VSTE

Virginia Society for Technology in Education

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Critical Action Needed: National Days of Action for Federal Funding

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Part of VSTE's mission is to advocate for education and technology. We are reaching out today to let you know that action and advocacy is critical right now. The Senate Appropriations Committee will be making funding decisions on two programs we care about - Title II-A and Title IV-A - the week of September 7. As you may have heard, the House Appropriations Committee has already voted to eliminate all funding ($2 billion) for Title II-A, which provides states and districts money for effective professional development, and a small increase for Title IV-A, the new block grant that supports education technology. Much is riding on what the Senate decides.

Join the National Thunderclaps: A Thunderclap is a social media tool to amplify a message. To participate in an ISTE-supported Thunderclap, go to the URLs below and use your Twitter or Facebook account to sign up. On both National Days of Action, the tool will post an identical message in support of funding for these programs to all of the supporters' accounts, amplifying our message to all of their followers and friends.

Join the Title II Thunderclap here.

Join the Title IV Thunderclap here.

Title II-A Day of Action - August 29, 2017: Title II-A of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides ongoing professional development for teachers and school leaders, including professional development for the effective use of technology. Many ISTE members also use these funds to attend our conference. Unfortunately, both the president and the House of Representatives called for a complete elimination of this funding and it's up to the Senate to restore funding to at least last year's level.

Title IV-A Day of Action - August 31, 2017: Title IV-A of ESSA houses the education technology provisions of the law and is meant to support the effective use of technology, investments in infrastructure and access to digital learning in the classroom and at home. Unfortunately, in its first year of funding, Congress only dedicated $400 million (less than 25 percent of its authorized level) to the program - meaning many districts will receive very little funding to invest in these areas. The House of Representatives included $500 million for the program and it's critical that the Senate hears our support for this program.

Now is the time to raise our voices in support of these programs. ISTE will send an email on the morning of each event with details about other actions you can take throughout the day, so please consider joining the ISTE Advocacy Network. VSTE will post announcements across their social media networks as well. ISTE and VSTE strongly urge you to take action and participate in this important advocacy work! 

#GoOpenVA Development of Resources Initiative

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In October 2015, the US Department of Education launched #GoOpen, a campaign to encourage states, school districts and educators to use openly licensed educational materials. Open licensed educational material is more commonly known as Open Education Resources (OER).

In August 2016, a group of interested parties from across the Commonwealth of VA met informally at the VDOE offices in Richmond, VA to form a task force for the purpose of exploring the OER landscape in Virginia and identifying existing practitioners and models. The task force eventually included leaders from Virginia school divisions, Virginia CommSwirl with word Go Open VAunity College System, Virginia Department of Education,, WHRO’s eMediaVA, and Amazon Education. #GoOpenVA came into existence as the result of actions taken by this task force. Find more information on the #GoOpenVA vision, mission and goals at the #GoOpenVA website.

On April 20, 2017, VDOE held a Kickoff Meeting for #GoOpenVA’s OER development goal at the Monroe Building in Richmond, VA. In attendance were 18 teachers from across the Commonwealth and 22 other educational professionals who are active in the OER community of users. The purpose of the meeting was to educate and inform the participants on Open Education Resources (OER) and to give guidance on how to curate and identify education resources that are truly “Open”.  The following link is a video from the #GoOpenVA Development Educational Resources KickOff Meeting:

As the summer progresses the teachers at this workshop will work on curating open education resources with a focus on three content areas: Algebra I, World History I, and Virginia Social Studies. This is an exciting opportunity for learning and collaborating. These teachers and their supporting staff are working to define the processes for curating Open Education Resources that align to the Virginia Standards of Learning. The goal is to identify open resources that are validated to be of high quality, that support personalized learning, that promote critical and creative thinking for teachers and students and are effective at accelerating learning.

Below are comments from two of the teachers who are engaged in the #GoOpenVA Development of Resources initiative: 

Daina Campbell, Henry County Schools, VA Studies

 

Catherine Pace, M.ED, Chesapeake Schools Social Studies Teacher

 

Author: Elsie Dawson, Lead Project Manager, Virginia Department of Education

Contributors: Daina Campell, Henry County Schools, VA Studies; Catherine Pace, M.ED, Chesapeake Schools, Social Studies Teacher; Jean Weller, VDOE Education Technology Specialist; Dr. Deri Drapper, Director Integrated Learning, Old Dominion University

 

Lord Fairfax Community College’s HigherEd.org Search Engine and Learning Portal = A Tool for Educators

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On October 1, 2014, Lord Fairfax Community College (LFCC) was awarded a $3.25 million TAACCCT grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to develop competency-based education (CBE) programs and promote the use of free and low-cost digital resources wherever possible. In conjunction with the creation of their Knowledge to Work (K2W) program (competency-based education programs in information technology, health information management, and administrative support technology), LFCC created the HigherEd.org search engine and national learning portal.

Students Learn Free Online at HigherEd.org

HigherEd.org offers free and low-cost learning resources for personalized learning tied to competencies using OER (open educational resources). HigherEd.org features learning resources from numerous providers such as YouTube, Saylor Academy, and Microsoft. Resources are tied to competencies and aligned to national frameworks in a variety of topics. All resources are curated by a digital librarian for accessibility and adaptation.

For educators, HigherEd.org provides modules that can be adapted to the classroom for teaching, student presentations, and learning aids. HigherEd.org continues to grow. There may even be tools in the future to allow educators to create a digital classroom for their students within the site allowing independent, directed inquiry work.

Students can find links to resources that can assist them in receiving badges, certifications and even information to help acquire employability skills. For those that register for a free MyHigherEd account, they enjoy many learning tools, such as:

  • Create a personalized learning plan to track their progress
  • Set a custom goal and/or choose a credential to locate learning resources tied to competencies
  • Search resources useful for learning competencies and achieving their custom goal or credential
  • Save their searches and review their complete search history
  • Save and comment on resources
  • And so much more

Visit HigherEd.org

Guest post by 
Lyda Costello Kiser, DA, Director, Office of Transition Programs, Title IX Coordinator
Eric Simons, Knowledge to Work, DOL TAACCCT Grant
Lord Fairfax Community College

Proposed TSIP Revision

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A committee of The Virginia Society for Technology in Education (VSTE), with the support of the Virginia Department of Education's Office of Technology and Virtual Learning, is drafting new Technology Standards for Instructional Personnel (TSIP).

If approved, these standards will update the original 1998 standards and represent the base level skills that every educator must meet in order to be considered proficient in the use of technology for teaching and learning.

Below you can read the most current draft of the proposed revision to the Standards. We invite feedback on this proposal from every Virginia educator and you can provide your comments using this form.

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Proposed TSIP Standards (DRAFT) 2/13/2017

1. Lifelong Learner: Teachers engage in ongoing professional learning related to content, pedagogy and technology.

a. Engages in ongoing professional growth related to the use of innovative instructional strategies that integrate digital technologies.
b. Use technology to obtain feedback that allows for reflection and improvement in the learning process.
c. Employs digital tools to collaborate with the learning community on educational topics and learning opportunities.

2. Digital Leadership: Teachers model safe and ethical practices for their students.

a. Cultivate and manage their digital identity and reputation and are aware of the permanence of their actions in the digital world.
b. Promote safe and ethical behavior with students through collaborative online experiences
c. Embed digital citizenship skills in all lessons involving online experiences
d. Model the use of technology to communicate, create, collaborate and solve problems
e. Select appropriate digital content, tools and resources that meet local, state and/or federal policies.
f. Demonstrate an understanding of the rights and obligations of student privacy and security when collecting and using student data and selecting digital content, tools, and resources.

3. Learning Facilitator: Teachers support student learning by harnessing the power of technology.

a. Incorporate learning strategies that use technology to accommodate learner variability, personalize learning, and engender student choice, self-direction and goal-setting. (Possible Indicators: coursework in personalizing learning; recognizes and can articulate examples of personalizing learning using technology; articulates how to determine learner variability and potential technology solutions.)
b. Assist students in selecting and using appropriate and available digital tools for learning, creating, problem-solving and communicating. (Possible Indicators: Coursework in using digital tools in the classroom; recognizes a variety of digital tools and can articulate how they might be used with students; lesson plan that involves using digital tools to develop these skills.)
c. Use a variety of formative and summative assessments that leverage the power of technology to provide immediate and specific feedback, and offer alternative learning paths to students including competency-based approaches. (Possible Indicators: coursework in assessments; experience with using technology-based formative and summative assessments; ability to develop such assessments regarding a specific SOL.)
d. Acquire, access, and analyze quantitative and qualitative data to effectively respond to students’ needs and communicate findings to various stakeholders. (Possible indicators: coursework in assessment and understanding data; experience with using technology-based assessment tools; communication skills for interpreting data for student/parent/administrators.)

4. Skilled Technology User: Understand the fundamental concepts of technology operations and troubleshooting as well as basic uses of technology in instruction

a. Demonstrate the ability to choose and use digital technologies including both hardware, software and web-based resources to support classroom instruction
b. Demonstrate the ability to troubleshoot typical classroom technologies using a variety of resources
c. Perform basic computing operations such as accessing accounts, select appropriate applications to perform tasks, file management and web navigation.

Leveling Up Student Learning with a Global Inventors Course

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Oak Grove students with their global partners

This year, we tried something completely new at Oak Grove Elementary in Roanoke County. Fifth graders have just finished working with Global partners in Nicaragua, Argentina, and Honduras through a Global Inventors course run by Level Up Village--and what an adventure it was.  In this course, students exchanged video messages with their partners and collaborated on designing the case for a solar flashlight using CAD software and a 3D printer.  They also examined the differences between electricity production in the United States and that of their partner’s country and discussed renewable and nonrenewable resources.  Best of all, students made a global friend, and shared aspects of their lives with them, while learning about a different country in a very personal way.

Here are some of the highlights from the course:

Involving the Community

Because we were trying to meet a district initiative to teach Spanish in elementary school, we requested to be partnered with students from Spanish-speaking countries.  High School Spanish students then visited our Fifth graders to teach them basic Spanish phrases they could use in their videos.  They planned the lessons, created handouts, and developed Quizlet games for our students to use as they learned the language. This helped both the Fifth graders communicate with their partners and the high school students practice their Spanish.

Sending Video Messages

Students exchanged video messages with their partners through the Level Up Village platform. In these videos they answered questions posed by the course itself, but also could ask their own questions. It was in this way that the two partners really began to know one another.

Learning CAD Software

In order to learn to use computer aided design (CAD) software called Tinkercad, students first designed nametags. Once they had learned the basics, they began working with their global partner to design the case for a solar flashlight.  They were provided

Student designed solar flashlight

with the electrical components, but had to make sure their measurements were correct so that components would fit in the finished case.  We printed some example solar flashlights about halfway through the project.  Students analyzed these and then used what they learned to finish their final product.

Connecting Live

We had the added bonus of being able to Skype live with our partners.  While this does not always happen, we were lucky enough to be in similar time zones as our partners so were able to work out this experience. Students gave up lunchtime with their friends and recess to be able to talk to their partners 3,000 miles away. They had fun talking, asking questions, and joking with the class in the other country.

Reflecting Using Blogs

After we finished working our way through the curriculum, students used Kidblog to reflect on the project.  When I read their posts, it was evident that they walked away with not only a better understanding of 4th and 5th grade math and science SOLs and an understanding of Central and South America, but also having developed the softer skills of communication and collaboration.

As an Instructional Technology Resource Teacher teaming this project with the classroom teacher, I can definitely say it was one of the best projects I have helped facilitate. The organic learning that took place could have never have happened just by studying these topics in isolation.  By building a relationship with someone in a completely different country, our students made connections and realizations, and developed understanding and empathy that could not have been taught otherwise.  The personal growth I have seen in our students over the past eight weeks has been extraordinary, and I am so proud of them and so grateful for the chance to be part of it.

Smiling woman with award

 

Tina Coffey is an Instructional Technology Resource Teacher for Roanoke County Schools. She is also the Level Up Village US Teacher of the Year for 2017. Connect with her on Twitter @elemitrt.