Administrative software provider Skyward announced it has become a Google for Education Build Partner. As a Google for Education Build Partner, Skyward will soon enable educators to conduct real-time grade syncs from Google Classroom to Skyward’s Gradebook solution in a beta program. 

Keeping student data synced between Google Classroom and student information systems has been a key issue facing administrators and instructors. With this collaboration, school districts using Skyward’s SIS will be able to sync assignments and grades from Google Classroom directly into Skyward’s Gradebook solution. 

The integration between Skyward and Google Classroom will also eliminate the need for double grade entries, reduce the number of tools teachers need to master, and lessen the possibility for error in grade entries. 

For more information, visit www.skyward.com/k-12 and fill out the interest form for the Classroom grade sync beta program here.

IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS Global/IMS), the non-profit collaborative advancing edtech interoperability, innovation, and learning impact announced today the availability of Learning Tools Interoperability® (LTI®) version 1.3, a significant update to the core standard, and three new services that comprise LTI Advantage.

LTI enables secure plug-and-play integration of learning systems in the right place, at the right time, for the right student. LTI Advantage extends the core capabilities of LTI by adding three essential end-user services to support integration and data support. 

LTI 1.3 and LTI Advantage are the first standards to leverage the newly released IMS Security Framework, which ensures the highest level of protection for sensitive and personally identifiable information being passed between applications, reducing both institutional and personal risk.

Bolstered by requirements from institutional leaders for LTI Advantage to improve usability, user experience, and data security, along with support from the leading LMS partners, the next wave of early adopters achieving IMS certification for LTI Advantage include AEFIS, Cengage, Kaltura, McGraw-Hill, and VitalSource.

IMS offers an Alliance membership for educational technology providers that want to implement certified-LTI Advantage now. To facilitate adoption, IMS has developed an innovative test reference implementation for learning tool providers to build out and test their deployment.

For more information on LTI Advantage, go to imsglobal.org/TakeAdvantage. 

IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS Global/IMS) announced today the first IMS Global members to achieve certification for LTI Advantage.

LTI Advantage is an interoperability standard for learning platforms and application integration. It provides educational institutions and edtech suppliers with a core integration strategy for enabling plug-and-play interoperability that improves usability and secures data. 

Blackboard, Instructure, Moodle, and Sakai learning management platforms are the first organizations to pass IMS certification requirements for all components of LTI Advantage—Assignment and Grade Services, Deep Linking, and Names and Role Provisioning Services. The LTI Advantage designation means that a product has successfully implemented and achieved IMS certification for the latest version of the core Learning Tools Interoperability® (LTI®) standard, which includes an upgraded security model, and all three extensions. 

“LTI Advantage represents an unprecedented collaboration among the leading learning platform, tool, and application suppliers to respond to requirements from institutional leaders for a more secure, reliable, and cost-effective way to integrate learning technology,” said Dr. Rob Abel, chief executive officer, IMS Global Learning Consortium. “Thanks to Blackboard, Instructure, Moodle, and Sakai for their leadership accelerating the transition to LTI Advantage as the new model for extending the digital learning ecosystem.”

On 7 February 2019, at the IMS Quarterly Meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona, there will be a dedicated LTI Advantage boot camp offering implementation guidance and assistance to all solutions providers working toward IMS certification for LTI Advantage. Another intensive boot camp will take place on 22 May 2019, at the Learning Impact Leadership Institute in San Diego, California.

IMS offers an Alliance membership for educational technology providers that want to implement certified-LTI Advantage now. To facilitate adoption, IMS has developed an innovative test reference implementation for learning tool providers to build out and test their deployment. LTI Advantage will be available to non-IMS members upon its public release.

For more information on LTI Advantage go to www.imsglobal.org/TakeAdvantage. 

1. Interoperability has had different definitions and standards. Figure out what yours is. Differentiate between interoperability standards (the rules and definitions used to move different types of information) and interoperability (the ability to move information easily to where you need it).
2. Accept that when interoperability works, it goes unnoticed. It fades into the background, boring and forgotten.
3. Interoperability is not about collecting data. Stopping interoperability doesn’t affect data collection, and stopping interoperability won’t stop data use.
4. Bad commercial edtech products can stand in the way of interoperability – and good design has big upsides. Interoperability standards won’t solve the problem of bad software, but intelligent adoption of interoperability standards can reduce a district’s exposure to a data breach.
5. Data-privacy questions about interoperability are more complicated than either side that debates those questions acknowledges. When a company uses an interoperability standard with its product, three things can generally be said to be true: 1) the product will have a clear sense of the data it collects; 2) the product will potentially have access to a larger amount of data: and 3) the data collected and stored by a product will be easier to move. 
6. Interoperability creates the potential for better edtech vendor practices, but it doesn’t guarantee it. Good practice must come from education companies doing the right thing—and from schools, students, and parents demanding meaningful rights and ownership over the data that quantifies the learning experience.

 Source: Education Week https://tinyurl.com/yabxmwfy

Many different school districts have the same data challenge. They have data, but it can’t be shared across systems. Educators are often dissatisfied with data management as it requires data to be input multiple times across both the SIS and LMS. For busy teachers this is inefficient and time consuming.

Lawrence (KS) Public Schools had this exact situation. Faculty and staff were frustrated by the inaccessibility and usability of the data to impact student learning. Initially, district leaders turned to their technology team to build an inhouse data integration platform that could connect their LMS to their SIS. After a year of effort, the task force wasn’t able to arrive at a solution.

Their LMS provider recommended the DataSense solution from BrightBytes and within days, the SIS and the gradebook were connected. Integration was seamless and data immediately started moving and updating in real time.

When teachers discovered that they only had to enter data once, LMS usage across the district increased by 48%. DataSense was able to track student movement in classrooms through nightly updates, making changes available to teachers each morning. As adoption rates improved, the district’s culture improved as well. Educators were happy to focus on teaching rather than manual data entry.

Watch this video to see the power of data interoperability in Lawrence (KS) Public Schools or read the case study here.

Dr. Terry McEwen, director of assessment, research, and accountability for Lawrence Public Schools, said that DataSense, solved multiple data management problems. “It’s more thatn a full-time job to complete the work that DataSense does,” he said. “So, it’s both a time-saver and a money-saver for us.”

In fact, DataSense has been so successful in changing data practices that district leaders have audited other data programs to identify additional areas where DataSense could improve efficiency and provide insights for instruction and student learning.

As they look to the future, district leaders hope to add additional systems onto the DataSense platform so they can decrease human interactions with data and minimize the potential for human error.

Watch this video to see the power of data interoperability in Lawrence (KS) Public Schools or read the case study here.

IMS Global Learning Consortium announced the winners of its annual awards during the Learning Impact Leadership Institute in Baltimore, Maryland.Beatriz Arnillas, senior educational advisor, itslearning (formerly the director of education technology at Houston Independent School District), and Lenny Schad, chief technology information officer, Houston Independent School District were awarded the 2018 William H. (Bill) Graves Leadership Award.

"Beatriz and Lenny envisioned and guided the development and implementation of an integrated digital ecosystem at Houston ISD that enables personalized learning for all students and has been used as a model by K-12 districts across the country." said Dr. Rob Abel, chief executive officer, IMS Global Learning Consortium.

[ISTE 2018 Cheat Sheet]

In addition to the Bill Graves Leadership Award, IMS announced the winners of this year's Learning Impact Awards program, which recognizes outstanding, innovative applications of technology at an educational institution to support and improve learning based on evidence of impact.

Out of the 26 finalists, eight medalists were selected for their outstanding achievement:

• Blackboard Ally — Blackboard (Video, Paper)
• Georgia Virtual Total Learning Architecture — PCG Education and Georgia Department of Education (Video, Paper)

2018 Gold Medals

• Developing Learners' Soft Skills With YouSeeU — YouSeeU (Video, Paper)
• Supporting the Selection of Quality Digital Resources: HISD App Toolbox — Houston Independent School District Education Technology (Video, Paper)

2018 Silver Medals

• Maplesoft Online Learning Courseware at University of Waterloo — Maplesoft and the University of Waterloo (Video, Paper)
• TAO Assessment Platform in New York City DOE — Open Assessment Technologies and New York City DOE (Video, Paper)

2018 Bronze Medals

• IM Road Safety Savvy — Infocomm Media Development Authority of Singapore, Singapore Road Safety Council, Singapore Police Force and FXMedia Singapore Pte Ltd(Video, Paper)
• Using LMS Interoperability to Power and Drive Student-Centered Learning — itslearning and Metropolitan School District of Wayne Township (Video, Paper)

An analysis of the 2018 winning projects will be presented in the annual Learning Impact Report to be released in the fall. Nominations for the 2019 competition will open in January.

At the IMS Global Learning Impact conference this week (#LILI2018), there were dozens of sessions covering the many ways interoperability is helping data play well together to create more user-friendly digital ecosystems. Some sessions dove into the weeds, exploring systems like IMS CASE (Competencies & Academic Standards Exchange), which supports learning standards and competencies, digital resources, and assessments. Others featured practitioners who shared their successes and challenges of making data systems work together in a variety of learning environments, from traditional classrooms to completely virtual schools. Storie Walsh of The Virtual High School (@goVHS ) said she’d like to see the discussion around interoperability become more granular. “We want to take systems interoperability in the virtual learning environment a bit further and talk more about program-to-program interoperability.” There was a lot of talk about moving to competency-based learning and the role interoperability plays in realizing that goal, as well as how true personalized learning is unlikely to happen if digital resources can’t be easily and seamlessly accessed from a single, user-friendly portal. Though the session topics varied widely, they all had one single theme: how can the edtech industry work together to create digital learning environments that better serves all students?
– Christine Weiser, Content Director

SETDA Launches New Resource to Support K12 Interoperability

IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS Global/IMS) announced that 19 educational technology suppliers have committed to early LTI Advantage adoption and IMS certification.

[IMS Global Learning Consortium Announces 1EdTech Initiative]

The organizations that have joined the LTI Advantage early adopter program to date are AEFIS, Blackboard, Cengage, D2L, Edmentum, eLumen, GoReact, Gradescope, Hoonuit, Instructure (Canvas), Kaltura, McGraw-Hill Education, Perusall, Realizit, RedShelf, SAFARI Montage, VitalSource/Ingram, Voicethread, and YouSeeU.LTI Advantage streamlines key classroom management tasks and making it easier to integrate multiple sources of digital tools and content. It leverages IMS Global’s new Security Framework, which aligns with industry best practices for learner privacy and data security.

Educational technology providers who want to learn more about joining the early adoption program and IMS members who want to test LTI Advantage certification should contact ltiadvantage@imsglobal.org.For more information on LTI Advantage go to www.imsglobal.org/TakeAdvantage.

IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS Global/IMS), the non-profit collaborative for educational technology innovation, impact, and interoperability announced a new collaboration among IMS member organizations to launch a free digital registry of state K-12 academic standards. The IMS CASE Registry will be based on the new Competency and Academic Standards Exchange (CASE) open standard from IMS Global. The registry is expected to be fully operational September 2018, and will include standards for all 50 U.S. states.

[IMS Global Learning Consortium Announces 1EdTech Initiative]

“IMS member school districts, states and suppliers have asked IMS to help solve one of the key challenges holding back adoption of digital materials, namely the need to be able to easily align all digital materials, regardless of source, to a publicly available digital representation of state standards,” said Dr. Rob Abel, IMS Global’s Chief Executive Officer. “The first step was to establish the CASE standard to enable interoperable learning standards and competencies. Now IMS is taking the next step to set up and sustain a freely available public registry.”Several state educational agencies (SEAs) are already moving to support the CASE standard and IMS will work with SEAs to mirror official versions of state standards. The IMS CASE Registry will be based on the OpenSALT open source software project. The CASE standard supports a wide range of academic standards, competency frameworks, rubrics and crosswalks between standards. The Registry will become a source for a wide range of IMS certified CASE products provided by the IMS members directly to the market. IMS has made plans to support the CASE Registry for the foreseeable future.

IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS Global/IMS), the non-profit collaborative supporting educational technology innovation, impact and interoperability announced that it is launching the One EdTech Ecosystem™ (1EdTech™) initiative, a collaboration between school districts and suppliers that will make it easier for school districts to make digital resources and applications available to teachers and students.

[Apple, Google, & Microsoft... Oh My! Which is Best for Your School?]

1EdTech consists of a secure trusted cloud-based registry and connection service that will enable any educational technology provider to connect to any school district’s learning platform, portal, or student system using the IMS OneRoster standard. Once a participant organization has integrated they will be able to connect to any of the institutions or suppliers on the other side. 1EdTech will be free to all IMS member organizations that have OneRoster certified products.

A list of Frequently Asked Questions regarding 1EdTech is available on the 1EdTech website.

Follett today announced it has successfully completed the Ed-Fi Data Standard Certification for its Aspen Student Information System (SIS). Developed by a community of ed-tech experts and technologists, the Ed-Fi Data Standard is a set of rules for the collection, management, and organization of educational data that allows multiple systems to exchange this information seamlessly.

Follett’s Aspen Student Information System hosts and manages student data, safely and securely stores data such as class schedules, student performance, health records, and athletic eligibility, and allows educators to monitor student progress, implement new curriculum, and communicate with parents.

[5 Tools to Teach Coding to Late Elementary Students]

Ed-Fi certifications allow product developers to demonstrate a product’s fidelity to Ed-Fi standards and guidelines, and for purchasers or users to be confident that a product conforms to those same Ed-Fi standards and guidelines. The program’s goal is to ensure that systems can inter-operate and exchange data using Ed-Fi standards and technology.

SETDA today announced the release of a new report: State Education Leadership for Interoperability: Leveraging Data for Academic Excellence. This report examines the current data interoperability efforts in nine states: Delaware, Georgia, Michigan, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oregon, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. This report includes a set of use cases demonstrating how interoperability helps states and districts achieve student learning goals, as well as recommendations for states as they continue their work in this area.

[5 Keynoters on Education’s Hottest Topics Coming to ISTE 2018]

The State Education Leadership for Interoperability report also provides background information and challenges that states face during implementation, as well as an appendix that includes non-profit organizations supporting interoperability efforts, organizations developing common data standards, state drivers for interoperability, and state academic and interoperability goals. SETDA offers recommendations for states to consider regarding interoperability:

• Leverage ESSA
• Establish Data Governance Structure
• Develop a Flexible Implementation Plan
• Share Best Practices
• Encourage Stakeholder Buy-In
• Collaborate with Districts
• Communicate with Vendors

CoSN (the Consortium for School Networking) today announced that the organization is expanding its work nationwide on interoperability in school systems. As part of CoSN’s increased commitment, the organization has received support from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation to update and deliver additional resources through the Interoperability Standards initiative. In addition, CoSN is partnering with Project Unicorn, a national coalition that advocates for K-12 interoperability, and encouraging school districts to sign the updated Interoperability Pledge.

School systems are struggling to address the interoperability imperative at a level beyond Single Sign-On (SSO) with limited knowledge about the standards. CoSN will develop an Interoperability Toolkit to help districts achieve interoperability beyond early stages like SSO.To learn more, visit: cosn.org/interoperability.