VSTE

Virginia Society for Technology in Education

Online Events

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.

 

Learning Events 2016

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Digital Learning Day 2016
February 17, 2016
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Brainstorm 2016: What Inspires Us!
James Madison University
Harrisonburg, VA
April 8, 2016
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Googlepalooza III
Lord Fairfax Community College
Middletown, VA
June 21, 2016
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Googlepalooza Tidewater
Jones Magnet Middle School
Hampton, VA
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Digital Learning Day 2016

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Archived Recordings

VSTE will be partnering with the Virginia Department of Education to provide a full day of virtual events for Digital Learning Day 2016, February 17, 2016. Scroll down for the complete schedule along with links where you can view the Google Hangouts.

The VDOE will host two live webinars to provide updates on current and proposed technology-related initiatives. Join Mark Saunders, Director, Office of Technology & Virtual Learning and Bobby Keener, Chief Technology Innovations Officer at 10 AM and 1 PM.

VSTE will host an evening webinar beginning at 8 PM that will highlight the VSTE 2015 award winners talking about educational technology past, present and future: Outstanding Teacher of the Year, Doug Saunders, Henrico County; Outstanding Leader of the Year, Dr. Helen Crompton, Old Dominion University; Innovative Educator of the Year, Kim Harrison, Virginia Beach Public Schools; and Making It Happen Award Winners, Janet Copenhaver, Henry County Public Schools and Mano Talaiver, recently retired from Longwood University.

#stuvoice

Throughout the day, VSTE will be featuring students across the Commonwealth talking about how they learn, how they use technology to learn and showing some of the innovative projects they are working on in their classrooms.

Digital Learning Day Schedule:

8:45 - 9: 45 AM
Students from Virginia Beach City, Frederick County, and Henrico County
Link for Viewing

10 AM Virginia Department of Education Update
Mark Saunders, Director, Office of Technology & Virtual Learning
Link for Viewing

10:45 AM - 12:00 PM
Students from Hanover County, Frederick County, Henrico County, Falls Church City, and Bath County
Link for Viewing

1:00 Virginia Department of Education Update
Join Bobby Keener, Chief Technology Innovations Officer
Link for Viewing

8:00 PM Ed Tech Past, Present, Future
Join our 2015 award winners--Outstanding Teacher of the Year, Doug Saunders, Henrico County; Outstanding Leader of the Year, Dr. Helen Crompton, Old Dominion University; Innovative Educator of the Year, Kim Harrison, Virginia Beach Public Schools; and Making It Happen Award Winners, Janet Copenhaver, Henry County Public Schools and Mano Talaiver, recently retired from Longwood University--to talk all things ed tech!
Supported by GEG Northern VA
Link for Viewing 

 

Connected Educator Month Webinars

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VSTE will be hosting three webinars for Connected Educator Month.  All of them will be held in our Adobe Connect meeting room: http://vste.adobeconnect.com/vstelive.

Wednesday, October 21, 7 PM: Learning and Making
Join Meg Swecker and Tina Coffey from Roanoke County to learn how they are implementing engineering and design through makerspaces.

Missed It? You can listen to the archived recording here.

Monday, October 26, 8 PM: Minecrafting History: Iterative learning, virtual environments and you
Join educators from The Madeira School as they share how Minecraft can be used as a meaningful tool for curriculum and student engagement in the history classroom. It will also discuss the importance of virtual environments, world building and citizenship as part of a social sciences course. There will be classroom examples, lesson artifacts and student observations regarding their experiences in-game to help demonstrate why the Minecraft enabled classroom offers a safe, iterative environment as well as meaningful learning experiences for students of all levels of digital literacy.

Missed It? You can listen to the archived recording here and view the interactive Sway presentation here.

Wednesday, October 28, 7 PM: Coding for Students and Teachers
Join Marnie Hawk from Loudoun County and Charles Hinsch from Virginia Beach as they talk about how they are implementing coding programs for students and teachers. Marnie will describe the C.A.M.S. pilot program at Blue Ridge Middle School while Charlie discusses his work with teaching programming to adults as part of professional development.

Missed it? You can listen to the archived recording here.

VE PLN, Monday, October 5, 2015, 8 PM

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October 5 at 8 PM EDT VSTE VE PLN will visit VIBE, Virtual Islands for Better Education, to see an archaeology simulation built by Nova Saunders. Nova would love to have teachers bring students to her sim. Come and see if this content is something you can use instructionally! VIBE is an Open Sim, not connected to Second Life.
To reach Nova's sim in VIBE, follow these directions:

Complete directions are here https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bxo7jBzK1BkwYUtfRl9iQS1HSDA/edit
Stephen Gasior wrote these for a Virtual Pioneers tour a while back.

Basically, you download a viewer that can access Open Sims. Firestorm has one.  Singularity is also a possiblity.
http://www.firestormviewer.org/downloads/
http://www.singularityviewer.org/

Install and launch the viewer.
Next you click Grid Manager at the bottom of the viewer window.
Type http://nova.bio-se.info:9000 into the Login URL
Click Apply and OK.

You will be directed to a place to register for an account.
Create an account.
Once you get the notice that it is set up, fill in the login name and password at the bottom of the viewer and login.

You will rez, or spawn, in Nova's sim. You may appear to be a cloud, but we can help you get an avatar body once you are there.

Start early! This process may take a few minutes.