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Success Stories
Canton, GA
Jacksonville, NC
To support technology-rich teaching, districts search for high-quality digital curriculum to create rigorous lessons and tools that make it easy for students to access these learning resources. Georgia’s Cherokee County School District and North Carolina’s Onslow County Schools found that using Discovery Education resources in tandem with their districts’ Microsoft tools brought high-quality digital curriculum to all students in a seamless, accessible way.
Implementing anything new—a resource, a strategy, or a tool—requires time to explore new information and find ways to implement it into daily practice. However, finding a new tool that already fits into a teacher or student’s daily routines can help eliminate some of the onboarding needed. Discovery Education’s time-saving, easy-to-implement resources connect synergistically with tools like Microsoft, which means teachers can get back to teaching and students can get back to learning.
When Cherokee County School District decided to pursue the Cognia STEM Certification, their goal was to help students develop cross-curricular skills that would apply to their future careers. With career profiles and engaging activities to encourage STEM thinking, Discovery Education Experience‘s high-quality content stood out to CCSD leaders. As an added bonus, Experience also fit seamlessly within the district’s existing Microsoft infrastructure. Finding that educators and students could access Discovery Education Experience through their existing Microsoft 365 accounts meant that the training time could be focused solely on helping teachers maximize their use of DE’s educational resources in the classroom rather than the technical implementation.
Looking ahead, CCSD continues to build engaging STEM learning experiences and explore how technology can help students develop critical skills while giving educators new methods to reach and help them. In this ongoing endeavor to advance student learning in all subject areas, Discovery Education and Microsoft continue to serve as helpful partners for CCSD teachers.
Onslow County Schools is heavily influenced by its proximity to Camp Lejuene, the East Coast’s largest Marine Corp base, and recognizes its unique challenges in providing a consistent, uniform learning experience when students and teachers frequently join and leave the school community due to military commitments. To help offer a more equitable learning experience, the district implemented a one-to-one device initiative in 2014, so students and teachers could regularly access a Learning Management System created with Microsoft tools.
District leaders also aimed to use these devices to help centralize content for all subject areas and save teachers time, so the ready-to-use, standards-aligned lessons and instructional strategies from Discovery Education Science Techbook were the perfect fit. The simple connection between Microsoft tools and Discovery Education solutions helps streamline onboarding and offers a consistent learning experience for all students in the district.
For Onslow County Schools, the journey to create an equitable student learning experience is continuous. The district continues to refine its digital ecosystem, aiming to increase student engagement, see improvement in learning outcomes, and offer comprehensive accessibility. The partnership between Onslow County Schools, Discovery Education, and Microsoft is an integral part of this journey, as teachers know they can count on these digital tools to help aid them in the planning and teaching process.
As the education landscape changes, technology options must evolve with it.Teachers and students have varying needs, and EdTech partners must adapt to chase these moving targets. Discovery Education provides a variety of supports to help educators personalize learning experiences and better meet their students’ unique needs, such as Microsoft Immersive Reader, translation tools, and flexible presentation options. As staffing changes continue to impact schools (and as a result, more students), district leaders are searching for education technology partners that proactively keep up with student and educator needs.
“Discovery Education and Microsoft are both paying attention to what’s going on in education in 2023 and beyond, and they are making changes that move with us as school districts."1
Finding the “right” technology to help students learn new concepts and communicate this new knowledge can seem like a daunting process. Questions around access, device capabilities, and rigor of the content are sure to arise as new tools are researched, but finding tools that work well with what is already familiar can help ease the transitions. Partners like Discovery Education and Microsoft that can come together and offer dynamic learning experiences help support educators and students as they embark on a new journey—one that will be filled with learning and excitement.