Latest education updates from around the world
What is PlayKids Learning and How Can I Use It To Teach?
PlayKids Learning is an educational platform designed for children aged roughly 2 to 12. It combines videos, games, activities, stories, and original shows in a single app, with a focus on safety and age-appropriate content.
The company says this can help children develop academic and life skills while maintaining a healthy relationship with screen time. Something that could make this a parent’s favorite educational app pretty fast.
PlayKids Learning lets children move between educational games, videos, creative activities, and interactive content covering areas including literacy, mathematics, arts, music, science, and social-emotional learning.
The platform is available across devices, […]
Finding The Students Schools Miss: How Data, Relationships, and AI Are Unlocking Hidden Potential
Watch above or listen/download below.
Most conversations about education equity focus on helping students who are struggling. AJ Gutierrez wants to talk about those who are achieving yet are still being overlooked.
As the new CEO of Equal Opportunity Schools (EOS), Gutierrez is leading a national nonprofit that partners with more than 900 middle and high schools across 35 states to identify students who are prepared for advanced coursework but aren’t getting access to it. In this conversation with Tech & Learning, he offers insights for district leaders on how to do more for students that may […]
Handling Student Personal Relationships With AI
Unlike many adults, teen students are not hesitant to explore, experiment, and embrace artificial intelligence, with nearly two-thirds admitting to having done so, according to a recent Common Sense Media report.
Although many of them report using it for research purposes, the reality is often quite different, with students embracing it for a range of other reasons, from cheating on school work to creating deepfakes.
Some students have also turned to AI chatbots for companionship, with a few even falling into romantic relationships. Others have even taken AI into their confidence for unvetted mental health support, […]
4 Things Every New Teacher Should Remember
Teaching in reality is very different than many of us envision it beforehand. It’s also harder than is depicted in movies and television.
That said, I find that those new to teaching often need a reminder that they are not alone in facing difficulties inspiring students, preparing classes, responding to inappropriate AI use, and much more. I still struggle with all this, and I’ve been teaching for more than a decade.
What I find actually helps is talking with other educators. I make a point of trying to share my struggles honestly and openly with other educators, especially […]
Smart Contact Lenses Move Closer to Reality as XPANCEO Expands JBD Display Partnership
Dubai-based smart contact lenses startup XPANCEO announced it’s expanding a partnership with China’s JBD to co-develop a new micro-display designed specifically for smart contact lenses.
Previously, the companies co-developed a printed circuit board with integrated micro-display, as well as a unique optical system capable of forming a near-eye image for easy focus.
Now XPANCEO is deepening ties with JBD, the Shanghai-based micro display company, to co-develop the tiny displays that could one day be in consumer smart contacts of the future.
Notably, JBD is […]
HTC’s Revenue Stabilizes as XR Pioneer Pins Hopes on AI, Smart Glasses and Enterprise
HTC has been attempting a second act as an XR and AI hardware company for a few years now with mixed results. And while the once-dominant smartphone company is still the midst of a protracted revenue decline, HTC seems to have stabilized.
As reported by Taiwan’s Financial Express News, HTC revealed at its annual shareholders meeting a consolidated revenue of NT$292 million (~$10 million) for June 2026, showing a year-over-year decrease of 8.5% and first-half revenue decrease of 9.7% year-over-year.
Although that doesn’t sound particularly encouraging, the […]
Veteran VR Shooter ‘Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades’ Finally Leaves Early Access
VR shooting simulator Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades (H3VR) launched its 1.0 release over the weekend, exiting early access after more than a decade on Steam.
Veteran VR studio Rust Ltd has finally brought H3VR out of early access on July 4th—a fitting release date for the hyper-American shooting sandbox’s big 1.0 update.
Studio founder Anton Hand says in a Steam update that while H3VR has been in in “Absurdly Late Access for a very long time,” the game’s 120th update was released to make […]
Smart Glasses Startup Even Realities Secures Unicorn Status with $150M Funding Round
Even Realities, the China-based smart glasses company, has officially secured unicorn status with its most recent Pre-B financing round, bringing the company $150 million and a $1 billion valuation.
The round, which was led by Meituan and Tencent, is said to be primarily directed toward the development of Even Realities’ next-gen smart glasses platform, the deepening of AI integration, and the scaling of global operations.
The latest round brings the company’s overall funding to $159 million; its initial $9 million Series A round included investment by CDH Investments, […]
‘MemoMind One’ Display Smart Glasses Blast Past $500K Crowdfunding Mark
MemoMind, a new AI hardware brand from projector manufacturer XGIMI, launched a crowdfunding campaign for its first smart glasses last week, the MemoMind One, which include dual displays, microphones, and open ear speakers—but no built-in camera.
The News
First shown at CES 2026 in Las Vegas in January, MemoMind One launched a Kickstarter last Sunday hoping to attract a nominal $80,000 HKD (~$10,100 USD) for its first pair of smart glasses, which serve up dual green micro-LED displays (2,000 nits), integrated audio, and a host of AI-assisted […]
Tech & Learning Announces Winners of Best of Show at ISTE 2026
ISTELive 26 was another energetic and inspiring conference. Held in Orlando this year, the event featured hundreds of sessions and exhibitors, offering attendees unparalleled opportunities for learning and networking.
The association also announced a name change. It will now be known as International Society for Transforming Education (ISTE), reflecting the merger of legacy ISTE’s focus on technology and ASCD’s commitment to instruction.
The exhibit hall showcased a vast array of new products and services. Our Tech & Learning judges scoured the show floor to rigorously review the nominations for this year’s Tech & Learning Best of Show […]
Edtech Show & Tell July 2026: ISTELive Edition
Welcome to the July Edtech Show & Tell, in which our editors share some of the new edtech products that have caught our attention this month. These are not reviews or endorsements, but a showcase of education-friendly items, platforms, and more that we think might be noteworthy for you.
This month’s new offerings, many of which are being showcased at ISTELive in Orlando, include financial literacy games, a remote presentation device, and a promising iOS app that turns students’ notes into flashcards, quizzes, and games.
ASUS Education | Chromebox 6a, USB AI Accelerator
Sony: The Countdown Begins on PSVR 2 & PS5 Physical Discs
Sony today announced it’s starting the clock on the production of physical discs, as the company is set to adopt a full digital marketplace at the start of 2028.
All new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued starting January 2028, Sony revealed in a blog post, putting an end to an over three decade-long tradition starting with the 1994 release of the original PlayStation.
Sony notes that while you’ll still be able to buy games at third-party retailers, these will be offered in digital formats only. It […]
Official Discord App Finally Comes to Quest After Years of Waiting
After years of interminable waiting, Discord has officially released an app for Quest, which is now available for free on the Horizon Store.
While Quest fans have been begging for an official Discord app for years now, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth remarked in May 2024 that while the company wanted to have some sort of Discord integration, it was ultimately up to Discord to make the first move.
Granted, that didn’t stop Quest users from using the popular chatting platform. Before this week, users could sideload the Android apk, or […]
Quest’s Most Popular Game ‘Gorilla Tag’ is Going Mobile in ‘Monke Mayhem’ Next Year
Another Axiom announced Gorilla Tag, Quest’s most popular game, is coming to mobile devices in a standalone game, titled Gorilla Tag: Monke Mayhem.
The free-to-play sandbox game is slated to land on iOS and Android devices sometime next year, with other platforms planned to be announced at a later date. As it is, it seems the studio is keeping the original version exclusive to VR headsets.
Another Axiom says it’s still in deep development of the mobile title, although broad testing is expected to come in the near […]
Elon Musk’s Brain-chip Startup Aims for Scalability with New Transdural Procedure
Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface (BCI) startup Neuralink announced the company has successfully performed its first transdural brain implant surgery, which promises to increase scalability while significantly reducing surgical trauma.
The News
In a new video (seen below), Neuralink reveals it has implanted electrode threads through the dura—the brain’s thick, leather-like membrane that sits just below the skull—without cutting or removing it like in the company’s previous human clinical trials.
The procedure was carried out in May 2026 during a clinical trial at University Health Network’s Toronto […]
‘Cave Crave’ Brings Flooded Cave from Thai Rescue Mission in July Update
Cave Crave (2025) developer 3R Games is bringing Thailand’s Tham Luang cave system to VR, the very same that gained global recognition in 2018 after a local junior football team became trapped inside due to sudden flooding.
The new addition is slated to arrive sometime next month following the 2025 release of the game’s Nutty Putty Cave update, promising to bring another real underground environment as a part of the studio’s expanding ‘Real Caves in VR’ initiative.
Having prompted a large international rescue effort in 2018, which tragically ended […]
Meta’s Brain AI Takes a Step Closer to Telepathy With Improved Thought-to-Text Decoding
Meta has announced the next version of its AI system for non-invasively decoding brain activity into text. Called Brain2Qwerty v2, the company hopes its latest method will help people with neurological injuries or diseases that impair speech.
Meta’s latest brain-computer interface (BCI) builds off last year’s Brain2Qwerty v1, which initially showed that non-invasive brain recordings could be decoded into text with surprisingly high character-level accuracy. It used both electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG)—two non-invasive methods that measure the magnetic and electric fields elicited by neuronal activity—although it was […]
Data Dashboards Aren’t Enough—AI Makes PD Smarter
Watch above or listen/download below.
For years, the promise of AI in education has outpaced the evidence. But a new research project—funded by the Gates Foundation and anchored by researchers at the University of Virginia and the University at Albany, SUNY—is working to change that equation.
The AI for Advancing Instruction at Scale (AI2S) project, developed in partnership with edtech company Edthena, uses a multimodal neural network trained on thousands of hand-coded classroom videos to analyze both the audio and visual dimensions of math instruction. The result is a system that can classify teacher questioning patterns, assess […]
Quest Peak Summer Sale Brings Big Savings to Top VR Titles
It’s heat wave season again, which means Meta is throwing out some pretty sweet deals on some of the best Quest games out there.
From now until July 5th, you’ll be able to grab some of our favorite VR titles in Meta’s Peak Summer Sale, including hits like The Climb 2, Synth Riders, Blade & Sorcery: Nomad, Arizona Sunshine II, Demeo x Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City, Clone Drone in the Hyperdome, and a heck of a lot more.
You’ll find links and prices for […]
Apple Vision Pro & Smart Glasses Exec Reportedly Leaves for OpenAI Hardware Team
Apple’s top executive in charge of Vision Pro and smart glasses is reportedly leaving the company to join OpenAI.
According to a Bloomberg report, longtime Apple hardware exec Paul Meade is leaving Apple for OpenAI’s hardware team, which according to people with knowledge of his departure will include work on OpenAI’s upcoming AI-powered devices.
In Meade’s 15-year tenure, he oversaw iPad, program management for the iPhone, and then eventually Vision Pro via its Vision Products Group, which he joined in 2017 and later took over as hardware engineering lead […]
What is Smore and How Can I Use It To Teach?
Smore aims to solve the problem of poor school-to-home communication by turning school newsletters into visually engaging, mobile-friendly web pages that are easy to create and share.
Newsletters traditionally were blocks of text and a few images. Smore lets teachers and schools build interactive updates that can include videos, calendars, forms, links, images, documents, and more.
The platform is designed as a communication tool rather than a classroom teaching platform. Teachers can use Smore to keep parents informed about class activities, share resources with students, celebrate achievements, publish project work, or create information hubs for events and school projects.
Because […]
Teaching Critical Thinking
Critical thinking really can be taught, suggests a new study led by Michael Bishop, a professor of philosophy at Florida State University.
For the study, published earlier this year in the Journal of American Psychology, Bishop and his collaborators split 397 students into two groups. Students in one group took a critical thinking class while students in the second group did not. The students who took critical thinking saw significant advantages over the students who did not.
As Bishop and his co-authors note, “the results suggest that an appropriately designed critical thinking class can dramatically […]
Best Sites for Blended Learning
Blended learning is a teaching approach that combines both traditional in-class instruction with digital technologies for lessons, assessments, feedback and more. In other words, face-to-face teaching is supplemented and supported by online lessons and content.
The advantages of blended learning include flexibility, student engagement, and the ability to personalize lessons.
The following blended learning sites, many of which are fully free, provide a variety of features through which educators can implement their blended learning approach.
Best Sites for Blended Learning
FREEMIUM
Newsela
A multiple award-winning platform, Newsela includes ELA, social studies, and STEM topics, and is […]
VR RPG ‘Township Tale’ is Shutting Down in July Following Second Game Cancellation
Alta announced it’s sunsetting multiplayer RPG A Township Tale (2021) next month, making for a second bit of bad news this year since the studio pulled the plug on its follow-up game, Reave.
Alta co-founder and CTO Joel van de Vorstenbosch announced the news on the game’s Discord, noting the studio explored multiple avenues of keeping the game alive, which ultimately failed.
Now, the game is scheduled to go dark on July 20th, which also includes pulling it from the Quest Store and shutting down the game’s PC VR installer.
Studio Behind Top-selling VR Extraction Shooter ‘Ghosts of Tabor’ Announces Layoffs
Combat Waffle Studios, developer behind VR extraction shooter Ghosts of Tabor (2024), announced the studio is laying off a number of staff in effort to “align the company with the current state of the VR industry.”
Initially released in early access in 2023, Ghosts of Tabor generated over $30 million in revenue with the sale of over 10 million units leading up to release on PSVR 2 in 2025, making it one of VR’s big success stories.
Notably, in addition to selling well across SteamVR and Pico, the Escape […]