New site offers help with shift to digital education

Photo: Laura Devaney

Laura Devaney, Managing Editor writes, "A new community featuring expert tips, discussions, and frameworks aims to help school leaders and all stakeholders successfully navigate the digital education transition."

A new online community that launched Aug. 22 aims to help schools and districts as they move toward digital education and implement corresponding policy changes.

Photo: eSchool News

The U.S. Department of Education, the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at North Carolina State University, and the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) partnered to create the online community of practice.

Epic-ed aims to empower digital transitions at all stages of development, including school leaders who are thinking about moving to ubiquitous computing environments, those who wish to implement ed-tech pilot projects, and those who are ready for full-scale implementation.

“Epic-ed will provide K-12 educators, district leaders, and other community participants with a unique channel to get connected and develop strategies for navigating the digital transition,” said CoSN CEO Keith Krueger. “With increased peer-to-peer interaction and greater connectivity, epic-ed members will have an opportunity to learn from each other, share ideas, and ultimately implement effective plans to help ease the transition and maximize the benefits of technology-enabled learning environments.”

On the community’s website, users will see a depiction of the digital transition cycle, a framework that epic-ed uses to help stakeholders begin or evaluate their progress toward digital education.


Photo: Epic-ed


That cycle consists of four phases:

• Vision: Helps leaders define goals, guiding principles, and reasons for the transition. This cycle features a Readiness Assessment and guiding questions that focus on identifying stakeholders and outlining goals and strategies.
• Plan: Guides stakeholders as they explore resources and helps leadership teams use data-driven decision-making. Users will find a Master Plan and Mapping Document to help them find resources and create detailed guidelines.
• Implement: Leadership teams have a chance to update their goals and progress as they move through implementation. The Implementation Plan helps leaders as they move toward deployment.
• Assess: In this phase, digital transition teams evaluate which policies, assessments, and technologies are right for their particular initiative. A Technology Integration Tool and a School Technology Needs Assessment offer guidance.

Each section is accompanied by a video and numerous web resources to support each phase of the digital transition cycle.
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Source: eSchool News and Epic-ed