VSTE

Virginia Society for Technology in Education

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#GoOpenVA Development of Resources Initiative

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In October 2015, the US Department of Education launched #GoOpen, a campaign to encourage states, school districts and educators to use openly licensed educational materials. Open licensed educational material is more commonly known as Open Education Resources (OER).

In August 2016, a group of interested parties from across the Commonwealth of VA met informally at the VDOE offices in Richmond, VA to form a task force for the purpose of exploring the OER landscape in Virginia and identifying existing practitioners and models. The task force eventually included leaders from Virginia school divisions, Virginia CommSwirl with word Go Open VAunity College System, Virginia Department of Education,, WHRO’s eMediaVA, and Amazon Education. #GoOpenVA came into existence as the result of actions taken by this task force. Find more information on the #GoOpenVA vision, mission and goals at the #GoOpenVA website.

On April 20, 2017, VDOE held a Kickoff Meeting for #GoOpenVA’s OER development goal at the Monroe Building in Richmond, VA. In attendance were 18 teachers from across the Commonwealth and 22 other educational professionals who are active in the OER community of users. The purpose of the meeting was to educate and inform the participants on Open Education Resources (OER) and to give guidance on how to curate and identify education resources that are truly “Open”.  The following link is a video from the #GoOpenVA Development Educational Resources KickOff Meeting:

As the summer progresses the teachers at this workshop will work on curating open education resources with a focus on three content areas: Algebra I, World History I, and Virginia Social Studies. This is an exciting opportunity for learning and collaborating. These teachers and their supporting staff are working to define the processes for curating Open Education Resources that align to the Virginia Standards of Learning. The goal is to identify open resources that are validated to be of high quality, that support personalized learning, that promote critical and creative thinking for teachers and students and are effective at accelerating learning.

Below are comments from two of the teachers who are engaged in the #GoOpenVA Development of Resources initiative: 

Daina Campbell, Henry County Schools, VA Studies

 

Catherine Pace, M.ED, Chesapeake Schools Social Studies Teacher

 

Author: Elsie Dawson, Lead Project Manager, Virginia Department of Education

Contributors: Daina Campell, Henry County Schools, VA Studies; Catherine Pace, M.ED, Chesapeake Schools, Social Studies Teacher; Jean Weller, VDOE Education Technology Specialist; Dr. Deri Drapper, Director Integrated Learning, Old Dominion University

 

Lord Fairfax Community College’s HigherEd.org Search Engine and Learning Portal = A Tool for Educators

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On October 1, 2014, Lord Fairfax Community College (LFCC) was awarded a $3.25 million TAACCCT grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to develop competency-based education (CBE) programs and promote the use of free and low-cost digital resources wherever possible. In conjunction with the creation of their Knowledge to Work (K2W) program (competency-based education programs in information technology, health information management, and administrative support technology), LFCC created the HigherEd.org search engine and national learning portal.

Students Learn Free Online at HigherEd.org

HigherEd.org offers free and low-cost learning resources for personalized learning tied to competencies using OER (open educational resources). HigherEd.org features learning resources from numerous providers such as YouTube, Saylor Academy, and Microsoft. Resources are tied to competencies and aligned to national frameworks in a variety of topics. All resources are curated by a digital librarian for accessibility and adaptation.

For educators, HigherEd.org provides modules that can be adapted to the classroom for teaching, student presentations, and learning aids. HigherEd.org continues to grow. There may even be tools in the future to allow educators to create a digital classroom for their students within the site allowing independent, directed inquiry work.

Students can find links to resources that can assist them in receiving badges, certifications and even information to help acquire employability skills. For those that register for a free MyHigherEd account, they enjoy many learning tools, such as:

  • Create a personalized learning plan to track their progress
  • Set a custom goal and/or choose a credential to locate learning resources tied to competencies
  • Search resources useful for learning competencies and achieving their custom goal or credential
  • Save their searches and review their complete search history
  • Save and comment on resources
  • And so much more

Visit HigherEd.org

Guest post by 
Lyda Costello Kiser, DA, Director, Office of Transition Programs, Title IX Coordinator
Eric Simons, Knowledge to Work, DOL TAACCCT Grant
Lord Fairfax Community College

Big Deal Book, June 15, 2017

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Blue rectangle with words Maximizing Technology in the the 21st Century Classroom bright graphic on left side of rectangle displays words Big Deal Media

VSTE partners with Big Deal Media to bring you the best in online resources for digital learning and professional development plus grant and competition opportunities and more. In this edition, you can Avoid the Summer Slide, Tap Open Resources, Engage with Robots & More.

Here are a few of our favorites from this edition...be sure to check the full Big Deal Book for more great resources!

Program Promoting Astute Digital Citizenship

In celebration of Internet Safety Month, Google has released a classroom curriculum and computer game to teach children in grades 3–5 about online safety and security. The program, called Be Internet Awesome, is part of Google’s effort to instill youth with digital savvy and to encourage them to be good internet citizens.

Game Fostering Creativity and Empathy on Real-World Issues

The online digital multiplayer game @Stake was created by Emerson College to foster empathy and creativity between diverse perspectives on real-world issues.

Conversations About Bullying and Harassment

The KnowBullying app for iOS and Android is designed to help parents initiate difficult conversations about bullying and harassment with their children.

Big Deal Book, June 15, 2017

Not all the resources are time sensitive, so be sure to check out the archives.

 

Registration Open for VSTE SuperHero Summit aka Googlepalooza

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Join us for this professional development event! Check out the schedule here: https://superherosummit2017.sched.com/

Registration is open and seats are going fast.

The Super Hero Summit will include sessions related to Google, Virtual Reality,  Makerspaces, and Coding. There will be standard one-hour breakout sessions along with two-hour hands on sessions that will give participants the opportunity to take a deeper dive into a tool or concept.

Lord Fairfax Community is located just 90 minutes from almost everywhere in central and northern Virginia!

Register here.

Joe Freddoso to Head Panel Discussion at Leading Ed Forum 2017

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The VSTE CoSN Council and the Virginia Department of Education are pleased to welcome Joe Fredosso, USAC consultant and co-founder and COO of Mighty River, as a speaker for the second annual Leading Ed Forum. Joe will lead a panel discussion on Friday, October 20. This event, designed for school division technology and instructional leaders and presented through a partnership of VSTE and the Virginia Department of Education, will be held October 19 & 20, 2017, at Daniel Technology Center in Culpeper, Virginia. Learn more about this event here.

Mighty River was founded by April and Joe Freddoso in July 2014 as an advise and do company in the broadband infrastructure space.  

In its first three years of operation, Mighty River clients have included:

  • EducationSuperHighway
  • Extreme Networks
  • Universal Service Administrative Company
  • Person County, NC
  • The Walton Family Foundation
  • NC Rural Economic Development Center
  • Several client relationships under non-disclosure

One of Mighty River’s roles has been to assist E-rate applicants in navigating the second E-rate modernization order.  E-rate reimbursement for applicant construction of fiber broadband networks either owned by the applicant or by a broadband provider, greatly expanded under the terms of the second modernization.  In its role Mighty River provided advisory assistance to over 1500 E-rate applicants over a 3-year period from 2014-2017.  

In July 2014, Joe completed a 7-year stint as President and CEO of MCNC.  MCNC operates the North Carolina Research and Education Network (NCREN), which provides broadband connectivity to most Community Anchor Institutions in North Carolina.  Under Joe’s leadership, MCNC quadrupled its revenue, grew NCREN's connector community by 700% and now possesses a book value of over one quarter billion dollars.
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Also, during Joe’s time at MCNC, the organization completed a $144 million expansion of NCREN, called the Golden LEAF Rural Broadband Initiative (GLRBI). This expansion included building over 1800 miles of new fiber optic infrastructure, acquiring 800 miles of fiber optic infrastructure through Indefeasible Right to Use (IRU) agreements and adding these fiber assets to the NCREN network.  The result is an NCREN that covers over 80% of North Carolina’s counties. 

Joe led the effort to negotiate the fiber leases as the lessee and the lessor and all types of lit service, colocation, above the net services arrangements.  MCNC successfully IRU'd to broadband service providers worth over $25 million of fiber on the GLRBI. Joe and MCNC were recognized as White House Champions of Change in 2012 and Computer World Laureates in 2013 for their efforts.

Freddoso has also served in senior executive roles at Cisco, Turner Broadcasting, LLC, Walt Disney World and for several entities in the Olympic movement including as President and CEO of the 1999 Special Olympics World Summer Games.