VSTE

Virginia Society for Technology in Education

VEPLN

Save the Date: VSTE in Second Life, May 16, 2022, 8 PM

logo for VE PLNUsing Student's Creativity and Collaboration in a Virtual World Class

VSTE Presentation - May 16, 2022 5 PM SLT on Second Life

Becky Adams, Ph.D./Elli Pinion, SL
Faculty at the University of New Mexico

Becky is a former K-12 classroom teacher for 11 wonderful years.  She became the Director for Online Course Development and Faculty Support for the University of New Mexico for 13 years, retiring a few years ago, but still is still teaching faculty.   She has taught for UNM and New Mexico State University, where she developed and taught an Early Childhood and Tech online course. She received the Blackboard Catalyst Exemplary Course Award, and UNM Best Practices Course Advisory Golden PAW Award, and has been certified by Quality Matters, where she is a Master Reviewer.

Becky writes, "I am teaching in SL because of the amazing experience of a Middle School teacher and her class. I will share her experience and how it informed my decisions in using Virtual World technology to teach. This course, which just ended last week, is taught using social-constructivist theory, and collaborative and project-based learning approaches, which work well in K-12. The creative, flexible, and easy to build in the environment of Second Life is an excellent technology for this course. Students are introduced to teaching and training in Virtual Worlds by sharing research in teaching best practices, as well as current educational technologies that concentrate on Virtual Worlds and Virtual Reality.  A final project is used as the assessment tool where they build a project with a group to teach a topic of their choice."

This event is free and open to the public. It will be held in Second Life, a virtual world. You will need a free account to participate. More information about connecting will be provided closer to the event's date. If you have questions, contact Dr. William Schmactenberg.

 

Celebrate Fall with VE PLN

Second Life AvatarThe Virtual Environments Professional Learning Network is hosting several fall activities for fun and learning.

Halloween Social
October 26, 2020, 7 - 8 PM ET, the VSTE crowd will dance and network in costume to “DJ Thunder’s” Halloween tunes at VSTE Space in Second Life. Come chat and laugh with us. Let your hair down and leave the stress at home for an hour. 

Costumes are optional but if you want help with one, come visit Jazmemo and Thunder at VSTE Space during office hours any Saturday morning between 9 and 11 AM ET. We are always there ready to help. You still have time on Saturday, October 24 so don't miss out!

 

Report from the Front Lines

The VE PLN is starting a new segment called Report from the Front Lines. This series will be held at VSTE Place in Second Life once a month. The next meeting will be Monday, November 9 at 7 PM ET. This is an opportunity for teachers from across the state of Virginia and beyond to share data from teaching online, hybrid (AABB model), or fully in class. We will discuss strategies for improving grades of students, problems teachers are having, and new tools for teaching online. We had an organizational meeting on Oct. 12 that went well. Please join us as we continue to learn and grow in this new environment. The conversation will be led by Dr. William Schmactenberg, High School Earth Science Teacher at Franklin County High School, AKA Dae Miami (sl).

Minecraft Mondays

The first Monday of every month the VSTE VE PLN meeting is held in Minecraft on VSTE’s own server. 

Banner making in Minecraft

On Monday, November 2, 2020, at 8 PM ET, we will have a basic lesson in building with redstone, Minecraft’s own “electricity.” Experienced redstone builders are invited to create something ahead of time to show off what they can do to inspire the beginners! The server is online all the time.

How to Connect to the VE PLN via Second Life and Minecraft

Join the Facebook Page to keep up with the VE PLN

Minecraft Monday: Fireworks!

Monday, July 6, 2020, 8 PM
NEW VSTE Minecraft Server
This week we will learn how to build fireworks in Minecraft, and our teacher will put on a spectacular fireworks show! Visit us on the new
Remember we have changed servers since last Minecraft Monday. Please add our new server but keep the old one, too. Directions below.
VSTE Place, our Minecraft Server has MOVED!
We still have the old Beastnode server so don't delete it, but please rename it. It is currently offline but will be used in the future for special events. Maybe VSTE Special Events server would be a good name! Watch for updates about this. Simply click the server in the list and click to edit it.

Please, add a new server with the new address.
The new VSTE server address, with port, is:
Reclaim Hosting is now hosting the server. There is more memory allocated to it and we should be able to have more participants with less lag.  Joseph Knight did all the required technical things to accomplish the move. Thank you, Joseph!
There is a dynamic map of VSTE Place that is kind of fun to see.
You can even access it conveniently here:

Minecraft Monday: April 6, 2020, 8 PM

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 [email protected] or [email protected]. 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

 

 

CS Teacher of Year Joins VSTE in Second Life

Picture of Fara FaustVSTE's Virtual Environments PLN is pleased to welcome Fara Faust, the CodeVA Computer Science Teacher of the Year for 2019 at its regular Monday meeting in Second Life on February 10, 2020, at 8PM EST (5 PM SLT). She will share information about CodeVA and their mission to bring computer science to every student in Virginia. She will also discuss some of the education opportunities offered through CodeVA.
Fara is an Instructional Technology Specialist in Virginia Beach.  Fara has over ten years experience in instructional technology and is a strong supporter of “Computer Science is for everyone!”  She is actively involved in bringing computer science to her school and other elementary schools throughout her district.  Fara is a frequent presenter at local and state conferences including VSTE.  She is also a Google CS First facilitator and apprentice for CodeVA.  In this capacity she has worked with teachers throughout the state of Virginia.
This event is held in Second Life, 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.