Georgia Partners with the 1EdTech Consortium for Statewide Student Data Privacy Program
Agreement provides Georgia educators access to TrustEd Apps Management Suite
LAKE MARY, Fla., Aug. 30, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- The state of Georgia took an active step to prioritize student data privacy at its meeting Thursday in Atlanta. The Georgia State Board of Education approved a state-wide partnership with the 1EdTech™ Consortium (1EdTech). 1EdTech is a non-profit collaboration of more than 740 leading education sector organizations, including states, school districts, universities, and edtech suppliers.
The partnership allows every publicly funded school in Georgia to deploy 1EdTech's TrustEd Apps™ Management Suite, making it easy to provide information on educational technology resources and tools to administrators and teachers. 1EdTech vets the privacy policies of hundreds of edtech companies annually, using an open standard privacy rubric designed and approved by 1EdTech members. 1EdTech has vetted more than 8,000 edtech applications through this process and published the results in a teacher-friendly dashboard. TrustEd Apps gives institutions, administrators, and teachers the help they need to determine if an educational technology tool meets their expectations for data privacy.
"Many districts don't have the staffing or time to thoroughly review a product's data privacy policy before deciding to adopt it for use in classrooms," said Dr. Rob Abel, CEO of 1EdTech. "That leaves them two choices, either don't adopt new tools that could benefit teaching and learning or adopt the tool without fully understanding what student information it's collecting or sharing outside to third parties. TrustEd Apps does that work for them, so they have a wider and more secure set of options."
While the partnership provides access to every publicly funded school in the state, some Georgia districts were already working with 1EdTech to improve their digital ecosystems and student safety. Those districts are now excited to collaborate even more closely across the state.
"In the last few years, technology use has grown, along with the need to ensure student data is secure," said Jill Hobson, Chief Technology Officer for Gainesville City Schools. "The TrustEd Apps rubric meets what we consider critical needs for review and will be a big burden lifted for school districts, especially smaller ones like Gainesville City that don't have the capacity to do this on our own. As a state, we collaborate well, and the ability to easily share our experiences with different tools will be extremely valuable to every district in Georgia."
"1EdTech provides an excellent opportunity to network with our peers in Georgia and beyond as well as powerful resources, such as product interoperability certifications and the TrustEd Apps dashboard," said Jim Farmer, Chief Technology Officer of Fayette County Schools. "These valuable resources help districts address what can essentially become the 'Wild West' of people using edtech tools at the expense of time, security, and privacy. The community-developed standards from 1EdTech empower districts to dramatically improve implementations and integrations and the dashboard allows us to deal with the challenge of vetting resources in a time-saving, structured way. I know it will be extremely helpful to all Georgia districts."
"1EdTech has provided significant support for our district as we've worked to develop a digital ecosystem that ensures high levels of interoperability and digital privacy," said Brian Blanton, Chief Information Officer of Henry County Schools. "It's exciting to know that the Georgia Department of Education is scaling this support to districts across the state."
"TrustEd Apps allows us to provide the privacy and security information to our principals so they can focus their efforts on determining the instructional value of a product," said Dr. Aaron Turpin, Assistant Superintendent of Technology for Hall County Schools.
Georgia is the third state to partner with 1EdTech, and the first to enable TrustEd Apps collaboration with all publicly funded schools. Last year, South Carolina was the first state agency to set up TrustEd Apps statewide for 82 school districts, and earlier this year, the state of Arizona started a 1EdTech pilot program with 20 districts.
About 1EdTech
1EdTech is a member-based non-profit community partnership of leading educational providers at all levels, government organizations, and edtech suppliers working together to enable better digital teaching and learning. This unique collaboration establishes the connectivity that accelerates an open, innovative, and trusted education ecosystem in which products work together to enable better learning. Together, we power learner potential. 1EdTech hosts the annual Learning Impact conference and other engagement opportunities to advance the leadership and ideas that shape the future of learning. 1EdTech is supported by an affiliated public charity, the 1EdTech Foundation, that puts philanthropic funds to work for our cause. Visit our website at 1edtech.org.
Media Contact
Nora Murray, 1EdTech, 4073627783, [email protected]
SOURCE 1EdTech
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