Front Page Middle

Featured Resources from #GoOpenVA, August 31, 2020

August 31, 2020 by vsteadmin

Since its debut in January 2020, #GoOpenVA has been building its collections with the help of Virginia educators. This collaborative initiative enables educators and others 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.

Jean Weller, VSTE Board Member and VDOE Technology Integration Specialist, leads this effort. We asked her to periodically curate a few of the resources to give a sense of what is available. Start with these but stay for so much more! And be sure to follow Jean on Twitter.

Featured Resources

Pratiquez les numéros

Aliya Headley from Hanover has been adding several lessons for World Language teachers. This one is an idea for practicing numbers using student-owned technology and can be used in any language class!

https://goopenva.org/courseware/lesson/1550/overview

Virtual Field Trip in Scratch

Kim Wilkens provides a full story-based computer science lesson using Scratch, with lots of great helpful resources for teachers.

https://goopenva.org/courseware/lesson/1393/overview

AND THEN, Leslie James of Albemarle did a REMIX of the lesson, Virtual Field Trip in Scratch Remix (Regions of Virginia)

https://goopenva.org/courseware/lesson/2102/overview

You can choose which version works best for your students!

Featured Resources from #GoOpenVA, August 24, 2020

August 24, 2020 by vsteadmin

S Swirl with word Go Open VA ince its debut in January 2020, #GoOpenVA has been building its collections with the help of Virginia educators. This collaborative initiative enables educators and others 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.

Featured Resources:

C3 Teachers: Immigration Inquiry Remix: Amy Gaulton from Hanover County created this remixed lesson, providing an inquiry lesson in a student-facing format, about immigration to New York City in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

https://goopenva.org/courseware/lesson/1520

Science Inquiry from Home: Series: Anne Petersen of the VDOE has added a series of ideas for exploring science while students are at home. The series currently features grades K-5.

https://goopenva.org/search?f.search=science+inquiry+from+home&f.general_subject=&f.sublevel=&f.alignment_standard=

Cell Phone Electrons: Sarah McGlothlin of Giles County has created a lesson to use all those old unwanted cell phones by having students take them apart to find out how they work, integrating engineering into science.

https://goopenva.org/courseware/lesson/1738

Featured Resources from #GoOpenVA

August 17, 2020 by vsteadmin

Featured Resources:

Decimal Rounding Podcast Episode (Mic Drop Maths Podcast): Two teachers (Lindsey Paulson and Whitney Wells-Corfield) in Hanover County collaborate to bring you their cool ideas on Mathematics SOL for 5^th graders. Broken into segments for easy “digestion,” it’s a way to get your own creative juices flowing. https://goopenva.org/courseware/lesson/496/overview

Blended Content Studio: This resource, created by Mike Caulfield of WSU Vancouver is full of great tips and videos to help teachers new to online learning. Just one of the resources outside of Virginia that can be useful to Virginia educators trying to stay current during this crazy time.

https://goopenva.org/courses/blended-content-studio-emergency-online-teaching-at-wsu-vancouver/view

I Can Forecast the Weather Remix: Adrienne Sawyer of Chesapeake created a remix of a pretty simple lesson about recognizing clouds and made it much more robust for students, adding a great downloadable “Weather Journal” for students to use.

https://goopenva.org/courseware/lesson/1283/overview

Extending Wireless to Your Community

June 23, 2020 by timstahmer

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Aruba Networks has been helping K12’s in the state of VA during the COVID-19 pandemic. Aruba’s leadership team came up with the idea to offer outdoor wireless solutions to k12’s during this time of transition. We understand that not every child may have the accessibility to internet or broadband at their home for remote learning. We decided to donate outdoor wireless kits to schools so they are able to “drive up” to the school parking lot and connect to free wireless.

Washington Co Public Schools has shared with us how they are currently utilizing their outdoor wireless today.

“When we went to a remote learning situation in March, we quickly realized that there were students who did not have adequate access to the Internet at home. We installed Aruba 377 outdoor access points in a parking lot at each school. When school was still in session, we were seeing around 80 clients connected over a 24-hour period. That has gone down to 20-30 per day now since we have closed out the school year. We also allow community access through our guest wireless network.” –Washington Co Public Schools

This is just the many ways that Aruba is helping K12’s during this time. We are currently working on a solution to allow connectivity and wireless to project from school buses. More to come!

Some of the schools systems we have been helping in the state of Virginia below:

Isle of Wight County Schools
Franklin Co Public Schools
York Co Public Schools
Montgomery Co Public Schools
Washington Co Public Schools
Newport News Public Schools
Hampton City Public Schools
Lynchburg City Public Schools
Campbell Co Public Schools
Botetourt County Public Schools

Written by Lindsay Scott. Lindsay is the Greater Mid-Atlantic-Southeastern VA Territory Manager for Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company. Contact her to learn more about how Aruba can help your school today!

VSTE Welcomes New & Returning Board Members

May 26, 2020 by vsteadmin

Five board members--three new and two returning--were elected to the VSTE Board of Directors for the 2020 - 2023 term. Join us in welcoming them to the leadership of VSTE.