There you have it, the top 10 educational websites students visit from 2018 (Jan. 1 through April 4, 2018). Here's how Kajeet pulls these stats together every year.
Students who access wireless Internet through either the Kajeet SmartSpot® (Wi-Fi hotspot) or Kajeet SmartBus™ (school bus Wi-Fi) solutions can only access educational content. And that is due to our innovative cloud platform, Kajeet Sentinel®, which analyzes and categorizes millions of URLs every day to determine which sites students can, or can't, access.
Since these solutions are school-issued devices, it's important for educators to see how their students use them. The reporting dashboard in Sentinel shows educators the sites students visit, and the sites they try to visit but are blocked due to CIPA-compliant filtering.
The above video is comprised of data from this year to show the top sites students visit when connected via Kajeet. See how the top sites have varied from year over year with the below posts.
This data was last updated in April 2016.
What if you knew the websites your students were visiting?
A 7th grade teacher in Michigan wants to engage her students from the beginning of the new school year. Instead of making assumptions about the websites that she thinks they enjoy going to, she is able to look at last year’s data showing the websites they visited outside the classroom on their school-issued devices. She discovered Kidzworld as a classroom favorite and decided to incorporate it into her lesson plans.
Outside Atlanta, a 5th grade math teacher wants to incorporate math websites--fun ones--into her lesson plans for the year. The instructional technology director for her district was able to provide her insight into where students spend their time on math websites outside the classroom-- Coolmath and Hoodamath.
If only it was this easy.
Online Homework = Home Connectivity
Today, roughly 7 in 10 teachers assign homework that requires access to broadband, according to the FCC. Unfortunately, one in three households do not subscribe to broadband services at any speed, leaving approximately 5 million households with school-aged children without Internet at home. Low-income households make up a disproportionate share of that 5 million which is only causing an increase in the growing digital divide.
It is important for districts to address this growing achievement gap and find solutions to not only connect their disadvantaged students, but connect with a solution that allows educators and administrators visibility into how school devices are being used beyond the classroom.
As a teacher, instructional technologist or curriculum director there are benefits to knowing what websites your students are visiting on school-issued devices at home, especially if your district is providing the broadband to do so. It may help you to draw correlations between online activity outside the classroom and student achievement, gather instant feedback of what sites engage students or monitor whether students are actually going to sites that are recommended.
The Top 10 Educational Websites Visited by Students
Website activity has been updated. Data is now from August 1, 2015 - March 13, 2016.
With more and more websites promoting educational content, helping teachers augment lesson plans, and encourage online learning, which ones that made the grade for the 2014-2015 school year? Here are the Top 10 Educational Websites for the 2015-2016 school year visited by students using their Kajeet SmartSpot® devices:
1. Education 2020
Education 2020, part of Edgenuity, provides engaging online and blended learning education solutions that propel success for every student.
2. PBS Kids
Find fun online games for kids featuring PBS KIDS characters. Students can find printables, coloring pages, online games and more.
3. Coolmath.com
This site got started to make math enjoyable for people who thought it couldn’t be fun. It offers math for ages 13-100 with explanations that are easy to grasp on topics like algebra, pre-calculus and more.
4. The Learning Odyssey
The Learning Odyssey, part of Compass Learning, includes lessons and activities built upon current, proven research about the way students learn.
5. Achieve 3000
Achieve3000 is the only patented, cloud-based solution that delivers daily differentiated nonfiction reading and writing instruction precisely tailored to each student’s reading level.
6. Speech Stream
Speechstream is a highly flexible, cloud-based language and literacy support toolbar for publishers and platform providers to embed within their online content.
7. Apex Learning
Apex Learning provides an active learning experience that engages all students in rigorous coursework to prepare them for college and work.
8. ABCya
ABCya is the leader in free educational computer games and mobile apps for kids.
9. MobyMax
Moby's adaptive curriculum creates a unique, individualized education plan for each student, allowing gifted students to progress as quickly as they like while simultaneously ensuring that remedial students get the extra instruction they need.
10. Hoodamath
HoodaMath.com is a free online math games site founded by a middle school math teacher, Hooda Math offers more than 700 math games.
Other top websites include:
11. Blackboard
12. PrimaryGames.com
13. Schoology
14. Acellus
15. MIT
16. Open Study
17. Brain Honey
18. Rosetta Stone
To succeed today, students need access to the vast educational facility that is the Internet. It is a realm that allows students to direct their own learning and gain skills needed to compete,” said Kajeet CEO and Founder Daniel Neal. “As the classroom paradigm shifts, staying connected to resources and people outside of the classroom becomes critical, and it is important for educators to understand how students are using the Internet and the tools it supports for school purposes.
The Kajeet SmartSpot: Gaining Insight into Student Website Activity
One of the key benefits of the Kajeet SmartSpot solution is that it allows districts and schools to fully customize and filter the websites students can visit, as well as the times of day or night they deem appropriate for student use. Teachers and administrators can manage access hours and filter out non-educational content, thereby keeping students on-task and controlling costs. As part of the Kajeet solution, teachers and administrators receive reports with learning analytics to help improve student achievement.
Kajeet developed Sentinel® to allow schools to manage and audit student education broadband access via a simple web-console. Sentinel allows management of the Kajeet SmartSpot access to content and web sites.
