In this two-part virtual interactive “playground” webinar series from Tech & Learning, attendees had the opportunity to explore innovative edtech products and ask questions during a live Q&A. Hosted by Christine Weiser, Tech & Learning’s brand content manager, each event featured 15-minute live demonstrations.
Watch Part 1: Primary Education On Demand
Watch Part 2: Secondary Education On Demand
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PRIMARY EDUCATION
Reading Eggs
Reading Eggs is a comprehensive, research-backed digital literacy program designed for primary education. Allison Ireland, Director of Product for Reading Eggs, described it as a “huge solution with four programs in one.”
Key feature include:
- Fast Phonics: Teaches phonics using decodable readers and supports emerging/early readers, English language learners, and students with knowledge gaps.
- Reading Eggs (Flagship): Focuses on fluency, interactive lessons, and explicit instruction to build early reading skills, including addressing unusual words and sounds not covered by standard phonics rules.
- Reading Express: Centers on comprehension, vocabulary, and skills such as main idea, cause and effect, and inferences. This area has been revamped to focus on comprehension and concept retention over time.
- The Library: A large collection with more than 4,000 leveled ebooks (decodable, fiction, nonfiction) across various topics, which includes quizzes and a “read to me” option for lower-level Lexile books.
The program aligns with the five pillars of the science of reading, bringing together phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension in an evidence-based way. It offers flexible usage for teachers, including station rotation, whole-class lessons, or assigned homework, and is designed to work on both browsers and dedicated tablet apps. The company is actively working on accessibility, including adding high-contrast options and large text.
“The goal here is to make sure students are retaining the skills that we’re teaching them, that they’re learning in an engaging way, and that teachers can then see on the teacher reporting side just where students might need a little bit more help and utilize lesson resources we have specifically for each of these lessons aligned to standards,” said Ireland, who lead the demonstration. “I really love how this program works in a way that helps teachers in the classroom, helps students working individually, helps those that are ready for harder things and not quite so ready for harder things.”
Lincoln AI
Lincoln AI, from Lincoln Learning Solutions, is a curriculum-driven large language model developed in partnership with Creatium, built on the existing Lincoln Empowered curriculum. It is intentionally designed as an educational tool to guide student inquiry rather than provide direct answers.
“Lincoln AI is guiding the student through that learning experience,” said Charlie Thayer, Chief Academic Officer for Lincoln Learning Solutions, who led the demonstration featuring Linc, the AI learning coach. “It is supporting them anytime, anywhere. It’s always available.”
Key features include:
- Curriculum-Driven Model: It is built off of the company’s decade-long curriculum development, ensuring content is educationally sound and age-appropriate.
- Homework Helper: This feature allows students to upload a worksheet (ELA, Math, Science, Social Studies) or notes. It guides them through solving problems and understanding concepts without directly providing the final answer, and it’s available 24/7.
- Flexible Communication: Students can interact with the tool by typing or texting.
- Safety and Support: It is founded on Amazon Bedrock guardrails, creating a “walled garden” to ensure a protected network environment. The accompanying teacher dashboard provides valuable analytics at the student and class level, and the system includes a security feature that sends “red alerts” to stakeholders for safety concerns.
“This is age appropriate based on the enrollment of the student,” said Dr. Rachel Book, Chief Business Development Officer for Lincoln. “If I enroll my student as the second graders that I’m used to working with, it will automatically go up or down to meet their Lexile level, to meet their level of mastery. So if you have students who are struggling a little bit, it’s gonna go down and it’s gonna help them to move up. And the other way around, if they’re excelling, it’s gonna help to increase their vocabulary and talk them through.”
vGuide by Vivacity
vGuide is a new managed service vertical from Vivacity, a six-time winner of Tech and Learning’s Awards of Excellence, focused on supporting Google environments, especially for K-12 leaders, admins, and teachers. The service is framed as a partnership to help districts manage and optimize their Google experience, particularly with Chromebooks and Chrome OS.
It is designed to address the fact that the Google ecosystem is constantly evolving (noting more than 300 changes in the Google Admin Console in the last few years), and aims to provide a clear road map to help users get to a more secure, controlled, and informed environment, said Kendal Shomura, Google Partner Services Leader for Vivacity, who demonstrated the platform.
The service is built on four core pillars:
- Migration Support: Assisting districts moving from Windows or macOS to Chrome OS, including data migration and change management support to help teachers transition comfortably to Chromebooks.
- Confidence in Google Management: Helping teams, especially those inheriting complex environments, understand and manage their Google settings.
- Environment Health Audits: Conducting comprehensive audits of the Google for Education domain and Chrome OS management settings to ensure a secure and controlled environment.
- Ongoing Optimization Support and Training: Providing continued support and training for teams to optimize their Google environment over time.
“We realized there’s another aspect to Chromebooks and Chrome integration in schools,” said Shomura. “It’s a lot more about how do we provide support for the people that are providing support, and how do we provide support for the teachers that are frontline in the classroom, and they have never used a Chromebook, but now they’re being asked to troubleshoot a Chromebook. So we’re trying to figure out ways that we can address the system as a whole rather than in pieces. That’s where vGuide really comes into play.”
SECONDARY EDUCATION
Lincoln AI
Lincoln AI is a curriculum-driven learning assistant built specifically for K-12 students to provide a secure, guided, and personalized educational experience.
“For students, Lincoln AI, it becomes an anytime, anywhere, 24 hours per day, seven days a week coach that is right there on the screen with them at any time that they’d like to use it,” said Dr. Rachel Book, Chief Business Development Officer for Lincoln. “It acts like a personal study partner, guiding inquiries, supporting understanding, and helping every student move forward with confidence. So while it’s also reducing a workload for teachers, it’s enabling a true personalized learning experience at scale.”
Key features include:
- Curriculum-Driven LLM: A proprietary Large Language Model trained exclusively on Lincoln Learning’s content and aligned with all state and national standards, resulting in a reported 99.7% rate of “no hallucinations” (inaccurate or fabricated information).
- Safety and Guardrails: Built with Amazon Bedrock guardrails, it provides an enterprise-level secure environment for students. It will not write essays or give direct answers, instead redirecting students to guide them through the problem-solving process.
- Interaction: Students can communicate via voice or text.
- Homework Helper: Allows students to upload worksheets (supports free-form and handwritten info) and receive coaching on specific questions, such as geography problems.
- Teacher Dashboard: Provides an overview of student activity, including average usage, trending topics, and email/dashboard alerts for “urgent attention” if negative or abusive language is detected in a student’s chat.
“It is not going to work like other regular AI models,” said Charlie Thayer, Chief Academic Officer for Lincoln Learning Solutions, who provided a demonstration featuring Linc, the platform’s AI learning coach. “What you’re seeing here is kind of a safety net with our guardrails that are in place that we are consistently fine tuning to ensure that.”
Gardyn for Schools
Gardyn for Schools provides a hands-on, year-round learning experience through an AI-controlled, indoor hydroponics system for classrooms.
The system uses artificial intelligence to control all lighting and automated watering, earning it the nickname “the easy button for hydroponics,” said Brad Peters, Chief Education Officer for Gardyn.
Key features include:
- Automated Monitoring: Fixed cameras and sensors take pictures every half hour to analyze the plants, providing feedback and necessary instructions (e.g., if leaves are browning) through an app.
- Compact Design: The standard unit is five feet tall, only takes up two square feet of space, and is on wheels for easy movement between classes or locations. A smaller, four-foot tall version is also available.
- Low Maintenance: The water tank needs to be refilled and the plant food changed only once every 30 days. It also features a two-week “vacation mode” for self-operation.
- Engagement: The system holds 30 plants at a time and is recommended for assigning a plant to a student to encourage ownership and pride in their growth.
- Educational Adaptability: It is suitable for all grade levels (K-higher ed) and covers subjects including STEM, health, nutrition, science, agriculture, and culinary arts.
- Cost: The most popular educator package is around $1,600 and includes accessories and a nursery/baby incubator unit for starting new plants.
“Have you ever bought a houseplant and killed it? Because I’ve done the same thing,” said Peters, who provided the demonstration in front of live vegetable plants that he’s grown with the system, even going so far as to break off a leaf and eat. “Our motto is no green thumb required.”
PikMyKid
PikMyKid is a safety and dismissal platform focused on transforming daily and emergency operations through streamlined front-office security.
“Right there in the front office from the beginning of the day to the end, PikMyKid has you covered,” said Eric Sala, Senior Customer Value Executive for PikMyKid, who led the demonstration.
Key features include:
- Visitor Management Kiosk: Uses an Apple iPad kiosk and a Brother label printer to manage all visitors.
- Automatic Background Check: Visitors scan the back of their driver’s license to automatically run a check against the national sex offender registry.
- Real-Time Alerts: If a visitor is flagged (for background check, custody dispute, or a positive reason like a VIP), a notification can be sent instantly via text, email, or app push to the safety or admin team.
- Official Badges: The system prints a badge for visitors with their photo, name, reason for the visit, date/time, and a QR code for check-out.
- Quick Check-In: Parents can opt for a quick badge/QR code for faster check-in on subsequent visits while still running a background check.
- SIS Integration: The system integrates with major Student Information Systems (SISs) to automatically recognize parents and capture potential custody considerations.
- Staff and Student Sign-In: It includes a feature for staff sign-in/sign-out (which can serve as a clock-in/out function) and can be used for students who are late to school, tracking tardies and notifying parents.
- Web Dashboard: A central web dashboard allows administrators to see who is on campus in real-time, view visitation history, manually check people in, and run or schedule reports on visitor logs (e.g., all volunteers in the last 90 days).
“Sometimes schools might think, ‘If we’re gonna be pivoting toward this, it seems a little much, especially for parents,’ said Sala. “But we’ve actually found the opposite. Usually, parents when they come to the school and they see this for the first time, they’re actually pleased, and say, ‘Hey. the school is doing something here to level up their security.”