VSTE

Virginia Society for Technology in Education

timstahmer

Thinking Outside the Blocks

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Roanoke County Public Schools has access to Minecraft: Education Edition. While the elementary and middle school levels have had no trouble finding projects for students such as recreating Jamestown or showing fractions with the building blocks, the high school level educators have been a bit skeptical. This year, however, I have had more teachers hop on board, due mainly to the desire and begging of the students.

Stadium constructed in Minecraft(click image for a larger view)

A Sports and Entertainment Marketing teacher approached me with a project her students were working on, looking for ideas of where they could build a professional football stadium. The students had to select an area in the United States that did not have a professional football team, propose a team to the ìtown councilî, ìsecureî a local corporate sponsor, design logos and jerseys, set pricing for tickets and concessions, and much more. She wanted the final stage of the project to be to build the stadium, complete with gift shops, parking garages, concession stands with prices displayed, and more. It took the students, working in groups of 3 to 4, about 4 weeks working half of the 90 minute block every other day to build their stadiums. The results are impressive. However, the teamwork, collaboration, and communication was even more impressive. Students had to work together to be efficient and effective in their building process. Skill levels of Minecraft ranged from novice to expert but that didnít seem to matter, there was a job for everyone.

Stadium constructed in Minecraft(click image for a larger view)

An Earth Science teacher was begged by students to come up with a Minecraft project. She found they were even choosing to play Minecraft (and would build content related items without her prompting) when they had completed all of their work! When she approached me about a project, we decided that the students should be given some freedom in their construction. They had been studying oceanography and their requirement was to show all parts of the ocean floor, complete with sea life (real and fiction), tools to study the ocean, and ways to show the current. As you can see in the picture, not all students chose to create their masterpieces in the Ocean Biome world. This group created a viewing boardwalk complete to view their ocean aquarium. While the students were very creative and often exceeded the expectations of the project, the most impressive aspect was the conversations students held during the building process. The amount of science vocabulary they were using was more than you could draw out of them during a worksheet or independent task.

ocean world constructed in Minecraft (click image for a larger view)

Lastly, the World Geography teacher was discussing human impacts on global regions and decided she wanted the students to use Minecraft to show the dangers of human impact and ways that it could be reversed. Students researched a given biome and had to answer questions before jumping into the Minecraft portion of the project. Once again, the vocabulary that emerged during the project was more than just normal teenage vernacular. The students were discussing real global issues and solutions. They were helping each other find ways to show the destruction in Minecraft and were very creative in their final results.

Building and yard in Minecraft (click image for a larger view)

Some drawbacks of using Minecraft in the classroom? The biggest fear my teachers have is that the students know more about the program than they do. And I tell them that is just how it is! Embrace it. You are the content teacher, you have given them the assignment. It is up to the student to build (which the majority of them know how to do quite well). They will most likely only ask content questions anyways. If a student has a Minecraft question, they often refer to peers or YouTube.

The biggest take away is the opportunity to see your students flourish in an environment where they are the most comfortable. They are collaborating, communicating, using critical thinking skills, being creative, and, depending on the project, thinking about how they can be better citizens. When it comes to education technology, Minecraft is a definite way to think outside the blocks, er, box!

Written by Kelsey Huffman, an ITRT in Roanoke County Public Schools.

Empowering Student Voice

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In case you haven’t heard, #FlipgridFever is a real thing! This educational tool has made quite a name for itself in the world of teaching. Amplifying student voice is key if we want our students to take responsibility for their learning and understanding, as well as being proud of sharing what they know. As teachers, we are trying to teach our students that we should respect each other’s rights, feelings, opinions, beliefs, and values. What better way to demonstrate that than using Flipgrid for students to share those things through book reviews amongst their peers.

A few Instructional Technology Coaches from Prince William County Public Schools put our heads together to create a collaborative Book Review project using Flipgrid as the main tool, so students could give personal reviews of books after they’ve finished. Students across multiple schools are able to share their reviews, as well as watch reviews from their peers. The students are being introduced to a larger peer group with differing ideas than they see in their own school buildings, enabling a broader perspective and larger conversation about their books.

Filpgrid allows students to share their thoughts on books with many other students, giving them the power to evaluate texts and empowering them to think actively about the texts, rather than just passively moving from book to book. Keeping students engaged in their learning is a challenging task. Teachers are always looking for student-centered activities that involve students incorporating their interests, while making their own choices. Flipgrid is the perfect platform to take student voice to the next level. We’ve seen students who rarely raise their hand in class review several books since we opened up our book review stations.

Not only are they working on their writing and oral language skills, but they are more confident in sharing their own voice on a forum like Flipgrid. While they may be shy in class, the feeling that they are alone when recording in front of a camera affords them the security they need to share their thoughts without the pressure of speaking in front of a group. They are reading, thinking about reading, and talking about their reading in authentic ways. Flipgrid has given purpose to their reading. This activity provides a win for students and the teachers!

Written by Sara Ross and Kevin Weaver. Sara and Kevin are both Instructional Technology Coaches in Prince William County Schools.

A Journey with Fredericksburg and Their AR Sandbox

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augmented reality platformA year ago we saw a video that showed a sandbox that was able to show a topographic map showing contour lines displayed from a projector, to a computer, to a Kinect camera. I thought I would share a little information on what Fredericksburg did to get that video to become a reality.

This all happened before the AR Sandbox became very popular (now you can purchase them online), so we enlisted help from folks around our school. Our former Director of Technology is a Master Craftsman, and while information was online on how to build it, he did a much sturdier version of the suggested specifications. It took about two months for the build to occur.students working in an augmented reality sandbox

In the meantime, we began to investigate computers and projectors that would support the specifications. In the end we settled with an Epson VS250 projector, and a Trident MS-B920 desktop with a GPU (Nvidia GTX 1060, DDR5 3GB). We would recommend however going with the BenQ short throw projector that they recommend, we thought the above-mentioned projector would be a little better, hindsight we should have stuck with their model.

Setting up the computer was straightforward; you need to only have a bit of knowledge of Linux to utilize the software. Having the online Linux community was very helpful. I will tell you from my experience now setting up 3 desktops with the Linux Mint version 18.3 Sylvia (MATE) was the best version. I know currently they are using 19.1. We had an issue with 19.1 and the graphics card not being recognized, so after many hours of backtracking, I went back to the 18.3 version and had success with the graphics card being recognized.
students working in an augmented reality sandboxSo why do this and what was the benefit and goal of using this AR Sandbox? First, to us it is all about students. This gives students a unique opportunity to explore hands on learning at its finest. Students can manipulate the sand and, in real time, be able to see the landforms change instantly. Students are able to manipulate the landforms to show water running downhill and where it travels based off of the topography, in fact, with the code, students can hold their hands out at cloud level and have it appear as if their hands have water coming down to augmented reality sandboxthe ground (with the addition of an evaporation command and a water command, students can see the water cycle in action). Being able to change the land in real time allows students to experience what would happen during a tsunami, hurricane, flooding, and storm surges. Talking about it is one thing, watching a video of it is another, being able to immerse yourself in it makes the learning so much more meaningful and in the end that is the goal.

Currently, we have our Sandbox at our Grade 3-5 school, and it is being utilized to teach students about watersheds, the water cycle, plate tectonics, and the impact that weather has on our planet. In addition to students coming down for lessons utilizing the sandbox, students are able to visit the library where it is housed and come in and explore it just as they would be able to at a museum. Teachers and students have reflected and have said what an amazing experience this has been. From my standpoint with it being all about students, I feel that this was an amazing addition to the already wonderful teaching we have going on in Fredericksburg. The photos in this post show the progress of our build and the students getting to use the sandbox during lessons.

The site that we used for the building design ideas, software, and hardware installation was from UC Davis. If you are interested in creating your own, use the information on their site. I know that it helped us out a lot. If you have questions or are interested in learning more, feel free to e-mail me and I would be happy to answer your questions.

Written by Josh Long. Josh is the Director of Technology for Fredericksburg City Schools and a member of the VSTE Board of Directors.

AIM Virginia

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AIM-VA was created through a grant from the Virginia Department of Education.  AIM-VA is a free service that provides accessible instructional materials to eligible Virginia K-12 students who have an Individualized Education Program (IEP) and are unable to access traditional print.  AIM-VA converts textbooks, workbooks, reading books and teacher-made materials into accessible formats that meet the needs of the individual student.  AIM-VA also provides technical assistance and training. With over 500,000 materials housed in its library, AIM-VA works to ensure that students with print disabilities have access to accessible instructional materials.

Created by Nicci T. Dowd. Nicci is an Assistive Technology Training and Technical Specialist for AIM-VA and a member of the VSTE Board of Directors.

Tech Spotlight – Robotics

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Christine Richmond is a Robotics teacher at Peter Muhlenberg Middle School. Through a program facilitated by Carnegie Mellon University, Ms. Richmond’s eighth-grade students are constructing and programming Lego Mindstorm robots to navigate various courses and perform specific functions. Students work in teams to complete “challenge tasks” and demonstrate an understanding of various robotics engineering concepts. The students will ultimately apply what they have learned from the various tasks to complete a final challenge - programming their robots to act as emergency responders for search and rescue missions.