Virginia Society for Technology in Education
VSTE is pleased to partner with ISTE's EdTech Coaches Network to support their popular tweet chat. Join us on Wednesday, November 14, at 7 PM to discuss how personalized learning can support educational equity.
Are you new to Twitter chats? Edutopia's "An Introduction to Twitter Education Chats" is a great starting point to learn more about making the most of this event.
Be sure to follow @vste and @EdTechCoaches on Twitter.
See you next week!
The Annual Technology in Education Conference will be held December 2 - 4, 2018, at the Virginia Beach Convention Center, Virginia Beach, Virginia. Whether you are a first-time attendee or a seasoned veteran you will find the conference full of information ready to take back to your school or workplace.
This year, VSTE will be adding a pre-conference day on Saturday, December 1, 2018, from 9 AM to 3 PM. This pre-conference will include a variety of longer, hands-on workshops led by certified and seasoned instructors. Check out the schedule here and registration will open on Monday, September 17, 2018. The pre-conference will be held at W.T. Cooke Elementary School in Virginia Beach.
Check out the conference website for more information.
VSTE is pleased, as part of its partnership with Joylabz, to offer professional development for the Makey Makey. Not sure what that is? This video should clear up any confusion:
Taught by a certified Makey Makey Training Partner, the Makey Makey Invention Literacy Workshop for Educators is a fun hands-on learning experience where you’ll learn how to teach Invention Literacy, Making, and Design Thinking using the award winning Makey Makey invention kit. We’ll explore how to teach circuits and conductivity using Makey Makeys and then put our skills to use designing your own inventions! Participants learn best practices and gain access to a multimedia training website that can be used later when working with your students or training others. Participants receive a Makey Makey (offered at the reduced price of $20) to take home along with a certificate of participation.
VSTE has certified trainers located in almost every region of the state. Contact mikescott@vste.org to get more information about participating in or hosting a training.
VSTE is offering this session on December 1st in Virginia Beach during its all day pre conference workshops.
Invention Literacy Workshop
Higher Education Center, Abingdon, Virginia
Tuesday, April 9, 2019
9 AM – 3 PM
Trainer: Karen Richardson
Cost: $25 includes Makey Makey
Taught by a certified Makey Makey Training Partner, the Makey Makey Invention Literacy Workshop for Educators is a fun hands-on learning experience where you’ll learn how to teach Invention Literacy, Making, and Design Thinking using the award winning Makey Makey invention kit. We’ll explore how to teach circuits and conductivity using Makey Makeys and then put our skills to use designing your own inventions! Participants learn best practices and gain access to a multimedia training website that can be used later when working with your students or training others. Participants receive a Makey Makey to take home along with a certificate of participation.
Before schools starts, join us for a great learning experience at the 3rd annual Prince William County Schools EdCamp!
It's coming very soon, August 18, 2018, 8:00 to 12:30 at Woodbridge Middle School! (near the infamous Potomac Mills shopping center) and it's free.
If you have never been to an EdCamp, you are in for a treat! An EdCamp is an unconference without a schedule set in advance. Educators gather to informally discuss what they want to learn about in small group settings. If you learned what you needed about one topic, just get up and walk to another session to discuss something different.
Please visit our website for more information and to register for this collaborative, learning event! Did we mention it's free?
The Virtual Environments Professional Learning Network (VEPLN) will be sponsoring the second annual Survive the Summer event at VSTE Place in Minecraft.
Yes! We are doing this again! Shorter and sweeter, this summer, July 2 through July 31, VSTE Place will hold its second Summer of Survival! Participants will be able to warp to survival mode for a completely different Minecraft experience. We will discover why our students beg for survival mode at school. It's challenging, but fun, and we will need each other to survive!
There will be specific tasks for participants to complete for a certificate from VSTE. You may be able to use that in your district for professional development points or recertification points, but managing that will be strictly up to each participant. We will be here to certify that you participated and to make sure we are all having fun learning about the gaming aspect of Minecraft. Kim H. and Lisa A. will run the course for VBCPS. Laura B. will be running a course for other teachers. Please contact one of us for details.
The VSTE VE PLN has enjoyed learning to build together in VSTE Place, our Minecraft server, for a while now. We meet there the first Monday of the month at 8 PM Eastern time for networking. We have had speakers, guest teachers, students as teachers, and fun activities. We do most of these things in creative mode.
Many of us have expanded our classroom practice to include teaching and learning with Minecraft. We have both after school clubs and create learning experiences for the instructional part of our students' day. During these activities, inevitably the students request, or rather plead, for survival mode. Therefore, we have decided to dive into Survival mode this summer to see what all the fuss is about.
JOIN US!
To join us on VSTE Place, the VSTE Minecraft server and/or participate in VSTE's Summer of Survival! email K4sons@gmail.com with your PC Mojang Minecraft account name. minecraft.net
K4sons will reply with the server address after she has added you to the whitelist. Warp to SOS2018, /warp sos2018. our survival world, is at spawn. You will see it immediately. Veteran players have been building a safe area for you that looks remarkably like Jamestown!
