might actually use the technology in a classroom setting. With these in hand, you can conduct more formal user-concept testing, where users provide feedback in a survey or through a structured or guided interview. Once you have this feedback, you can write up the results from this research and have a brief ready to show future funders or stakeholders to demonstrate that the concept has been formally vetted by its potential users and is ready for the next step. Many educators are looking for innovative ways to integrate useful tools into their teaching. A challenge is identifying, organizing, and, if appropriate, compensating these early evangelists. In the end, the insights they provide into what teachers want may make the difference between success and irrelevance for your tool or app.ResearchBegin from a research base supported by the most current available information from the learning sciences._d4a646b4-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3442.2Base Your Design on Learning Principles and Evidence -- In developing educational tools and apps, it is important to build on the foundation laid by decades of education research. Too often apps are well coded and fully functional but are based on learning theories that researchers debunked years ago, so they under-perform in their core purpose. Consider the following key concepts and resources as you create your app.Learning ScienceAlign your product with the core tenets of learning science research_d4a64998-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3442.2.1Institute of Education Sciences (IES)The U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences (IES) publishes guides for educators that summarize recommendations for teaching and learning based on research results. A list of these practice guides can be found on the IES website. In addition, the Department updated its General Administrative Regulations to encourage greater use of evidence in grant programs, which this EdWeek article summarizes.Sesame WorkshopResearch and practical experience combine to produce an excellent set of best practices for children’s app development on the Sesame Workshop website.National Research CouncilTwo accessible and comprehensive books regarding learning from the National Research Council are How People Learn and Knowing What Students Know, which outline the science and design of educational assessments.Pittsburgh Science Learning CenterThe Pittsburgh Science Learning Center has created a wiki with a set of instructional principles as well as some hypotheses that are still under study. A short article from the center published in Science (subscription required) describes how to manage the complex search space that results from varying principles related to instructional timing, techniques used, and amount of time spent learning.American Psychological AssociationThe American Psychological Association website includes an article by cognitive scientist Art Graesser outlining principles that research has shown increase student gains.Hewlett FoundationThe Hewlett Foundation has supported efforts to promote deeper learning and provides this list of resources on its website. Learning sciences. Learning sciences are related to instructional design, cognitive science, and brain research. Learning scientists study factors that enhance or impede different kinds of learning and the best ways to engage learners for maximum impact in minimal time. These researchers have made significant progress in understanding learning in ways that are highly relevant to designing educational software. Developers who are not aware of the foundations of cognitive science, instructional design, or the learning sciences can miss out on opportunities for high-impact design and ways to systematically build in features from the collection of effectiveness data that can help them improve their product. To get an idea as to whether your product is aligned with the core tenets of learning science research listed below, try using a checklist like Kaplan’s Educational Product Evaluation Checklist.Learning & Design FrameworksConsider common frameworks to help you understand how educators think about instruction._d4a64be6-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3442.2.2EducatorsAs a developer, you may find that teachers will refer to particular learning or design frameworks when describing their classroom and learning goals. Here is an introduction to some common frameworks to help you understand how educators think about instruction.Bloom's TaxonomyDefine successively deeper levels of learning._d4a651b8-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3442.2.2.1Center for TeachingFor an overview, see Vanderbilt's Center for Teaching resources on Bloom’s Taxonomy.Bloom's Taxonomy of educational objectives (revised in 2001) is well known for defining successively deeper levels of learning. The taxonomy suggests that students develop higher order thinking skills as they move from knowledge to application and on to evaluating and creating, using factual and conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge, and metacognitive knowledge (strategies and self-knowledge). Multiple IntelligencesConsider multiple types of intelligence._d4a654a6-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3442.2.2.2Howard Gardner proposed eight distinct types of intelligences or mental faculties -- linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic -- and further proposed that every individual possesses a unique combination of them. Teaching, he believed, should nurture many of these intelligences. (Multiple intelligences are commonly misconceived to be modes of processing information for learning, leading to such claims as that a person with a particular intelligence should be taught primarily or exclusively through means that cater to that intelligence. This has not proven to be the case.)Understanding by Design_d4a65708-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3442.2.2.3ASCDASCD's website provides resources and publishes books and workbooks to support UbD. Understanding by Design (UbD) is a framework for curriculum design that starts with identifying important curriculum goals, such as developing enduring understandings, maps these to evidence that students can show to demonstrate skills and knowledge, and then links that evidence to learning experiences that develop the skills and knowledge. GoalsIdentify important curriculum goals, such as developing enduring understandings._d4a65bfe-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3442.2.2.3.1EvidenceMap curriculum goals to evidence that students can show to demonstrate skills and knowledge._d4a65f00-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3442.2.2.3.2LinkagesLink evidence to learning experiences that develop the skills and knowledge._d4a6616c-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3442.2.2.3.3ConsentAcquaint yourself with the rules for consent._d4a6666c-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3442.2.3Special Considerations for Research -- In some cases, you may need to collect personally identifiable information (PII) in order to conduct research on your app or service. If your research involves human subjects (students, teachers, parents, or administrators, etc.), you should acquaint yourself with the rules for consent. The Department’s regulations can be found at 34 CFR Part 97. For more guidance on using human subjects in research, see Protection of Human Subjects in Research from the U.S. Department of Education.IterationIterate your product based on user feedback and experiences._d4a66ea0-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3442.3Use Data to Improve Your Design -- You have surveyed the field, gathered stakeholder input, applied lessons from the learning sciences, and you now have an early prototype. Next, you need to try it out, gather data systematically, and use the data to iterate on the design. Where feasible, you can multiply your efforts by doing this in a partnership with researchers and teachers (see Design Thinking as a Design Process on page 29). Whatever your approach, if you objectively examine the data, you will find that you can improve your product’s positive impact faster. Minimally Viable ProductCreate a Minimally Viable Product._d4a66ea1-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3442.3.1Iterate Design to Create a Minimally Viable Product -- User feedback is important at all stages of app and tool design. Iterative design is the process of using short feedback loops to define assumptions, create prototypes, and obtain early user feedback, first to validate the need for your app or tool (or invalidate it, saving time, money, and other resources) and later to improve its usability and impact. Educational apps and tools have different target audiences than those for the consumer market. Whether your app or tool is for a student, teacher, district, state, or national stakeholder, be aware that each has varying needs and operates under different constraints in the highly regulated and procedure-driven education domain. Using lean startup approaches, you can obtain feedback on your project and steer key development earlier. This reduces the risk of investing time, money, talent, and passion on an app or tool that may not work in an education context. You will find elements of the lean startup approach embraced at Education Enterpreneurs events (formerly Startup Weekend Edu, see event listings at EducationEntrepreneurs.co) as well as by incubators and accelerators. The lean startup approach follows the principles of Agile software development (see agilemethodology.org). It consists of a rapid-cycle efficacy trial driven by a customer development process and is used to verify that a need exists for the product and then to incrementally advance the product from that starting point. Short iterations and fast testing of assumptions drive product development more efficiently than long development times. A shorter development time leads to the creation of a minimum viable product (MVP), a bare-bones version with limited critical features to seek customer feedback. The MVP is then continually refined by testing assumptions against customer feedback and incorporating the results in the next version.Data CollectionCollect good data to make sure your app or tool is effective. _d4a677b0-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3442.3.2Rapid Feedback Through Built-in Measures of Effectiveness -- To iterate on your design, you need to collect good data to make sure your app or tool is effective. It’s often best to measure knowledge and attitudes before and after your app or tool is used. The U.S. Department of Education’s Expanding Evidence report details ways of documenting evidence of the effectiveness of digital learning tools. One example is built-in A/B tests (or short-cycle efficacy trials) in which one set of users tries one version of the app and another set tries another, and you compare the two groups to see which had better outcomes on a specific task. These built-in A/B tests for educational effectiveness can help optimize product impacts on behaviors internal to the product (e.g., number of items attempted or percentage correct on embedded assessments), but at some point developers need to find out whether they are also optimizing against the external measures that are valued in education (such as standardized tests, course completion and mastery of learning). Several platforms for education are testing these approaches with regional ed tech innovation hubs, as described in this EdWeek article on efficacy trials for personalized learning. Short feedback cycles can help you test such questions as “What are our criteria for going on to the next level?” or “Do we need interactive or static diagrams?” Demonstrate the benefits of your app or tool by showing it has an effect on an outcome that matters to schools. If you are asking a school to use your creation for a significant amount of instructional time, you will need evidence that it works before many schools will take such a risk. Demonstrating that your app or tool has an effect on student learning, engagement, struggling learners, minority subgroups, or other variables that schools are evaluated on and receive funding for will make a school much more likely to try your tool. Some developers make the mistake of assuming that time spent using their app or tool is evidence that students are learning rather than actually measuring student learning. If finding and building in measures of learning outcomes are not prioritized early, developers can slip into poor design choices because the feedback they use to measure success isn't about learning. In contrast, well-conceived, targeted data collection strategies make it possible to measure effects such as long-term retention and preparation for future learning. Depending on what your app or tool does, you will need to determine the best way to measure effectiveness. If you are trying to improve learning in academic subjects, in addition to demonstrating that you are aligned with relevant college and career ready standards, the tests, quizzes, and checks for understanding you provide must be validated against the measures educators care about: their own classroom assessments as well as standardized tests. If you are looking to support non-cognitive factors such as grit, persistence, and self-regulation, psychological measures of these traits are necessary. In measuring parental engagement, you will need to use before and after measures: How much were parents engaged before using your app or tool, and was your tool or app the cause of the increased engagement? You can see that collecting data to make claims about impact requires planning and persistence if the outcomes you are trying to affect are not immediate.EvaluationEvaluate Impact._d4a6792c-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3442.3.3Rigorous evaluation takes time and careful thought and often needs to be conducted by a third party to ensure credibility. To meet the highest standards, researchers will want to identify a comparison group that is not using your product but is similar in every way to help them estimate, and isolate, the effect of the use of your app or tool from other factors that may also influence the outcome of interest. For example, when researchers ask, “What was the impact of a tool on a particular outcome?” what they really mean is, “How did students do after participating in learning with the tool relative to how they would have done had they not participated?” Because researchers cannot observe how students would have done without the program, they select a set of similar control schools and students to use as a proxy. The idea is that if the control schools match the tool-using schools (aka, the treatment schools) closely, and if a difference is found in outcomes between tool-using and control schools, then that difference can be attributed to the tool and not some other factor such as school wealth or demographic disparities. In most cases, the more similar the treatment and control schools are, the stronger the case that the tool or app made the crucial difference. Random assignment to create the comparison groups is the preferred approach but is not always feasible, so other matching techniques are often used. It is important to understand and acknowledge their limitations when making claims about the impact or effectiveness of your app or tool. Gauge carefully how much and when to invest or when to partner with an organization to evaluate impact. For example, if you expect that students will use your app or tool on their own time, on the bus, at home, and it’s free, evaluation could be considered low stakes/low risk. You should still collect data on how it is used but will not need to make an airtight case for its educational impact. If you expect that your solution will be adopted in the classroom as a regular practice, however, the burden of providing evidence of positive effects is substantially higher, and you will need to anticipate a substantial investment in demonstrating effectiveness. In the latter case, you are entering a complex school ecosystem with a host of conditions and practices that your app or tool may be disrupting. These factors can include classroom cultures that teachers have established, the teacher’s role as an information provider and assessor, and norms for technology use. If you are trying to alter standard education practice, you may find that your solution morphs when implemented in the current system because of the momentum of existing practice pushing against the changes you envision. Developing technology innovations using effectiveness research studies is often very challenging for developers because the studies generally take a long time to complete. By the time a large randomized controlled trial (RCT) is complete and reported, the technology is likely to have been updated multiples times. To move to the market more quickly, short-cycle efficacy trials can provide a research feedback loop with minimal development delays. It may take some give and take for teachers and school officials to figure out how to adapt your app or tool to their specific needs and conditions. If you’re interested in educational theories about how teachers adopt technology, look into this explanation of TPACK (technological pedagogical content knowledge) or SAMR (substitution, augmentation, modification, and redefinition), which help teachers think about their levels of technology adoption. Once you have a successful instance of seamless adoption and demonstrated impact, convincing users becomes much easier. Privacy & SecurityEnsure Privacy and Protect Student Data._d4a67c88-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3442.3.4While this guide will introduce the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), and other federal laws, keep in mind that FERPA is a floor for privacy protection, and many states have enacted more restrictive student privacy rules. It is best to assume that the student information you collect in your app is statutorily confidential, unless it is de-identified, and to build privacy and data security features into your app. The last thing any developer wants is for your privacy practices to spark a controversy in school districts that use your product. Transparency & NecessityBe transparent and minimize the data your product collects by asking which data points are absolutely necessary._d4a684b2-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3442.3.4.1As a start, you should minimize the data your product collects by asking which data points are absolutely necessary. For those that make the cut, prepare a rationale for the inclusion of each data point so that you can make your case to educators and families. Rather than waiting for questions or potential criticism of your data collection, be transparent with schools and families about what you are doing with student data, why the data have educational value, and what safeguards are in place to protect the data. You can post this information on your website, as well as write your terms of service agreements in plain language. Your public information should outline how your product aligns with state and local privacy statutes, as well as the federal statutes outlined below. In preparing your terms of service, you might consider the Model Terms of Service guidance issued by the U.S. Department of Education. Student Data & PrivacyKeep children safe while using innovative technology services._d4a6880e-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3442.3.4.2ChildrenWhile not every app or tool aimed at schools is intended for student use, many learning apps do rely on the use of student data in one form or another. Ed tech developers must be aware of how data privacy, confidentiality, and security practices affect students; privacy laws and best practices exist to keep children safe while using innovative technology services. It is critical that software developers understand these laws and practices and implement appropriate safeguards for student data. Not considering them is irresponsible and in some cases illegal. Educational RecordsEnable parents to amend their children's education records and protect personally identifiable information in education records. _d4a68b6a-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3442.3.4.3ParentsStudentsFERPA (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) gives parents the right to access and seek to amend their children's education records as well as protects personally identifiable information in education records. These parental rights transfer to the student when the student turns 18 years old or attends a postsecondary institution at any age. (Students to whom FERPA rights have transferred are termed "eligible students.") FERPA generally requires that prior written consent of parents or eligible students be obtained before schools can share personally identifiable information from a student’s education records unless an exception applies. If your product is being used in a school, you should review PTAC's Protecting Student Privacy While Using Online Educational Services: Requirements and Best Practices for guidance regarding legal requirements and best practices. It is important to note that schools and teachers that use apps with a "click wrap" terms of service agreement must still comply with FERPA. Schools that use apps will almost always be contracting with app developers using the school official exception, meaning that the developer can only use the student education records in accord with their arrangement with the school – and the school has to have a "legitimate educational interest" in entering into the arrangement. Marketing unrelated products to students and parents is not a legitimate educational interest. App developers should explore whether using de-identified data for research and product development is a possibility, as de-identified data is not covered by FERPA. Keep in mind, however, that it can be challenging to truly de-identify student data, and de-identification typically will require removing the school code, as well as name, date of birth, and other more obvious identifiers. More details can be found at the U.S. Department of Education FERPA website.Child PrivacyObtain parental consent and avoid improper tracking of online information about children. _d4a6920e-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3442.3.4.4ChildrenCOPPA (the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act) governs online collection of personal information from children under age 13. For example, before an app can collect any information from students under 13, "verifiable parental consent" is required. The Federal Trade Commission, which enforces COPPA, has said that school officials can act in the capacity of a parent to provide consent to sign students up for online educational programs at school. The general guidance is that software companies are allowed to track students within their program, but COPPA prevents them from tracking those students across the Internet. More details can be found on the FTC's COPPA compliance FAQs.InternetBlock or filter Internet access to pictures that are obscene, pornographic, or harmful to minors, and monitor the online activities of minors._d4a6961e-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3442.3.4.5SchoolsLibrariesMinorsCIPA (the Children's Internet Protection Act) imposes several requirements on schools or libraries that receive E-rate discounts for Internet access. Schools and libraries must certify that they have an Internet safety policy that includes technology protection measures. These protection measures must block or filter Internet access to pictures that are obscene, pornographic, or harmful to minors, and schools must also monitor the online activities of minors. Because most schools receive E-rate funds, they are required to educate their students about appropriate online behavior, including on social networking websites and in chat rooms, and to build cyberbullying awareness. Particularly if your app involves networking among students, keep that in mind and consider ways that you can help schools comply. More details caon be found on the Federal Communications Commission’s CIPA FAQs.Pupil RightsProtect the rights of parents and students._d4a6993e-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3442.3.4.6PupilsParentsStudentsPPRA (the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment) is intended to protect the rights of parents and students including, but not limited to, requiring that public elementary and secondary schools make instructional materials available for parents' inspection if those materials will be used in connection with a survey, analysis, or evaluation funded by the U.S. Department of Education and in which their children will participate. The PPRA requires that public elementary and secondary schools obtain parental consent before minor students participate in certain types of Department-funded surveys, analyses, or evaluations. The PPRA also requires that public elementary and secondary schools provide parents, upon request, a right to review any survey created by a third party before the survey is administered or distributed by a school to a student and generally requires them to provide notice to parents along with the opportunity to opt their children out of activities involving the collection, disclosure, or use of personal information collected from students for the purpose of marketing or for selling that information (or otherwise providing that information to others for that purpose). More details can be found at the Department's PPRA website. Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) also provides confidentiality protections, and will often additionally protect information for students with disabilities. TrialsConduct short-cycle efficacy trials to gather data that builds a case to support your product's ability to solve the education problem or dilemma you're attacking._d4a6a0c8-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3442.4(Given a longer time frame and greater resources, you may be able to conduct other trials and tests subject to specific regulations.)Networking & FundingFind people who can help you and create a sustainable model to support the work you want to accomplish._d4a6a4f6-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3443EdSurgeWhile there are many resources for learning how to move your idea from inception to distribution, two places to start are the set of insider tips on the edtechhandbook.com website by experienced entrepreneurs Michael Staton and Mick Hewitt and this EdSurge article from the founders of Wikispaces giving their perspective on the fundamental principles that are needed to succeed in educational technology. https://www.edsurge.com/n/how-to-succeed-in-ed-techMichael StatonMick HewittEven the best ideas benefit from the vetting and support of experienced people who can contribute advice, expertise, and early financial resources until you achieve self-sufficiency. This section describes how to find people who can help you shape your idea, reach your target audience, and create a sustainable model to support the work you want to accomplish.PeopleFind Like-Minded People._d4a6a834-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3443.1Community is essential to ed tech entrepreneurs for idea sharing, funding opportunities, and scaling. Several organizations are creating thriving communities committed to harnessing the power of the technology to transform the way students and lifelong learners achieve their educational goals. You can find them via meetups, hackathons, startup weekends, social networks, and (un)conferences. HackathonsParticipate in education-related developer events._d4a6aef6-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3443.1.1Education hackathons are education-related developer events often organized by co-working spaces or incubators and accelerators. Sometimes universities will also sponsor hackathons through their business or education programs. If you can’t find an education hackathon in your region, consider hosting your own following the guidelines at edtechhandbook.com.Startup WeekendsBring together educators, entrepreneurs, developers, and designers to design and validate an ed tech solution over the course of a weekend._d4a6b324-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3443.1.2Education EntrepreneursEducatorsEntrepreneursDevelopersDesignersEducation Entrepreneurs Startup Weekends are 54-hour events that bring together educators, entrepreneurs, developers, and designers to design and validate an ed tech solution over the course of a weekend. These events are a great way to determine if your idea has enough validity for you to continue building. If you can’t find a Startup Weekend Education near you, consider organizing your own using guidelines from EducationEntrepreneurs.co.MeetupsOrganize ed tech meetups._d4a6b676-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3443.1.3Ed tech meetups, like other meetups, are open meetings with a social impact component followed by speakers, panelists, etc., who are drawn from the local community. Held as often as weekly in some cities, ed tech meetups can be informal opportunities for educators and entrepreneurs to explore topics at the intersection of education and technology, to learn about the technologies supporting teachers, and to hear from teachers about problems in education. You can find ed tech meetups in your area by searching meetup.com for for keywords like "ed tech" or "education technology." If you're considering organizing your own meetup, you may find the article "Bringing the Baltimore Charm to Your Edtech Meetup" helpful. EdCampsEngage in discussion and learn from each other._d4a6bd42-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3443.1.4EducatorsEdCamps are designed and driven by educator participants. Collectively the group begins the day by determining what they want to discuss and learn from each other and then organizing sessions throughout the day on these topics. EdCamps can be great opportunities to learn from educators where they struggle, where their pain points are, and what tools they might need. It is important to respect the culture of EdCamps; these events are not sales opportunities but rather learning opportunities. The EdCamp Foundation offers suggestions for organizing your own EdCamp.UnconferencesParticipate in professional learning events that reject the format of traditional conference and professional development experiences._d4a6c17a-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3443.1.5Unconferences, like EdCamps, are participant-driven professional learning events that reject the format of traditional conference and professional development experiences. In typical unconferences, the participants set the agenda and topics, and the event includes open time for discussions and collaboration. Other ways to connect and keep up with ed tech, such as at traditional conferences and on social networks, are listed later in this guide.Incubators & AcceleratorsSpeed up the process of creating and distributing a tool or service._d4a6c5ee-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3443.2Incubators and accelerators help speed up the process of creating and distributing a tool or service. Both provide mentorship and a community workspace for participants. Some support recruiting and developing strategic partnerships. Both typically offer participants reduced-cost services (e.g., cloud web services, legal, marketing, graphic design, etc.) through partner companies. However there are also some key differences between the two. Accelerators provide seed funding and media exposure, often to more experienced entrepreneurs. Accelerators prepare participants to for a major milestone -- usually the ability to attract a large investment round. Accelerators take small amounts of equity in return for funding and mentorship. The goal is to scale fast and rapidly increase the value of your tool or product over a course of three- to four-months. Incubators, on the other hand, bring in an external management team to foster an idea that was developed internally. The goal of incubators is to help build a company. Incubators take little or no equity in the company, which is an important consideration if your goal is to retain control of your business or prepare to participate in an accelerator program. The table that follows shows the general distinctions between incubators and accelerators. Education-focused incubators and accelerators have sprung up in recent years. EdSurge maintains a list of education incubators and accelerators in North America. Developers with a novel idea for solving an education problem are often drawn to an incubator or accelerator for quick capital, access to schools, access to investors, software development expertise, or experience in the complex world of school distribution. It can be difficult to be accepted into an incubator, and being part of one does not guarantee success. Consider your needs and speak with startup founders who exited an incubator about their experiences before you join. Funding OpportunitiesObtain funding to continue to develop your app or tool and scale it to serve more users. _d4a6cc6a-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3443.3Other Funding Opportunities -- Once your app or tool is beyond a minimally viable product with a small set of users, you may need additional funding to continue to develop it and scale it to serve more users. CrowdfundingRaise money by asking for small contributions from many supporters._d4a6d02a-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3443.3.1CrowdTiltIndieGoGoKickstarterCrowdsUniteCrowdfunding is a way to raise money by asking for small contributions from many supporters, often those in your personal network. In return, project supporters typically receive early versions of your tool or other related items. A modest donation may result in a free T-shirt, whereas a more substantial donation may result in a free subscription to your app or service. Crowdfunding can also be an effective way to reach out to potential beta testers. There are a variety of crowdfunding platforms to choose from, including CrowdTilt, IndieGoGo, and Kickstarter. Each has its own style of campaigns and backers, so you'll have to do some homework to select the one that best fits you and your tool. Keep in mind that the models are often all or nothing, so if you don't meet your funding goal, you might walk away empty-handed. You can also check out CrowdsUnite, a review site for crowdfunding platforms. GrantsApply for grant and innovation funding._d4a6d962-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3443.3.2Small Business AdministrationThe Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program is a federal initiative that "enables small businesses to explore their technological potential and provides the incentive to profit from its commercialization" (as described on the SBIR website). Department of EducationThrough SBIR, 11 federal agencies, including the Department of Education, fund R&D projects that stimulate technological innovation, address national needs, and strengthen small businesses. The Department's SBIR program provides $7.5 million a year to develop and evaluate commercially viable education technology products to improve student learning and teacher instruction. Examples of companies funded by SBIR include Filament Games, Sokikom, Teachley, Triad Interactive Media, Fluidity Software, and Zaption, to name a few. See this Education Week article and the ED SBIR website for a deeper look. You can also explore some of the many games SBIR has funded in this playlist.Challenge.govChallenge.gov is a government portal that shows opportunities from across government agencies where new solutions for education are needed. Challenge.gov links innovators with funding opportunities to promote innovation as well as increased capital formation in the field. i3 ProgramThe U.S. Department of Education’s Investing in Innovation (i3) program has funded 92 projects seeking to provide innovative solutions to common education challenges. Funding for innovative uses of technology can also come from the federal Race to the Top District Competitions. Institute of Education SciencesThe U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences research grants provide awards for $1.5 million or more for technology development, and up to $3 million in efficacy evaluations of education technology across many content areas. Awardees are typically academic researchers, but startup developers are eligible to apply and have won awards in recent years. You may consider partnering with an academic researcher to strengthen your application.Foundation CenterThe Foundation Center's Foundation Directory can be a source for connecting your product and team to organizations with a similar interest in solving the education problems you’re solving.FoundationsLocal foundations may invest in underserved schools in their area with ed tech solutions that target critical needs that align with the foundations' mission. This can provide more mature products with important exposure in schools.Grants and innovation funds can also be resources for development or testing in the field. Although the application process is more involved than crowdfunding, grants can offer a chance to work more formally with new partners (such as research institutions or school districts). Here are a few examples of government innovation programs and foundations ... Angel InvestmentRaise private capital._d4a6d963-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3443.3.3Angel InvestorsAngelListAngelList offers the most comprehensive platform for researching and connecting with angel investors. Investors' CircleThere are also angel networks that focus on social impact investing, such as Investors' Circle. Personal FriendsIn general, early angels will come from your personal network.Family MembersAngel investors are good to connect with when you want to raise private capital to build your startup (angel investors can include friends and family).Venture CapitalSeek venture capital and institutional investment._d4a6dd0e-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3443.3.4Venture CapitalistsVenture capitalists and institutional investors have been eager to join the ed tech trend in the past few years. Institutional InvestorsNewSchools Venture FundNewSchools Venture Fund compiled information on "Who's Funding K-12 EdTech?" and posted the article "A Closer Look at K12 Ed Tech Venture Funding in 2013" detailing recent ed tech funding.EdSurgeIn addition, EdSurge maintains a list of investors interested in ed tech.OverfundingAvoid overfunding a company too soon._d4a6e01a-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3443.4While you should raise as much money as your company needs to achieve major proof-points/milestones, overfunding a company too soon can also have its own risks. More investment money leads to more investment terms and complexities for founders, issues in receiving future funding, and a risk of misappropriating funding early on. The rules around a venture captial (VC) investment are usually a little more complex, and large portions of equity and control can be taken by the firm. Consider lower risk sources of funding such as angel investments, crowdfunding, and the lowest possible, private and public sector seed grants. Moving a product to scale once it has shown traction in the marketplace requires significant capital to keep the business growing, to strengthen marketing and outreach plans, and to further strengthen the technology so that it is sufficiently robust to be used by the masses. During this phase, many developers seek venture capital or angel investments in exchange for a portion of the rights to their technology to cover the costs associated with further developing it to fit the needs of individual schools and to handle larger volumes of users and data.Distribution & UsageGet Apps and Tools to Users._d4a6e646-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3444So you have a great app, but how do you get it in the hands of those who can benefit from it? This section provides insight into selection and procurement process.Procurement_d4a6ea24-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3444.1Digital Learning Now! The Smart Series Guide to EdTech Procurement from Digital Learning Now! elaborates on the "12 Rules of Smart Ed Tech Procurement." Aimed at state and district leaders, it offers many key questions for them to consider before authorizing a purchase, along with advice on ways to simplify the purchasing process, and gives developers insight into what districts care about.Digital Promise"Improving Ed Tech Purchasing Guide" from Digital Promise, illuminates the thought process of potential users and highlights the challenges in the often complicated process. District/School Procurement -- School district procurement practices tend to be lengthy, which can be challenging for new app developers. Alternatives_d4a6ee02-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3444.2Text Book PublishersFor example, SBIR awardee Children's Progress developed a math and reading assessment that was distributed by many leading textbook publishers ...Fluidity SoftwareFluidity Software's mathematics software program is distributed by original equipment manufacturers.Original Equipment ManufacturersEd Tech StartupsImplications and Alternatives in the Procurement Process -- Traditional procurement processes have drawbacks for schools and for ed tech innovators alike. If a district determines at the end of a lengthy procurement process that it selected the wrong vendor or approach, it most likely requires starting over and losing precious time, possibly postponing implementation to the following school year. Difficulty changing contracts once they are approved can also stall innovation. Forced to define work six or more months before it starts, districts often cannot nimbly adjust initiatives based on new technology or innovative services. At the same time, the procurement process can be a time when districts have an opportunity to think through their priorities and requirements (for example, the need for the product to interoperate with a single sign-on solution and to provide data sharing and interoperability). If a district or school is unsure of product capabilities, it can issue an RFI (request for information) to help it assess what products can do. Furthermore, proposals that come in during the bidding process can provide valuable information, such as price comparison, licensing options, and results from other districts. On top of developing new products, small ed tech startups often lack the capacity to build large sales and marketing teams. To more efficiently distribute their apps to schools, many developers pursue licensing agreements with larger partners that already have relationships with schools. Decision MakingImprove Decision Making._d4a6f4d8-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3444.3Ways to Improve Decision Making -- There are things that app developers can do to support schools in making decisions about which digital tools and apps to consider. Here are some possible strategies.ChampionsFind an internal champion._d4a6f8de-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3444.3.1If internal champions believe in the importance of the app or tool, they can help make it a priority to get the purchase approved. To do this, introduce the app or tool to district leadership sooner rather than later and leverage teachers’ enthusiasm to arrange meetings with key decision makers. Provide these champions with easily sharable information (one-page flyer, short video, etc.) to help them advocate for your tool.Union SupportGain union support._d4a6fc26-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3444.3.2Teachers UnionsUnion LeadersFor apps that address a specific teacher need or help make better use of teacher time, teachers unions may have influence on procurement. Make sure the union (through the representing teachers) supports the purchase. Consider meeting with union leaders early in the process. BudgetSecure a place in the budget._d4a704a0-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3444.3.3Districts often have categorical and general funds that must be spent before the end of the fiscal year. If the purchase of your app or tool is not budgeted in the current fiscal year (often set by March of the prior year), consider providing professional development services, creating a pilot project, or otherwise engaging in groundwork with any available funds to improve your chances of being included in the next year’s budget.On Site RequirementsEnsure you and your team have met requirements to be on site._d4a709aa-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3444.3.4District requirements for employment and/or volunteering will most likely apply if you or someone from your team needs to be inside a school for implementation support. Check district requirements early to have time to make sure, for example, that each individual who will be on site has undergone a background check (including fingerprinting). Check for insurance provisions and requirements to comply with labor laws, such as prevailing wage.Contract PreworkDo as much contract prework as possible. _d4a70d2e-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3444.3.5Contract terms and approvals can cause delays, so be prepared to negotiate early and be ready once a contract is negotiated. Learn the district’s procurement policy and recognize the steps and timelines involved. Prequalify as a vendor for the district. Review standard contract terms and negotiate modifications early. Understand the nuances in both professional service agreements and software licensing agreements (per user, per device, site license, per teacher per classroom, per student, group license, and volume purchase). If a contract must be approved by the board of education, determine when the board meets and the lead time required for getting on the agenda. PricingPrice your app or tool strategically._d4a716b6-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3444.3.6Different threshold amounts require purchases to be competitively bid and approved by the board of education. Be aware of the cutoffs for competitive bids and approval and be strategic about pricing and selling within district policy.Third-Party StorefrontsDistribute Through Third-Party Storefront._d4a71c06-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3444.3.7Many educational tools and apps can be distributed to schools directly through a digital storefront (such the Apple iTunes Store or Google Play). This typically requires students or teachers to have an account set up on each device but can be streamlined through the use of device management software. If multiple students are using a single device, tracking student progress or app access can be tricky. Some software solutions (such as eSpark) help manage multiple students using a single device.Sustainability & GrowthThink about sustainability from the beginning._d4a71f62-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3444.4SchoolsTeachersStartupsEdSurgeA panel of seasoned entrepreneurs discussed lessons learned with various sustainability models at an ed tech meetup in 2013, and EdSurge reported the results in the article EdTech Business Models that Work: Of the companies represented [Pathbrite, Big Universe, Edmodo, and Global English], only Edmodo is following the Facebook-LinkedIn model of building a huge audience with support from hefty venture capital. Pathbrite Big UniverseEdmodoGlobal EnglishAndreas QuandtEven so, Andreas Quandt, head of product and analytics at Edmodo (and formerly with Facebook), noted that entrepreneurs should realize that ed tech isn't like the consumer web: "You should not go into this space for financial reasons," he cautioned. "You need to have the vision and conviction that you can build the right product and do everything right. And you will need a lot of patience and perseverance and grit." With that caution in mind, the following are some common approaches to building sustainability for your tools and apps in the education space.Sustaining and Growing an App or Tool -- It takes effort for schools and teachers to adopt new apps and tools into their technology infrastructure or their classroom practices, so it's important for startups to think about sustainability from the beginning. Teacher or Parent PurchasingOffer a basic version of your app for free and encourage teachers or parents to purchase the premium version with added features._d4a72818-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3444.4.1TeachersStudentsParentsFreemium for teachers, students, or parents. Offer a basic version of your app for free and encourage teachers or parents to purchase the premium version with added features. The advantage is you can build a large customer base through the free version, with the downside being the need to convert enough users to purchasing the premium version to make ongoing development sustainable. Also, if teachers or parents are downloading an app or tool to try it out, the freemium version should give them enough information about how it works to be able to make a confident purchasing decision.School PurchasingOffer your app or tool for free to teachers or students and then charge schools/ districts for the premium version._d4a72d22-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3444.4.2SchoolsFreemium for schools. Offer your app or tool for free to teachers or students and then charge schools/ districts for the premium version, which could come with additional reporting or integration to enterprise data systems that could be useful at the school or district level. Parent PurchasingMake your business sustainable through parent purchasing._d4a730b0-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3444.4.3ParentsDirect to parents. With the proliferation of mobile devices and the ease and familiarity of purchasing and downloading apps from education app storefronts, making your business sustainable through parent purchasing is a possibility. LicensingMake arrangements with platform providers or content aggregators to offer your app._d4a73862-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3444.4.4Platform ProvidersContent AggregatorsLicense to other companies. Consider making an arrangement with a platform provider or content aggregator to offer your app to students, teachers, and/or schools through an existing distribution channel.Enterprise/Institutional PurchasingFocus on the region in which you are based and generate referrals from early implementations._d4a73e16-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3444.4.5Enterprise or institution. Enterprise sales are familiar in the education marketplace but can be difficult for startups with a small sales force and can take a long time. Focusing on the region in which you are based and generating referrals from early implementations can help you connect with decision makers in other regions. Value-Added ServicesOffering your tool or app for free and offer services such as technical support, professional development, or analytics._d4a741c2-deec-11e4-8b46-6008548ce3444.4.6Offering your tool or app for free and offering services such as technical support, professional development, or analytics in connection with your app or tool can make it more appealing to the education sector. This can be a way to provide sustainability for the development of your tool without charging for the app itself.Software Interoperability & Open Data_97c5f2fe-e05d-11e4-88c1-611f548ce3445xAPIThe Experience API (xAPI) -- When students are learning across multiple technology applications, that information is scattered among many different systems. xAPI is an approach to describe learning data between systems in a uniform way. xAPI helps collect experiences from online learning activities (such as watching a video or completing a quiz). These data can then be used to help other learning systems give students a more personalized experience, as well as help a teacher understand a student’s unique needs based on his or her activity across multiple learning tools. Because xAPI is simply a protocol to describe learning actions (John watched a video, Kelly completed a quiz, etc.), any type of learning experience can be placed into this format. This means that it could be used to account for more social and emotional skill sets (resilience, perseverance, etc.), which is a potentially big improvement over a reliance on hard outcome data in most digital systems. xAPI is available under an open license from the Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative.Advanced Distributed Learning InitiativeLearning Resource Metadata Initiative (LRMI)Searching for digital content is much easier when resources are tagged: Recipes, travel directions, and airplane ticket information all have common fields (e.g., who, date, location, subject, publisher) that can improve search results for users. The Learning Resource Metadata Initiative (LRMI) is designed to make it easier to publish and discover digital learning resources through the use of common tags. Because learning resources have fields (such as curricular standards alignment) that are not found in other web searches, LRMI was created to describe those unique educational elements. LRMI was built as an extension to Schema.org, a metadata vocabulary developed as a collaboration among Bing, Google, Yahoo!, and other organizations to encourage the use of metadata to make it easier to find web resources. The LRMI metadata vocabulary is based on contributions from experts and organizations that have worked with metadata and metatagging since the early 1990s and thus comprises the best of existing systems rather than a reinvention. This metadata framework enables creators of learning resources to tag them consistently and effectively.Schema.orga metadata vocabulary developed as a collaboration among Bing, Google, Yahoo!, and other organizations to encourage the use of metadata to make it easier to find web resources.Learning RegistryThe Learning Registry is a tool for collecting and sharing information about digital learning resources. Its goal is to help educators and students access the right learning content for their specific needs. It does this by providing a common location to post information about which learning resources are relevant to which users. Similar to how a library card catalog provides information about all of the books in the library in one place, the Learning Registry provides information about digital learning resources across the internet in one place. Posts to the Registry may include the author and date created, as well as the curricular standards to which the content is aligned. The Learning Registry also records usage data for each object (e.g. 543 eighth-grade science teachers used the attached video last month). Like the card catalog, the Learning Registry does not store the actual learning resources, just information about them with links to the location of the resource itself. App developers can use the data from the Learning Registry to recommend digital learning materials to users without having to collect all of the content themselves. Sites like My Digital Chalkboard and Illinois Shared Learning Resources use data from the Learning Registry to helps users find relevant resources. My Digital ChalkboardIllinois Shared Learning ResourcesMyData InitiativeThe MyData Initiative seeks for every student (or parents of a younger students, as appropriate) to have access to his or her own academic data, wherever the data are stored, in both machine-readable and human-readable format. As the MyData website explains: This is possible through the participation of schools and software developers who enable students to download their own data to create a personal learning profile that they can keep with them throughout their learning career. In addition, developers are encouraged to create customized services and tools for students based on the information available in their personal learning profile. This data may range from classes taken to their federal financial aid (FAFSA) details. Students can simply retain this information for their own records or benefit by sharing select pieces of it with the ever-growing network of applications being built by the private sector to help students make better choices about which classes to take, which colleges to attend, and how to pay for tuition. As one example described in this article, "Personalizing Analytics through the Education and Career Positioning System," the MyData Button was used as part of an Iowa college and career guidance system that enables individuals to design, simulate, and create their education-to-career choices and pathways and, when they desire, to download all their personal data records.Open Badge InitiativeThe Open Badge Initiative is an example of an innovative infrastructure for colleges and industry organizations to award microcredentials to students who demonstrate proficiency in specific competencies. A student may earn a particular competency badge by demonstrating prior experience or by participating in courses or informal learning experiences. When badges are delivered using the Open Badge specification, a learner can collect badges from any number of different organizations and showcase them in one single place. Eventually, employers may use Open Badges to search for new employees who have specific competencies, leveling the playing field for job seekers while better matching skill sets with positions. Sources of Education Data and ResourcesThe open education movement has made data about education and learning materials freely available to be used to improve learning experiences for students everywhere. Open Educational Resources (OER)Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under a license that permits their free use and repurposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses and textbooks, down to individual images, videos, or assessments. The OER movement became popular when Massachusetts Institute of Technology launched MIT Open Courseware in October 2002, making all of the materials used in the teaching of MIT courses available for free on the Web. Washington, Utah, Illinois, and California have all set up programs to help their educators access and share OER.Data.govOpen Educational Data -- The open data movement provides datasets that can be freely used in the development of tools and apps for education. Data.gov is a repository of nearly 300 open educational datasets from the federal governement, ranging from names and addresses of all schools in the country, to dropout rates by college, to areas of teacher shortages. These datasets can be used to create apps that help students make informed choices about college, visualize educational trends, improve career planning, and compare educational institutions. The following summarizes some particularly useful education datasets on data.gov.Integrated Postsecondary Data System (IPEDS)The Integrated Postsecondary Data System (IPEDS) gathers information from more than 7,000 U.S. colleges and universities. Institutions report data on enrollment, program completions, graduation rates, faculty and staff, finances, institutional prices, and financial aid. IPEDS offers information about college access, comparative pricing, graduation rates, degree types, instructional costs, finances, and on-campus crime. Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC)Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) collects education access and equity data by race/ethnicity, sex, English proficiency, and disability. The collection captures elementary and secondary school data on education access and opportunities, including access to college- and career-readiness courses, teacher equity, school expenditures, retention, access to pre-K programs, athletics, restraint and seclusion, bullying and harassment, and discipline. The CRDC also provides information on athletics and teacher salaries. Common Core of Data (CCD)Common Core of Data (CCD) provides an official listing of all public elementary and secondary schools and school districts in the nation. The CCD provides information on student population characteristics by gender, race, and grade; the number of schools that opened and closed each school year in every state and school district; the percentage of students attending charter schools; the teacher-to-student ratio; high school completion rates; employee salary and benefit information; and per-pupil expenditures. EDFactsEDFacts is a U.S. Department of Education initiative to put performance data at the center of policy, management, and budget decisions for all K–12 education programs. It is the central collection system and national repository for federal program information on state, district, and school performance measures. EDFacts provides data on the percentage of students reaching grade-level proficiency in reading or math, the percentage of a ninth-grade cohort that graduated in four years, and the proportion of a district’s Title I schools that have been identified as needing focused attention or improvement. Federal Student Aid Data CenterThe Federal Student Aid Data Center is a repository for information on the more than 9 million Pell Grants and over 23 million student loans disbursed annually. This data center provides institutional-level data on how much each postsecondary institution receives in the student aid programs each year, along with performance information like the student loan default rate. It also contains information on earnings and loan repayment for vocationally oriented programs. National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS)The National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) is the U.S. Department of Education's central database for student aid. NSLDS receives data from schools, guaranty agencies, the Direct Loan program, and other Department of Education programs. NSLDS Student Access provides a centralized view of Federal Student Aid so that aid recipients can access their federal student loan and/or grant data. It also offers an implementation of the MyData service to enable download of personal data. NSLDS contains extensive data on federal grants and loans provided to individual students along with their background information. There are a variety of potential applications for these data, such as student financial and educational advisement, personal management of financial aid, search assistance for supplementary financial aid, or services targeted to financial aid recipients.U.S. Department of EducationThe U.S. Department of Education encourages the use of open government data to develop tools and apps to help students and their families. From time to time the Department hosts events that bring diverse stakeholders together to brainstorm ideas for app development based on open data. Over a course of 90 days the participants are encouraged to design new apps or integrate data sets into existing apps in new ways. Products are then displayed at a Datapalooza event to highlight the apps and tools that use open data in helpful ways. Visit tech.ed.gov/datapalooza to see examples of apps, or visit tech.ed.gov/open-education to learn more about the Department's open education initiatives.Schools have a lot of data -- everything from student grades to library management to bus schedules or transcript generators. Often these data are stored in a variety of stand-alone systems that don’t share their data in a standardized way. This means that the same data, such as teacher names or student schedules, must be entered manually into each system that needs the data to function properly. New tools and apps may find it challenging to exchange data with existing school data systems. The situation worsens with the increased use of online learning systems that depend on student data to personalize instruction and provide reporting to teachers. As teachers and students go online for more of their teaching and learning needs, the number of systems they rely on increases. This makes it very difficult for teachers and students to see a comprehensive picture of their learning progress or know where students are struggling and for teachers to give them effective support. There are some approaches in place to address these challenges. For example, the Guide to EdTech Procurement from Digital Learning Now! recommends leveraging industry standards for single sign-on and data interoperabilitySingle Sign-OnEnable single sign-on._97c601a4-e05d-11e4-88c1-611f548ce3445.1Apps and tools can be built to enable single sign-on -- allowing teachers and students to log in to all their applications with a single password. This is similar to how general Internet users may log in to a variety of sites using their Facebook or Google account, only in the case of students the accounts would be provided by the school. A teacher teaching six classes of students a day with multiple apps and tools needs a way to manage learning content, attendance, student progress, and grades. Students and teachers having to keep track of a different user name and password to log in to each system wastes time and creates frustration. In addition, if all the different learning systems don't know who a student is, they can’t help schools create a complete picture of that student’s learning. For all these reasons, solutions involving single sign-on are needed for teachers and students to access all their technology solutions though a single log-in credential. Many districts are even moving from preferring single sign-on to requiring it.Interoperable SystemsEnable teachers and students to seamlessly use more than one app._97c60b04-e05d-11e4-88c1-611f548ce3445.2Khan AcademyIMS Global Learning ConsortiumNo one app or tool can provide all the functionality that every teacher, student, or parent may need. Enabling teachers and students to seamlessly use more than one app goes beyond just having a common log-in. Basic information, like student schedules or courses completed, may need to be shared from one system to another to provide the best learning experience. For example, if a student demonstrates the mastery of a new concept in Khan Academy, that might be reflected in an app that the teacher or parents use to track student progress. One common format for web services in education is the Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) standard. The IMS Global Learning Consortium develops the LTI standard, and information about the specification can be found on its website. This standard allows learning management systems to exchange data with other learning tools and applications approved for use by the school, so students can have a seamless learning experience even if they are using apps created by different developers. App developers should also consider offering users the ability to export information in case they need to use it in another tool or app. Google Takeout is an example of this, allowing users to export any of their data from a Google tool for use on other tools if they choose. If app and tool developers can come together to create and use open standards so that teachers can use any platform in tandem with any additional applications that they find useful, this would greatly reduce barriers to empowering teachers to select the best tools for their needs. Data Interoperability & StandardsUse common data formats._97c617fc-e05d-11e4-88c1-611f548ce3445.3PESCEd-Fi AllianceRegardless of whether you enable data sharing through an existing or custom API (application program interface) or through a data export option, in order to be useful the data need to be in a common format. For example, when transferring student data between systems, should a system indicate gender as "M" and "F" or "male" and "female"? Should the name of the field be "student_name" or "first_name"? These are essential items to define if we are going to allow students to seamlessly move between learning apps. Fortunately, data interoperability frameworks have been established to ensure data are presented in usable formats. The following are examples of some existing standards and frameworks that address the issue of data interoperability: * The Common Education Data Standards (CEDS) are a good anchor to help center the debate, but they do not specify how the data are actually transferred. * The Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) is an open data sharing specification that does this. SIF has an XML specification for modeling educational data and service-oriented architecture (SOA) specifications for sharing the data between institutions. * Organizations such as the nonprofit umbrella organization PESC are busy working with many kinds of organizations to unify educational data. * Ed-Fi Alliance is working to create common data standards for communication between educational tools. Ed-Fi is different from SIF because it is focused on providing educators with dashboard starter kits showing real-time data displays. Ed-Fi and SIF both align with existing local systems as well as federal standards such as CEDS, and they can both help lower the time and money spent on state- and federal-level reporting, if implemented effectively. There are also some new alternative approaches to sharing data, discussed below, such as Experience API (xAPI).2015-04-11http://tech.ed.gov/files/2015/04/Developer-Toolkit.pdfOwenAmburOwen.Ambur@verizon.net