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Google’s ‘Assignments’ tool flags plagiarism and missing sources
Google is setting out to make plagiarism harder than ever. The search giant today announced the launch of Assignments, a new grading software for higher education instructors who use G Suite for Education. Formerly known as Coursework, Assignments will allow instructors to create, assign and grade coursework with Google Docs and Drive. To boot, all student work turned in through Assignments and Classroom (its K-12 counterpart) will receive its own "originality report", a new feature that is essentially a litmus test for plagiarism.
Apple's contactless student IDs come to 12 more schools
A new school year is approaching, and for Apple that means an expansion of its contact-free student IDs. Apple Watch and iPhone owners can tap their devices to access campus facilities in 12 more schools, and these are institutions you'll likely recognize -- Georgetown University, the University of Tennessee and the University of San Francisco are some of the institutions. Considering that tap-based IDs were limited to just seven schools before, this is welcome news if you'd rather not pull out plastic to grab lunch or access the gym.
Amazon offers students Music Unlimited for 99 cents per month
Amazon is offering Prime Student subscribers a solid deal on a Music Unlimited plan. Members can gain access to the music streaming service for an extra 99 cents per month. Students who don't have a Prime Student plan can opt for a six-month trial, and then add the Music Unlimited subscription at the cut-price rate. Six bucks for half a year of ad-free music is nothing to sniff at.
The best (and mostly free) apps to help you keep up in class
By design, school is supposed to challenge you -- to push at the boundaries of your understanding of the world and make you a more well-rounded person. It's not supposed to be easy as much as it is fulfilling, but thankfully, there are ways to make your educational journey a little less difficult. Luckily for you, a lot has changed since most of the Engadget team went to school. To help out, we've gathered a few apps here that should prove especially useful as you gear up for more long days of learning. (Trust us, you'll probably miss them someday.) Oh, and don't worry: Every one of these handy apps is available for iOS and Android, so everyone gets to benefit.
K12.com exposed 7 million student records for a week
K12.com, an online education platform, inadvertently exposed the personal information of nearly seven million students, according to security researchers at Comparitech. The exposed database contained full names, email addresses, birthdates and gender identities, as well as the school that the students attend, authentication keys for accessing their accounts and other internal data. The information was available online for more than one week, and it's unclear if the database was at any point accessed by malicious actors. Engadget reached out to K12.com for additional information regarding the data exposure and will update this story if we hear back.
Help NASA name its Mars 2020 rover
NASA's Mars 2020 rover is beginning to take shape. Earlier this month, crews installed some of its legs and six of its wheels. Now, the vehicle needs a name, and for that, NASA is turning to students. Beginning in fall 2019, NASA will run a nationwide "Name the Rover" contest open to K-12 students in the US. The spacecraft will need a name by July 2020, when it's expected to launch.
Microsoft wants to make 'Minecraft' easier for kids to read
Microsoft is bringing its Immersive Reader to Minecraft: Education Edition. The tool will let users expand the text in character dialogue, settings and boards. Immersive Reader will dictate each word as it is highlighted, so users can follow along, and it will add Minecraft-specific images for words like "Creeper" and "Mooshroom."
iRobot enters the classroom with acquisition of Root Robotics
iRobot, the company behind the Roomba, is about to do more than vacuum your house, mop your floors and mow the lawn. Today the company announced that it's acquired Root Robotics, and it will add the Root educational coding robot to its lineup.
SoundCloud finally offers student pricing for its paid music service
SoundCloud has taken some steps to reform its paid streaming music services since a messy 2016 debut, but student pricing hasn't been part of it. You've paid $10 per month while your Spotify- and Apple Music-toting classmates shelled out half as much for years -- and they've sometimes received more in the bargain. The company is at last closing the gap, though. It just launched a SoundCloud Go+ plan for students that offers the same unfettered access for $5 per month, making it a considerably better deal if you need some tunes for study breaks.
Starship robots will deliver pizza and coffee to George Mason students
It just became that much easier for students to grab food without interrupting a study break. Starship and Sodexo have launched a robot food delivery service at Virginia's George Mason University, giving students and staff access to food within an average of 15 minutes or less. Pay $2 through Starship's mobile app and one of the more than 25 automatons will deliver pizza, coffee and other grub to a convenient pickup point on campus. It even ties into the school's student meal plans (the first such tie-in anywhere, according to Starship) and debit program.
PepsiCo is using robots to deliver snacks to college students
If walking to a regular vending machine seems too inconvenient, what if the vending machine came to you? PepsiCo is doing just that at the University of Pacific campus in Stockton, California with robots called "snackbots." Using a smartphone app, students can order quasi-healthy snacks like Baked Lays, Sunchips or a Starbucks Cold Brew (from PepsiCo's "Hello Goodness" vending platform), and have it delivered between 9 AM and 5 PM to one of 50 locations around the 175 acre campus.
Chinese schools keep tabs on kids with 'intelligent uniforms'
Even schoolkids can't escape China's increasing obsession with surveillance. Over 10 schools in the country's southwestern Guizhou province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region have made students wear "intelligent uniforms" from Guanyu Technology in the name of improving attendance and safety. Each uniform has two chips that indicate when a student is entering or exiting school grounds, and automatically sends that data to both parents and teachers. Leave without permission and an automatic voice alarm will make it patently clear you're a truant.
YouTube Music and Premium now offer student discounts
If YouTube Music is going to compete with Spotify and Apple Music on price, it's going to need discounts for the student set. Thankfully, they've just turned up -- you can now subscribe to a $5 per month YouTube Music Premium plans as well as a corresponding $7 YouTube Premium plan ($6 if you sign up before January 31st). So long as you're a full-time student at an accredited US college or university, you can listen or watch to your heart's content without stretching your budget past the breaking point.
Apple Wallet now supports contact-free student ID cards
Apple has been promising support for contactless student ID cards ever since it unveiled iOS 12, and it's finally here a few weeks after the software itself. Students at Duke University, the University of Alabama and the University of Oklahoma can now add their ID cards to Apple Wallet and use their iPhones and Apple Watches to access facilities, or pay for must-haves like food and laundry. You might not have to dig through your wallet just to return to your dorm after a long night out.
The nine speakers we recommend in our back-to-school guide
Though our back-to-school guide includes plenty of headphones, we threw in just as many speakers. Whether you intend to host a few parties or just want the convenience of a smart speaker, we found a number of models that we feel earn their space in your dorm. As you might expect, our list of nine picks include plenty of smart speakers, including usual suspects like the Apple HomePod, Google Home and Sonos One. Our feeling is, if you're going to invest in bookshelf or desktop speakers, you may as well have the option of using voice commands. That said, nearly half of our recommendations are portable, with highlights from JBL, Bang & Olufsen and the category leader, UE. As a warning, not everything on this list is cheap (we're looking at you, Klipsch), but some, like the UE Wonderboom are much cheaper, with a street price of around $70. Find all that and more (plus those headphone picks we mentioned) in our complete guide.
Algeria shuts down internet during exams to curb cheating
Algeria is not kidding around when it comes to exam cheats this year. The country is shutting off internet access for both mobile and fixed line connections for an hour after each high school diploma exam starts. Officials hope the move will stop any leaks. The temporary shutdowns will last until the end of the exam season on June 25th, the BBC reported. Algeria is also blocking Facebook across the nation during the period.
GitHub Education is a free software development package for schools
GitHub, the online, open-source code repository recently acquired by Microsoft, has already made big moves to support future software developers. In 2012 it launched the Student Developer Pack, in 2015 it built the GitHub Classroom for teachers, and earlier this year it opened up teacher training with its Campus Advisor program. Now, it's packaging all of these tools and features together under the umbrella "GitHub Education", which will available to schools completely free of charge.
US will limit visas for Chinese tech students
The Trump adminstration's ever-growing trade fight with China is about to have a significant impact on Chinese students traveling abroad. After the State Department confirmed that it would shorten the length of some Chinese citizens' visas, the AP has learned that officials would limit visas to one year for any student studying in tech-related fields like aviation, high-tech manufacturing and robotics. While the exact aim isn't clear, those fields line up with the Made in China 2025 plan -- this would discourage students from earning degrees in the US solely to give China a technological edge.
Adobe offers schools Creative Cloud licenses for $5/year
Adobe has been slowly moving its apps and services to the cloud since 2013. If you use any of the company's creative products — like Photoshop, Illustrator or Lightroom — you probably already purchase them via a subscription, which can run anywhere from $10 to $83 per month for an individual. Now, Adobe is making the full suite of Adobe Creative Cloud apps for K-12 schools to $5 annually per license (with a minimum purchase of 500 licenses per school or 2,500 per district).
littleBits and Pearson bring electronics kits to US schools
The littleBits team has long been eager to teach kids about the joys of building electronics, and it's taking that commitment to its logical conclusion. It's partnering with Pearson on the STEM Invention Toolbox, a kit that teaches students at varying grade levels how to design electronics and understand scientific concepts. They can craft circuits that save energy, for example, or a communication device for astronauts. The aim is to learn by doing, and encourage kids to "think beyond the text" -- they're not just memorizing facts or performing canned experiments.
