The Worldview: How US Academic Technology Compares

One of the biggest international cross-section of comparative tests is the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which measures reading ability, math and science literacy and other key skills among 15-year-olds throughout the world.

The test is taken every three years, the last of which was 2015. In it, the U.S. landed right in the middle, #38 out of 71 countries in math and 24th in science.

Given the push for more technology in the schools over the last decade, these scores can appear disheartening; school budgets have been increased to incorporate new, better, and more computers, platforms, accessibility, and resources. While the scores are deflating, it may not be an indication of a wasted effort; it may simply be too soon to tell.

Consider the following statistics gathered by StatisticBrain in 2015:

• 98% of schools that have one or more computers in the classroom

• 3% of schools that have high-speed internet

• 7% of schools have laptops available

• 81% of teachers think tablets can enrich classroom learning.

• 64% of high school seniors say a tablet helps study more efficiently

This doesn’t reflect one-to-one initiatives, which, on a grand scale are relatively low; students are more likely to share devices in a classroom than to have one at every desk. It’s one thing to compare the United States to China or India or Japan with math and science scores alone; quite another to understand the significance of the disparities in access, funding, and challenges the United States must address on a daily basis.

While there are hundreds of technological tools for available to increase the breadth and scope of learning, we are only just beginning to harness the information that will enable teachers to make more of an impact on their students with customized lesson plans. The important thing is to get the hardware and framework in place so that the data can start speaking for itself.

Access to technology will have a huge impact on how students in America engage and compete with the rest of the planet for jobs and opportunities. The sooner and more completely we use technology tools both in teaching and in learning, the bigger the difference we can make in how students understand what they are being taught, and how well they test on the material.

While developing countries are gaining on the West in terms of cell phone and smartphone usage, they, like the rest of us, have a ways to go in incorporating all of its possibilities into our educational experience.

Ready for educational technology to make an impact on your school? Click here to learn more.

Why Kids Should Learn To Program In Schools

While the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts jobs for computer programmers will decline 8% over the next decade in the United States, coding is becoming the most in-demand skill across industries. And most experts agree that teaching it to kids should be our first priority.

In his Time Magazine article, “Why Schools Should Teach More Than Basic Coding” Tim Bajarin says, “We live in a complex world, one in which technology plays a major role and more jobs require computer skills. Both coding and computational skills classes need to be a mandatory part of our youth’s education if they are to be prepared to compete for the jobs of the future and live successfully in a world where technology will be integrated into every part of their personal and professional lives.”

Several studies back opinion; while jobs specific to computer programmers may be decreasing, more and more industries are requiring coding as part of their job descriptions, much like Microsoft Office proficiency was preferred during the turn of the 21st century. Burning Glass Technologies found that coding skills are being increasingly required in significant industries; in fact, seven million job openings in 2015 were in occupations which value coding skills, including nformation technology, data analysis, design, engineering, and science.

During his presidency, President Obama stressed the importance of mandatory computer programming education in schools as the “Hour of Code” swept the nation. Students as young as kindergarten began to understand the inner workings of their favorite games.

Programming isn’t only a popular part of the curriculum, it’s also becoming the most essential. Learning how and why to do something is becoming more important than what and when; the former must be learned, and the latter can be looked up, confirmed, and researched in a matter of seconds. As schools navigate and use technology in their classrooms, coding becomes the universal language in which students can write their own ticket for success.

Interested in learning how technology can improve your classroom? Arey Jones is here to help.

How Technology Can Boost Learning All Summer Long

According to the National Summer Learning Association, almost 66 percent of teachers say that they spend the first month of school re-teaching students material from the previous year. Preventing “summer learning loss” is a hot topic for many schools and parents alike, and technology can help bridge the gap.

Boost creativity.

From Minecraft to robotics and 3-D printing, technology has a place on the crafting table. Encourage kids to explore, build, and create their own art, movies, music, and more through apps, software, and online tools. 

Make it a game.

If they are going to be on their devices anyway, give them games to choose from that can grow their minds while they keep their cool inside. There are a lot of great gems on this list from Digital Trends.

Get ready to read.

One of the easiest ways to prevent the summer slide is to encourage your kids to read as much as possible. Reading books on tablets is one way to keep a wide variety of titles handy, and a great way for kids to earn time playing other less-educational activities. Whooo’s Reading is a known resource for inspiring students to up their page game over break. 

Start growing.

Summer means fresh produce, but don’t wait for your local farmer’s market to do it for you. Plant a garden and use one of the many gardening apps to track plant growth, identify rogue plants and mushrooms, and remind you to weed, water, and check for bugs.

Take a field trip.

Apps like MuseumFinder can put the onus of relieving boredom back in your kids’ hands. Have them search for things to do and visit using local and national apps geared toward making sure kids always have something to do, see, and explore.

Let off some STEAM.

Encourage your kids to dive into science, technology, engineering, art, and math activities throughout the summer, whether it’s by learning to make a new recipe, try a hand at chemistry, solve logical puzzles, and build a better mousetrap. More great STEM and STEAM apps are coming on the market all the time, and summer is a great time to test and rate them (which could be an activity of its own!).

Keep the summer sliding on the playground this year and encourage your kids to keep on learning all break long. They’ll be ready to hit the ground running come fall, which will not only boost their educational confidence but also their performance.

What educational apps are on your summer radar this year? Let us kno

5 Stress-Free Ways To Manage Chromebooks In The Classroom

Introducing technology into the classroom unlocks numerous educational benefits for parents, teachers, and students. It can also introduce distraction, hassle, and disorder. To help keep stress levels low, here are some tips for managing and organizing technological tools in the classroom.

1. Labeling Chromebooks and other hardware is the first step to device organization. Different colored tape or marker provides differentiation among students’ devices. Another possible suggestion is to set the background on the device as the child’s school picture for easy recognition when lost.

1. Set aside time at the end of the day for students to put Chromebooks and other devices in their backpacks to avoid last minute confusion.

1. Keep better tabs with tracking apps, which allow teachers to track the location of their students’ devices while also providing another layer of security.

1. Designate a time once every two weeks to update all devices to the latest software. Keep the devices at school overnight and ensure they are all up-to-date. While the devices refresh and recharge, students can, too!

1. Speaking of charging, create a power station for your students’ Chromebooks and tablets to ensure they are always ready for a full day of work. Label cords with the same color as the one on the device and make sure students place their device in the same spot each time.

Remember, technology devices are supposed to make teaching easier. Maximize the benefits by plugging into device organization tips that work.

We believe technology should always enhance a classroom, not distract from it. When you need an integrated technology architecture that works seamlessly with your classroom, school, and district goals, we at Arey Jones can help you design a solution that works.

How K12 Blueprint Keeps Students On Task

One of our leading educational technology programs, K12 Blueprint, specializes in maximizing student potential and simplifying technology implementation in the classroom. A top goal of K12 Blueprint is keeping students on task and engaged in the classroom. K12 Blueprint designs multiple classroom tools to ensure maximum educational success.

K12 Blueprint works through classroom tool kits. From creating “Active Learning Spaces” to “Online Assessments,” K12 Blueprint creates detailed plans for teachers and educational institutes to follow. Complete with classroom floor plans and stories of successful implementation, K12 Blueprint is a leading classroom planning resource. Each tool kit is designed to accomplish a specific purpose, taking into account students different learning styles and overall student-teacher interaction. It is clear, the goal of K12 Blueprint tool kits is educational satisfaction.

K12 Blueprint also partners with top programs like Windows, Google and Ed Tech Solution Planner to create their classroom success plans. These solutions are integrated throughout their established toolkits and are valuable additions to the overall process. Additionally, K12 offers the integration of educational apps into their programs.

K12 Blueprint makes it easy for schools and teachers to create a positive learning environment for students of all learning types. Implementation of K12 Blueprint is a roadmap to success in the classroom.

For more information about how you can utilize K12 Blueprint, contact us. We are happy to answer any questions.

Google Sheets In The Classroom

The Google G Suite platform maximizes the 1:1 classroom scenario for schools, teachers, and students. One program in particular, Sheets, is beneficially used in the classroom as a data collection and organizational tool. We’ve compiled a variety of ways to use Sheets in the classroom setting to display Sheets’ positive qualities for education.

1. Digital Portfolios With Google Forms

Combining Google Sheets with Google Forms can create a digital portfolio. The student creates the Google Form and the responses are collected on a spreadsheet. This student portfolio can be easily shared with a teacher for review and can provide feedback for the student.

1. Digital Rubrics And Rubric Portfolios

Once a Sheet-based rubric is created, a master rubric sheet can be duplicated for future use. Additionally a master rubric tab can be duplicated to evaluate each student submission. The result is that teachers have one rubric sheet for each assignment evaluated with the master rubric. Additionally, because the rubrics are digital, teachers can utilize different formatting tools to create their rubrics. Cells can be created with formulas and can be color coded to the teachers liking.

1. Class Resources Sheet

Sheets can be used to create course calendars with columns for dates, units, and chapters. Teachers can efficiently organize entire courses into calendar sheets and then share them with their students. The created sheet can be added to the course website if possible and can be sent to parents as well to include all parties involved in the communication.

1. Research Planning And Archiving

Every teacher knows the challenge of assisting students in organizing, categorizing, and tracking large amounts of research. Creating a Google Sheet can streamline this process into topics and subtopics. Also with Google Sheets, students have the opportunity to share this document easily with teachers.

Want to know how you can implement Google Sheets and other Google G Suite programs in your school or classroom?

The Digital Classroom: No Paper, No Pencil, No Problem.

Classrooms are steadily moving into the future where the need for paper and pencil is increasingly waning.  With a tablet and stylus, a child can not only accomplish more, but they can work faster with less headache for themselves, their parents, and their teachers. 

The addition of internet into classrooms combined with the evolution of affordable electronic learning solutions is revolutionizing the way children learn and is escorting in the age of the digital classroom. 

There is a streamline in the education process that comes with the addition of tablet and stylus. Textbooks can be accessed through apps and internet browsers on their tablets, relinquishing the need for lugging around a backpack filled with pounds of textbooks.  With a tablet, a stylus can be set to work as a crayon, marker, highlighter, pen, pencil, paintbrush, etc.  A student’s activity can be tracked in real time and submitted from anywhere they have internet access.  The professional world is also becoming increasingly digital, so students are getting real world experience working with these tools and internet based solutions. 

Parents also benefit from internet education solutions, like Google’s G Suite for Education.  With cloud based learning solutions, all you need is your child’s login information or an email invitation to check on your child’s progress and help them with homework.  Whether in the office, on the road, or in a hotel, parents can video chat and screen share to go over homework with their child who is just a click away.

Another benefit of tablets in schools is for teachers. Teachers can upload correct answers of assignments and grade papers at the click of a button.  Not only is it quicker to grade, but the teacher doesn’t need to bring home hundreds of paper assignments to grade each one individually.  Schools are able to cut the costs of textbooks and library purchases by giving students access to a digital library via their personal tablets. 

A tablet and stylus can realistically solve nearly every problem a student encounters.  Tablets have become more and more powerful internally and durable externally--capable of word processing like a computer and strong enough to last more than just one school year.  Styluses have become sophisticated and so receptive that they work just as quickly as pen and paper with all of the same realistic nuances.  With a tablet, stylus, and internet connection, every student now has the ability to hold their entire education in the palm of their hand.

Want to know more about Arey Jones? 

A Crash Course In Managing Classroom Technology

Today’s classrooms look nothing like they did 20 years ago. Notebooks are being replaced with laptops, chalkboards with smart boards, cursive with typing. Say what you will with the changing of the times, students today have the ability to participate much more actively in their education, and technology has a huge hand in making sure it happens smoothly, effectively, and measurably.

How well that classroom technology works depends on how it is designed, implemented, and supported. The actual classroom computers play a relatively small role in today’s modern educational environments; more important is how easy software is to find and use, which peripherals are connected, the strength and security of the network, and how well it is balanced with offline curriculum objectives.

In fact, when it comes to managing classroom technology, there are six questions you should consider.

1. Will technology engage my students and make them active participants in learning?
   It absolutely can. Technology, when used properly and when it works consistently, is an amazing classroom tool to support and engage students. However, simply having classroom computers or several available apps will not make every student learn and retain more or better information. The key is having the devices, peripherals, network, and support in place to make sure you have the right classroom technology for your age group, interests, and goals. Most importantly, remember that classroom computers are there to support the learning, not to drive it; they will never replace the most important element of the classroom--you, the teacher.

1. Will the technology help me measure their individual progress so that I can better assess their needs and align them with their personal and classroom growth?
   There are several apps and programs available that will both enhance your curriculum and provide you with supportive feedback to gauge your classroom learning and information retention. True retention and understanding are demonstrated in a student’s ability to put the information into practice and into their own words; technology helps support that process by allowing teachers measurable data on which to base individual and future instruction.

1. How much technology am I comfortable with in the classroom? How much time do I need to reasonably allow for distribution, powering up and logging in, use, and powering down?
   Much of this is a personal preference of the teacher and the actual learning environment. Classrooms with a 1:1 device ratio typically have a more streamlined approach to technology; everyone can start and stop a lesson plan at about the same time. Those classroom environments that share technology must rotate the use of their electronics as needed. The key is balancing the type of learning taking place and whether or not it helps you achieve your overall curriculum objectives. This takes time, discipline, awareness, and flexibility; the active use of these four components will help you discover the right mix of technology and traditional learning that works for your unique classroom needs.

1. Which comes first: the lesson plan, or the technology used to support its instruction?
   It’s our opinion that the offline lesson plans—and teachers—should always drive the classroom experience. Technology is an amazing away to support classroom objectives and, while there may be some instances where an application or program could inspire additional or new learning, the key should always be how best to engage students to be active participants in their own education, social awareness, and personal lives. Technology can support these goals in huge and impactful ways, especially when it is balanced with other "unplugged" directives.

1. Which technology apps are best for me and my classroom?
   You can imagine we get this question a lot at Arey Jones, and we answer it differently every time because no school, classroom, and teacher are the same. That said, educational applications and programs can help integrate awareness, practice, and retention throughout every step of the learning curve. We can help you discover which of these would be right for your district and classroom needs.

2. How do I minimize distractions?
   The best way to ensure technology does not increase or create distractions is to use it purposefully. Your students should be aware of how the technology supports the specific lesson and what goals they are trying to achieve while using it. Providing the proper balance of online and offline time will help students stay focused and engage with the material in different formats, allowing for deeper learning and understanding.

We believe technology should always enhance a classroom, not distract from it. When you need an integrated technology architecture that works seamlessly with your classroom, school, and district goals, we at Arey Jones can help you design a solution that works.

10 Best Features Of Windows 10

Here at Arey Jones our goal is technology integration in the classroom. From programs to tablets, we believe a classroom that works through technology is guaranteed to succeed. One of our top programs is Windows 10—the easy to use, easy to access, desktop software from Windows. We've given the 10 best classroom features of Windows 10 to showcase its versatile and beneficial uses in educational institutions. You can’t argue, Windows 10 is tops.

1. Designed For All Learning Styles

Windows 10 provides multiple opportunities for learning. Now students of all learning types can successfully participate in the classroom with pen, touch, gesture, and voice. Whatever their preference, Windows 10 can accommodate.

1. Put It In Writing

Windows 10 is not just a mouse-click program. Windows 10 offers students the ability of hands on ink-writing learning. Proven more beneficial for students, Windows 10 increases knowledge capacity with just the touch of a stylus.

1. Compatibility

No longer will students with learning disabilities be behind in classroom learning. Windows 10 is compatible with a wide variety of assistive technology ensuring teachers can creative the most inclusive classroom environment.

1. Safety First

Windows 10 is the safest Windows program yet. With student identity and password settings, malware protection, and data protection, teachers and students can focus strictly on education and not student cyber protection.

1. Collaborative Learning

Afraid technology will mean disconnect between student and teacher? Not with Windows 10 compatibility capabilities. Now student and Teacher can work from the same documents providing that hands-on classroom environment from the screen.

1. Expansive Platform

Windows 10 is a smart investment. Windows can expand to multiple grades with a choice of styles and form factors.

1. Classroom Compatibility

Windows 10 is also compatible with the widest variety of classroom connected devices. Everything in the classroom can work seamlessly together to create ultimate educational success.

1. Multi-Tasking Made Easy

Multitasking is in Windows’ nature. Windows 10 can help students and teachers accomplish goals faster and more efficiently with features like Snap Assist, virtual desktops, and Task View.

1. Seamless Transition

Worried about transitioning into Windows 10? Windows 10 provides simplified ways to manage and deploy the program seamlessly.

1. Wait There’s More!

In addition to Windows 10, Microsoft offers many free products and services specifically offered with the purchase of Windows 10.

Have more questions about Windows 10 or any other Microsoft product? Contactus.

How To Use Technology Fearlessly In The Common Core Classroom

One of our goals at Arey Jones is to give our schools and teachers the resources they need to make the most of the technology they have in the classroom. We came across this article by Stephanie Novak from the International Society for Technology in Education that hits on the challenges and the opportunities that come with integrating technology into the Common Core curriculum.

In it, Novak addresses seven ways to welcome and embrace technology in your classroom, broken down and paraphrased as follows.

1. Don’t Try To Learn Everything At Once
   Channel the growth mindset you teach your students when it comes to technology in the classroom. It’s not that you are not a master of classroom technology; you aren’t a master of classroom technology YET. Take your time and take it one at a time.

2. Don’t Reinvent Your Curriculum
   Common Core has been around for years, and textbook publishers have grown and changed to accommodate it. Use technology to support your current efforts, allowing teachers and administrators access to new materials, lesson plans, resources, and ideas to help breathe new life into your material and engage students in a whole new way.

3. Integrate The Interactive
   Whether you begin with blogs or welcome the wiki, find a platform that allows your students to send their ideas and work to you in an easy and accessible way. Students are often encouraged to show what they know and understand within the Common Core framework, and these personal publishing platforms are a great way to do it.

4. Who’s Ready For Podcasts?
   Don’t be intimidated by podcasts, the popular method of sharing information via live and recorded feeds. Using Audio, Visual, and Video—or a combination of all three—students can represent their knowledge with graphics, images, vocabulary, and video in unique and collaborative ways.

5. Keep Parents In The Loop
   Keeping parents informed while reducing the amount of paper that goes home is getting harder and harder. To communicate effectively, classrooms, schools, and districts have to engage their parent network in a way that is both clear and easy to use. More and more schools are turning to online and mobile tools to keep their families informed of important deadlines, school-wide events, and student progress.

6. Expand Your Classroom Environment
   Who says learning has to stay in the classroom? Use and share multimedia clips and videos to help hammer subject matter home—and then make the clips accessible from home.

7. Give Them The “Write” Stuff
   With acronyms, emojis, and shortened text taking over our student vocabulary, it takes some serious instruction to help them communicate effectively with each other and across generations, cultures, platforms, and subject matters. There are many great resources available to teachers to support them in their Common Core objectives, including ways to incorporate additional media elements, like video and live interviews.

The author goes on to include relevant applications, books, and resources as she dives into details, so don't miss a word of it. Read the full article here.

Common Core was designed to help students be more prepared for college and career, and technology will play an imperative role in both. And it all starts with what you do now.

What do you think about Common Core? Let us know!

Our Long List Of Helpful Chromebook Shortcuts

We love Chromebooks for how they hit the ground running (and continue running even if they hit the ground). They are one of the fastest ways for students to power up, log on, and get going. And, with this list of Chrome-specific keyboard shortcuts, they are about to get even faster.

Keyboard shortcuts are a time-honored way of eliminating the use of the mouse or trackpad. By holding certain keys together, you can do anything from take a screenshot, lock your Chromebook screen, adjust your screen zoom, switch browser tabs, and more—all without moving your hand from the keyboard. You’ve used shortcuts before if you’ve ever done a Ctrl+X to cut, Ctrl+C to copy, and Ctrl+V to paste; these standard text-editing shortcuts are also accepted by Chromebooks, as well as Ctrl+Z to undo and more.

There are some shortcuts, however, that are unique to the Chromebook, and we’ve listed our favorites below.

• Ctrl + Shift + L locks your Chromebook’s screen.

• Ctrl + Shift + Q pressed once will log you out of your Chromebook. Press it twice to quit.

• Alt + E will open the Chromebook browser menu when the application is open and focused.

• Alt + 1-8 will activate the Chrome OS taskbar (the “shelf”). It works from left to right, so Alt + 1 will launch the first application from the left, Alt + 2 will launch the second one, and so forth.

• Press Ctrl + Switcher/F5 when you want to take a screenshot and save it to your Downloads folder.

• Ctrl + Shift + Switcher/F5 will also take a screenshot, but you’ll need to use your cursor to click and drag which part you’d like to capture.

• Shift + Esc to summon the Task Manager.

• Press Ctrl + Switcher/F5 when you want to take a screenshot and save it to your Downloads folder.

• Ctrl + Shift + Switcher/F5 will also take a screenshot, but you’ll need to use your cursor to click and drag which part you’d like to capture.

• Ctrl + Shift and + or – to increase (+) or decrease (-) the screen scale by controlling its zoom.

• Use Ctrl + Shift and ) to instantly reset the scale of the screen to the default setting.]

• When things go sideways, your screen should, too. Use Ctrl + Shift + Refresh/F3 to turn your screen 90 degrees.

• Ctrl + Immersive Mode/F4 is used to configure display settings when an external monitor is connected.

Browser And Tab Management

If you’re like most of us at Arey Jones, you enjoy browser tabs like potato chips; you can never have just one. Here are a handful of ways to manage your browser with just a few keystrokes. (Hint: These are standard browser shortcuts that work on almost any computer and Chromebook).

• Ctrl + 1-9 will activate your tabs in order (for example, Ctrl + 1 will open the first tab, Ctrl +2 opens the second, etc).

• Ctrl + T opens a fresh tab.

• Ctrl + W closes the current one.

• Ctrl + L (our favorite) will automatically highlight the location bar so you can instantly add a search term or web address.

 If the above are hard to remember, then only learn this one: “Ctrl + Alt + ?”, which opens a Chromebook keyboard shortcut cheat sheet to use at any time.

Want to create your own keyboard shortcuts for Chrome? Try out the Shortcut Manager extension that was created by a Google employee. It’s a little complicated for the novice user, but it will allow you to assign custom keyboard shortcuts, so nothing comes between you and your Chromebook experience.

Do you have a keyboard shortcut you couldn’t live without? Let us know!

Who—or What—Is Arey Jones?

Arey Jones has been making connections and strengthening communication since its initial launch in the 1880s. It began its legacy as a stationery company, and, over time, increased its scope to include typewriters and word processors. When computers entered the scene in the early 1980s, Arey Jones found its true calling: to deliver exceptional technology products, service, and accessibility directly to schools to help create the best learning environments possible.

For more than 30 years, Arey Jones has stayed faithful to that promise. We now serve school districts in California, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, South Carolina, and Mississippi by providing information technology systems that maximize school resources while minimizing downtime and disruption.

It isn’t always an easy task, but we are as equipped as ever to do it. Here’s why:

• Our regional configuration centers that allow us to design and implement technology architectures unique to each district we serve.

• We create a support matrix built for maximum uptime, which means classrooms spend more time learning instead of troubleshooting.

• We focus on the entire system, including peripheral, network architecture, data centers, and cloud integration.

• We offer preloaded and integrated curriculum packages on a variety of brands to provide a complete and customized turnkey solution.

• We are centralized, which means everything we need to deploy technology for your school system is under one roof, including the ability to use our strong industry connections to procure a wide variety of hardware and software at the most competitive prices.

• We are one phone call away. We have teams of designers, installers, systems engineers, and support staff who are proud to be Arey Jones employees, ready to serve you.

Arey Jones has been family owned and operated for more than 30 years, and we pride ourselves on our commitment to our community. We believe that the strength of our country’s schools is in direct correlation to the technology they use on a daily basis; it’s our promise to make sure each of the districts we serve gets not only the best computers, but also the best service, technology, and support.

We don’t just integrate; we innovate. Every. Single. Time.