VSTE

Virginia Society for Technology in Education

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Big Deal Book, April 1, 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 Explore Design Thinking, Invite an Author, Take a Virtual Tour & More.

Here are just a few highlights from this edition. Click the link below to get additional information about them and find lots more.

Experience Your America

In celebration of its 100th birthday in 2016, the National Park Service has launched Find Your Park, a movement to spread the word about the amazing places the park service manages, the inspirational stories that the national parks tell, the country’s natural resources, and America’s diverse cultural heritage.

Break Down Barriers and Boundaries

Our Africa, a web resource developed by SOS Children, the world’s largest charity for orphaned and abandoned children, features countries in Africa through the eyes of children. The website has an extensive—and growing—collection of videos that bring viewers right into these children’s worlds.

Develop the Mindset of Innovators

Design Challenge Learning is a combination of project-based learning, design thinking, and the engineering design processthat develops the innovator’s mindset through iteration. It’s a method of learning for which The Tech Museum of Innovation, in San Jose, California, is best known.

Big Deal Book, April 1, 2016

Archives

Big Deal Book, March 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 Integrate Science & Music, Engage in Debate, Celebrate Reading & More.

Here are just a few highlights from this edition. Click the link below to learn more about them and find lots more.

Engage Students in Current Events

Designed for the iPad and iPhone by Press4Kids, the News-O-Matic, Daily Reading for Kids app provides images, videos, and maps to accompany five daily news stories, in English and Spanish, at three reading levels. The app also includes a bilingual Read to Me feature.

Sing Along with Scientists

Space School Musical, a multimedia Discovery Program from NASA, takes students on a trip through the solar system in a “hip-hopera” that uses song and dance to introduce the planets, moons, comets, asteroids, and even some rockin’ scientists and engineers—present and past—who present facts about the galaxy.

Champion Children’s Books

Established in 1919, Children’s Book Week is the longest-running national literacy initiative in the country. Every year commemorative events are held nationwide at schools, libraries, bookstores, homes—wherever young readers and books connect. Children’s Book Week is administered by Every Child a Reader, a 501(c)(3) literacy organization dedicated to instilling a lifelong love of reading in children.

Big Deal Book, March 15, 2016

Archives

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference Begins March 9

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9th Annual Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education
March 9-12, 2016
2016 Theme : Horizons
http://vwbpe.org/

VSTE’s own Virtual Environments PLN has been selected to hold a featured panel for the 9th annual Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference. The VWBPE Conference, March 9-12, is 100% virtual with venues, in both Second Life and Avacon Grid.

VSTE’s VE PLN has been very active in virtual world communities, particularly in Second Life, since 2008, and more recently, Minecraft. On Saturday, March 12, 2016, 3:00 p.m. to 4:50 p.m. Pacific time (SLT) Karen Richardson, Keith Reeves, Kim Harrison, Vasili Giannoutsos, Dr. William F. Schmachtenberg, Lisa Alconcel, and Beth O’Connell will share VSTE’s Virtual Environments Horizons with the world.

The VWBPE Conference is a completely virtual conference that is conducted using simulated environments. Participants experience the conference through a virtual reality type setting including conference rooms, theatres, exposition halls, meeting spaces, and other types of venues similar to a brick and mortar type conference.
The conference is free to attend. The cost of the conference is covered by sponsorship and donations. For more information on this conference see http://vwbpe.org/.

Keynote speakers include Bronwyn Stuckey, postdoctoral research fellow of the Arizona State University Center for Games & Impact; Karl Kapp, full-professor of Instructional Technology at Bloomsburg University in Bloomsburg, PA; and MOOC Inventor Stephen Downes.

VWBPE has a full schedule of sessions and social events running nearly around the clock from Wednesday midday through Saturday night. Times listed are SLT, Second Life Time, which is the same as Pacific Time. There will be participants from around the globe.