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E d Te ch S h o w D a i l y 4 9 W e d n e s d a y, J u n e 2 9 , 2 0 1 6 with the latest software solutions help schools reduce page volume and waste and cut down on consumables costs. Solutions that complement OKI Data's MFPs in the classroom include: PaperCut MF™: A cost accounting, control and recovery solution that tracks and records individual user activity. PaperCut secures access to devices by requiring badge access or a user login, enforcing accountability and saving money on excess and unauthorized print- ing. Square 9 ® SmartSearch: A robust, cloud-based document management solution that eliminates the cost and space of storing documents and stream- lines workflows in the educational set- ting. Remark ® Test Grading Solution: Automate the test grading process with this software that prints and grades bub- ble tests instantly. As budgets shrink, school districts are more interested in inclusive solutions that provide a shorter return on their IT investment. Many schools are interested in migrating to centrally located printing pods and moving away from devices in the classroom. Unlike small desktop printers, printing pods allow more func- tional MFPs with copy, scan and fax capabilities to be accessible to more than just administrators in the main office. In addition, usage and costs can be easily and centrally monitored by IT staff. O K I D ata (C o nt'd. fro m p. 1 ) School districts using PaperCut are typi- cally realizing an average 15 percent to 20 percent reduction in print volume. One school the company talked to – with 40,000 students – has an annual print vol- ume of 92 million impressions. Think of a 15 percent reduction on that. At $0.03 per page, that's a savings of $414,000. Another way your school district can simplify management of print devices is by taking advantage of OKI's five-year warranty upgrade. Select MFPs and printers are eligible for OKI's industry- leading free five-year COREFIDO war- ranty upgrade, providing free on-site repairs, free parts and labor, including fusers and transfer belts, and national service support – allowing your IT department to focus on other priorities. By eliminating service and maintenance costs over five years, COREFIDO can dramatically reduce the total cost of own- ership of your OKI printers and MFPs while improving the bottom line of your district's overall document print fleet. OKI's reliable MFPs and printers, software solutions and COREFIDO war- ranty provide greater value and peace of mind to school districts and allow staff and students to focus on what's most important – teaching and learning. Enhance your schools' learning experi- ence by taking advantage of cost-effec- tive products and solutions from OKI Data. For more information, visit www .okidata.com. ML: The National Center for Education Statistics' most recent numbers indicate that 1.2 million students drop out of high school every year – equivalent to one stu- dent every 26 seconds. While this is an improvement over the high drop-out rates of the 1990s, it's still a national con- cern – young people without a high school diploma face serious economic challenges. Identifying at-risk students and designing interventions based on risk profiles of different student cohorts can alleviate the problem. ESD: So many factors affect why stu- dents drop out. How can you identify them in time? ML: That's why we developed the Scantron Analytics Early Warning System. Educators can use this dash- board to identify these students at a glance. Because Scantron Analytics pulls multiple data points about students, such as grades, test scores, attendance and dis- cipline from multiple systems, educators can use a spectrum of factors that con- tribute to a student's at-risk status. Views are interactive: educators can drill into groups to identify specific students, or view data by school, ethnicity, grade level or geographical area, to see addi- tional patterns. ESD: How did you design the dash- board? ML: We reviewed the research to identi- fy 10 of the most common indicators that contribute to a student's at-risk status, based on what's called the ABCs of early warning: attendance, behavior and course performance. We set up threshold values for each indicator, and used these to group students into categories such as At Risk, Moderate Risk and On Track. We Scantro n (C o nt'd. fro m p. 1 ) designed a special chart so educators can easily visualize each category, then with one click see who's in each category and what indicators are being flagged. We show students who have changed cate- gories between time periods, making it easy to spot changes as they are happen- ing. From there, educators can further analyze students and create or adjust interventions based on real-time data. ESD: Aren't all schools unique? What if a district has different criteria for these categories? Or even different categories? ML: That's easy! We recognize the dif- ferent needs and factors that may be unique to each district, and designed the Early Warning System to be flexible. Districts can configure indicators, thresh- old values and category names based on their own analysis. In fact, our customers have applied the Early Warning frame- work to middle school and even elemen- tary school students, as they recognize that it's important to catch issues such as illiteracy as early as possible. ESD: Can just having data really improve drop-out rates? ML: Absolutely. The key is having a real- time data exploration solution that pre- dicts what might happen before it actual- ly happens. In the past, educators reviewed historical data that told them what's already happened, but by then it was too late to fix. With the Scantron Analytics Early Warning System, we're able to help educators forecast future drop-outs before they happen, so that they can apply specific interventions with the students and get them back on track. For more information, visit www .scantron.com, call 858.349.9488, email bonni.graham@scantron.com or stop by booth #2900. libraries have already embraced and exe- cuted game-changing directions that serve to benefit the student as well as the teacher. Mackin will continually seek out the drivers of change and the agents of trans- formation for you and your school. It may be a simple or complex facelift or a complete redesign and restructuring, but it will seek to organize and present the very best ideas and practices for your consideration on the TYSL movement blog and website. The student of the 21st century requires and often demands 21st centu- ry skills. The school library can be this Mack in (C o nt'd. fro m p. 4 ) re-energized repository of communica- tion, collaboration and technological creativity and should continue to be a welcoming place, free of stresses or restrictions for learning. It should be reborn as a magnet for students of all ages. The TYSL movement will surely mean different things to students, staff and parents but mostly it must foster change, learning and growth in the new school library world. If you are excited, interested or even curious about the trans- formation of your school library, join Mackin at www.mackintysl.com/join. For more information, stop by booth #3132 or go to www.mackin.com. with the WeDo 2.0 Core Set and icon- based programming software. The cur- riculum pack provides me with ready-to- go, incredible projects I can implement right away, and the kid-friendly software is an accessible tool that allows students of all abilities and experience levels a platform for jumping right in and seeing and feeling success with coding. My students have had a great deal of fun and many "aha" moments so far as we work through the series of science- based projects that explore physical sci- ences, life sciences, earth and space sci- ences, engineering and technology. Something I think that's really helpful for teachers and students is that included is a Getting Started project in which students learn the basic functions of the bricks and software with the beloved MILO – LEGO Education's adorable and totally cool science rover. A key feature impor- tant to me and I think valuable for educa- tors is the option to choose from a series L EG O Educatio n (C o nt'd. fro m p. 4 ) of eight guided projects and eight open projects. The variety allows educators to choose from something more structured or open-ended depending on his or cur- ricular and instructional needs. I appreciate that each project is built on the latest standards in order to deliver the most relevant content for my class- room, engaging students in fun yet sub- stantive projects. My students have learned so much through WeDo 2.0 – from building a model that emulates a bee pollinating a flower to programming a racecar to investigate what factors make it go faster. Best of all, my students are engaged and having fun coding and problem-solving with projects that cultivate the use impor- tant scientific and engineering practices. WeDo 2.0 brings science to life in my classroom in a way I never thought pos- sible. For more information, visit www.lego education.com, call 800.362.4308 or stop by booths #2707 and #4215. for collaboration, sharing and interactive work. With HUE HD Pro at $69.95, you can afford one in every classroom. The HUE HD Pro weighs just over one pound and comes in a color choice of red, blue, green and black. It's a USB camera and a document camera – which means that this versatile plug and play device can record it all as well as scan documents and project them onto a whiteboard. The head of the Pro contains the manual focusing ring, a camera light and an integrated microphone. It has an inno- vative flexible gooseneck, which you can disconnect, plugging it directly into a laptop or computer (rather than using it in its base). When buying a camera, you are H U E (C o nt'd. fro m p. 1 ) looking for a brilliant high resolution picture, as image quality is everything. HUE Pro delivers images and videos that are excellent. The sound is spot- on, too. The Pro comes with some specially designed software called HUE Intuition, which allows you to get to grips with the full functionality of the camera with ease. You can record video and sound and save movies locally, email or upload to YouTube. Annotate images you take and save them as JPG/BMP/PNG/GIF, take individual snapshots or multiple images over time. In terms of the engagement factor, using a HUE HD Pro camera is ideal for getting together, getting focused and get- ting down to the business of learning. Visit HUE and try a free trial of the Pro at booth #2653 or go to www.huehd.com.