VSTE

Virginia Society for Technology in Education

Events

Connecting to the Virtual Environments PLN

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logo for VE PLN

The VE PLN hosts events on most Mondays at 8 PM ET in either Second Life or Minecraft. Learn more about how to connect to both these virtual worlds.

VSTE in Second Life Office Hours:

There is a small learning curve for getting up and running in Second Life. But, we think it's worth it. If you want some help, join Jaz and Thunder for Saturday morning office hours. Use the directions below to install the software and set up a free account.

screen shot of Second Life avatars

Basic directions to join VSTE Place, VSTE’s Minecraft world:

You must have a Minecraft account from https://minecraft.net/en/ to join. There is a one time fee of $26.95 to download and install the software. You will need to be whitelisted to enter the VSTE server.

Email Kim Harrison at K4sons@gmail.com from an educational email address with your real name and Minecraft account name.

Start the software and choose multiplayer and add a server: Name VSTE Place IP 69.175.17.26:25565

We use Discord to share voices in Minecraft. This is a voice and screen sharing application that will run on your computer or mobile device. Download and install it for free. Create an account. Many of us use the same name for our Discord account as our Minecraft account to keep things simple. Our channel is https://discord.gg/nDX4mZv It helps us to be able to play Minecraft in one screen and listen via Discord with earbuds or headphones.

Basic Directions to access VSTE in Second Life:

Tutorial Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TdiHylfcvM&feature=youtu.be

Second Life is a virtual world that is navigated using an avatar. You will need a free Second Life account as well as the software in order to participate. We recommend setting up an account at the Rockcliffe University Consortium's Gateway here: https://urockcliffe.com/reg/second-life/ Download and install the software.

Once the software is installed and open, click this link http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Soulgiver/156/169/58 and your avatar will be teleported to VSTE Island. Look for an avatar on VSTE Island and say, "Hey, I'm new!" We will take care of the rest.

 

Past Events:

 

Minecraft Monday

Monday, May 4, 2020, 8 PM

Let's go Orienteering in Minecraft!

Minecraft Monday will be on May 4th at 8 PM Eastern time in VSTE Place. I have maps purchased from my village cartographer which we will duplicate and use to find treasure or temples! Come work with a friend, alone, compete or cooperate - you do you, but first we will talk about coordinates and how to follow the map. How could you use this with students?

 

Scroll down for more information about how to connect to Minecraft.

Virtual environments like Second Life and Minecraft offer opportunities to expand online learning for both teachers and students. The VSTE Virtual Environments PLN will be offering a variety of events in the coming weeks. Minecraft Monday: Held the first Monday of each month at VSTE Place in Minecraft. Details for connecting are at the bottom of this post.

VSTE in Second Life Photo Tour: Staying home and looking for ways to stay connected with your fellow educators? Come join us in Second Life, Monday, April 27, 8:00 PM EST at the VSTE Virtual Education Network. We will do a Photo Tour of the 2020 Fantasy Faire, a virtual Relay for Life event that supports Cancer Research. Featuring over 18 fantastical-themed zones, partake in a Tour of the various areas as we talk about the creations and take some magical photos. Details for setting up a free Second Life account and accessing VSTE in SL are at the bottom of this post.

VSTE in Second Life Student Presentation: A Comparison of the Jurassic Rocks of Switzerland and Como Bluff,  WY USA: A CaseStudy in International Collaboration at the High School Level

Monday, May 11, 2020, 8:00 PM

We often hear in schools about the need for students to learn 21st Century skills such as creativity and collaboration on an international scale. Franklin County High School student Darien Bradley worked for months with a scientist in Switzerland to compare and contrast the geology of the Jurassic time period of Switzerland with the classic dinosaur locality at Como Bluff, WY. He will discuss challenges and benefits of doing online collaboration with someone in another country as well as what he learned about the Jurassic time period in these countries.

Join us in Second Life, Monday, May 11 at 8:00 PM EST.

Details for setting up a free Second Life account and accessing VSTE in SL are at the bottom of this post.

Starts Monday, April 27: Brainstorm 2020: Limitless Learning

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Brainstorm: Limitless Learning Online Conference
A joint online conference between UnisonEDU, SVTC, VSTE, and JMU!

The Brainstorm Conference is going virtual this year modeled after amazing online PD like the Ditch Summit, Hive Summit, or Cy Fair Edtech. The sessions will be interview style and/or recorded with a tool, concept, or project featured as well as resources to aid each session yielding a takeaway the attendee can implement right away. Presentations can be tech related or on any other topic people are passionate about that could benefit other educators.

Join in this amazing professional learning opportunity with over 20 different sessions all with dynamic presenters!

Sessions will begin going live the week of April 27, 2020!

Sign up for daily VIP Email Updates.

Logo for conference

Minecraft Monday: April 6, 2020, 8 PM

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It’s that time again! Join us at VSTE place at 8 PM tonight. Minecraft Monday for April 2020 will be fishing data collection.

This is an idea you can replicate with your students! We will meet in survival on VSTE Place and go fishing. We will record time of day, weather, type of rods, and items caught. Everyone will tally their catches in groups of ten. There will be a google spreadsheet to enter your results. What will we learn? Do you get more fish, treasure, or trash? Do we even agree on which items are treasure or trash? Are enchanted fishing rods really better than others? Let’s find out! When you get into VSTE Place type /warp survival to meet up with us.

If this is your first foray into Minecraft, you'll need to do a little setup including creating an account and downloading the software. Start here.

How to Join

To join our Minecraft server please email K4sons@gmail.com or lwalconc@gmail.com. If this is your first time, we need your Mojang Minecraft user name and your real name. Thank you for your interest! I will add you to the server in just a moment. The VSTE Place IP address is 69.175.17.26:25565 If you experience any difficulty, please let me know. As a reminder, this server is for educators. If you are using your child's account to participate please do not encourage your child to use our server. We are currently using version 1.15.2.

This Google doc has more info about the server: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rrwGjJDu3lgZuqZ7udrM8-DAMyofF186a78__ciEem8/edit?usp=sharing

 

 

VSTE & UnisonEDU Offer Online Coaching Plus Other Ways to Connect

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Not only are teachers and students learning how to connect online, Virginia's technology coaches are also figuring out how to support teachers in an online environment.

VSTE is offering several ways for teachers and coaches to connect and share.

  1. Online Coaching: In partnership with UnisonEDU, we are offering synchronous online coaching sessions. These sessions are available for any educator in Virginia. Fill out the form, and we will match you with the UnisonEDU and VSTE coach best fitted for your needs. From tips for using your LMS to ideas for easy online activities, coaches will schedule time to meet online or via phone for just in time support. Online Coaching Request Form
  2. VSTE Social Media Update: VSTE will continue to share resources via Twitter and Facebook. To make it easier for our members and friends to share, we have created a public VSTE Facebook Group. Please join and share your best coaching tips and online learning tricks. If you share a great idea on Twitter, use the hashtag #vsteretweetme and we'll make sure we share it via our account, too. Let's use these tools to continue to learn, share and grow.
  3. #GoOpenVA: This collaborative initiative enables educators and organizations throughout Virginia to create, share, and access openly-licensed educational resources (OER, also known as open education resources). OER are free digital materials that can be used or modified to adjust to student needs; they are openly-licensed unhampered by many traditional copyright limitations. You can learn more about this initiative here and browse the resources here.