VSTE

Virginia Society for Technology in Education

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Webinar Event: District Strategies for Achieving Digital Equity

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Vincent Scheivert, Chief Information Officer, Albemarle County Public Schools (VA) will be a panelist for the upcoming webinar Digital Strategies for Achieving Digital Equity conducted by The Alliance for Excellent Education and Consortium for School Networking. Registration is required for this free webinar which will be held May 6, 2016, from 11:00 to 11:30 AM. This will be the first in a series of webinars exploring digital equity and broadband access.

Vince will be joined by Keith Krueger, Chief Executive Officer, Consortium for School Networking, and Kamila Thigpen, Manager of Digital Learning Policy and Advocacy, Alliance for Excellent Education.

CoSN released its “Digital Equity Action Toolkit” on the 2016 Digital Learning Day. This webinar will provide an overview of resources available in the Toolkit to help education leaders address digital equity in broadband access. It will also include a discussion about emerging strategies that districts are using to overcome disparate levels of access within their communities.

Participants are welcome to submit questions to the panelists to be addressed during the webinar.

Learn more and register now. 

 

Free CoSN Webinar: Trusted Learning Environment (TLE)

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Thursday, April 28, 2016, 1:00 - 2:00 PM ET

Developed through the collaborative insight and work of national educational leadership organizations and school systems nationwide, the Trusted Learning Environment (TLE) Seal embodies the commitment of school leadership to safeguard the digital privacy of student data.

This webinar will provide further insights into this new initiative and will allow the opportunity to gain a more in-depth understanding of what the seal will mean from school systems.

This webinar will be FREE for both CoSN members and nonmembers.
Moderator:
  • Bob Moore, Chief Technology Officer, Dallas ISD (TX) and project director for CoSN's Trusted Learning Environment Seal initiative
Speakers:
  • Linnette Attai, President, PlayWell, LLC and CoSN Project Director, Protecting Privacy in Connected Learning initiative
  • Jim Siegl, Technology Architect, Fairfax County Public Schools (VA)

Register Now

E-Rate Application Filing Window Extended

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On April 15th, the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) announced that the FY2016 E-Rate application filing window will be extended to allow applicants more time to submit their applications. This move followed letters from a number of parties, including one signed by VSTE's parent organization, the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), seeking an application window extension because of problems that applicants were encountering in navigating E-Rate's new application portal.
Specifically, USAC is extending the window for all applicants by four weeks with a new closing date of May 26. 2016. When that window closes, USAC will open a second filing window for consortia and libraries, which will close on July 21, 2016. USAC indicates that the reason for the longer window for consortia and libraries is that many are unable to complete their applications until their member/related school district(s) finalize their discount rates in the system.

Big Deal Book, April 15, 2016

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VSTE partners with Big Deal Media to bring you the best in online resources, grant and competition opportunities and more. In this edition, you can Hip-Hop into History, Develop Web Literacy, Augment Reality & More.

This week, it is all about Shakespeare! We recognize the 400th anniversary of his death.

Experience the Best of Shakespeare

The Stratford Festival in Canada is commemorating the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death by making his plays accessible to a generation raised on the Internet. The festival has unveiled an online teaching platform that will include each ofShakespeare’s scripts, a film clip of every scene, and notes to understand each piece of dialogue. King Lear is the first play to be offered using these tools. More titles will be added as part of the festivals to capture on film the complete works of Shakespeare over the next 10 years. Created by the Festival’s Education Department in collaboration with D2L Corporation, the free toolkit—called PerformancePlus—is targeted at students and teachers in grades 9–12 but is available to all.

Click Here to Visit Website

Plus: On April 22, 2016, at 9:30 a.m. (ET), Discovery Education will host a virtual field trip that guides K–12 students on a journey through Shakespeare’s hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon, giving them the chance to take an exclusive tour around his birthplace. The program will visit Shakespeare’s Schoolroom and Guildhall, where the young author was inspired to create some of the greatest works of English literature. During this visit, participating classrooms will witness a re-enacted Tudor lessonand be among the first to “step inside” the newly renovated 600-year-old school building. After visiting Stratford-upon-Avon, students will travel to London, where they will learn about Shakespeare’s life in the Tudor capital through a tour of some of the city’s hidden Shakespeare locations, ending at the famous Globe Theatre, where his plays were staged. Participating classrooms will see The Bard’s work brought to life as they watch local students perform scenes from Macbeth and hear how the themes of Shakespeare’s work are still relevant today. Classrooms across the country are invited to register for this virtual tour at no cost.

There's so much more in the...

Big Deal Book, April 15, 2016

Not everything in the Book is time sensitive so be sure to check out the archives.

Governor Vetoes HB 8

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VSTE is pleased to announce that Governor Terry McAuliffe has vetoed HB 8, which would have established a new executive branch agency known as the Board of the Virginia Virtual School, to govern and facilitate the provision of full-time, online educational programs.  The VSTE Board of Directors opposed the bill.