VSTE embodies the community of those
passionate about technology's role in education.
VSTE embodies the community of those
passionate about technology's role in education.
Posted by John Hendron on 04/06 at 08:13 AM
The VSTE Innovations Committee is looking for input from teachers and professors from across the Commonwealth on the use of Interactive White Boards. We’re interested in defining what innovative teaching and learning looks like with interactive boards, like the ones from vendors Smart and Promethean, prevalent in schools today. No matter the brand or software used, help us by contributing to our short survey. We plan to release a white paper with findings within the month.
We appreciate your support through your input! Thank you!
Posted by James on 04/01 at 08:00 AM
It’s the time of year that the VSTE membership elects new members to the VSTE Board of Directors… and therefore it’s a time when you can exercise a powerful and critical voice over the direction VSTE is heading. Directors represent a cross-section of interests, professions, institutions, and geographies throughout the organization. Such representation is essential to ensuring that the many diverse voices of society members are not only heard but acted upon.
The Board of Directors steers VSTE’s efforts in the areas of advocacy, education and professional development, recruiting and retaining members, fiscal management, and more. Each candidate has shown a passion for promoting the use of educational technology, an initiative to take on leadership roles, and a drive to move the organization into new and exciting areas of focus. However, those qualities would be for naught without the individual society members casting their votes.
Voting for the 2012-2015 Director seats will open in mid-April and close in mid-May. Be sure to cast your vote on the VSTE website and spread the word among your VSTE colleagues and VSTE friends. Voting is the most direct and most powerful way in which you can influence the organization now and into the future.
Posted by mscott@bcps.k12.va.us on 03/01 at 10:52 AM
Nothing should be more open to skepticism than the claims of producers of educational software who promise incredible student outcomes with only the click of a mouse. I like to think I come by this skepticism honestly, having now witnessed implementation of oodles of supporting software titles that have promised much, and delivered little in the way of positive student outcomes. I’ll be the first to admit that my perceived shortcomings have nothing to do with the efficacy of the software, and often resides with a particular organization’s ability to implement the product in the intended manner. After all, anyone can purchase groceries, but it’s a different matter to turn them into a delicious meal. It’s often in the metaphorical cooking that educational software falls short of it’s delicious promise.
I start this way just to say that I’ve been around the block with educational software. It takes a lot for me to get excited about new products because the legacy of the old ones tend to be such a graveyard of good intentions. I have however, never, ever, felt that way about Google Earth. From the first time the blue globe of earth popped into the darkness of space and I zoomed in with the mouse wheel, I was totally hooked. The wheels of possibility immediately started catching rubber in my head. Well, almost immediately, because anyone who suddenly finds they have bird’s eye perspective on the world is going too spend some time experimenting with this new found ability by flying from place to place. Ironically, to my knowledge, Google Earth was never touted by it’s inventors as a miracle cure for the apparent shortcomings in our collective knowledge of geographic awareness. Rather, it just kind of popped into existence during a time when “gee whiz” applications were quickly populating a Web that was growing faster than seemed possible, but if you’ve ever been responsible for teaching geographic awareness, the possibilities are both immediate and profound.
Perhaps the most important aspect of this application as a teaching tool is that it represents the most advanced “model” of the earth yet. I recall a certain definition of the word map as a “geographic representation of the earth drawn to scale.” Unfortunately, the media we frequently choose to show children the geometric constraints of our world are among the most inaccurate models provided. I’m thinking of you, ancient, xeroxed copied, flat, coloring book page of the world. You can bet the somewhere, right now, a student is putting a box of Crayola 64’s to use by coloring such a map and arbitrarily labeling selected regions of it. This is the “model” to which children are introduced as a representation of the world in which we live. For a long time, it was the most common model we presented to students. If they were lucky, they might also have a globe, which is a better in representing the sphere, but not something we typically allowed students to customize or manipulate. Consider how Google Earth as a model differs:
It is a virtual three dimensional model. It provides a more accurate model of the earth compared to two dimensional representations.
It is dynamic. When events change the earth, Google Earth changes in real time with them. New borders, new countries, no problem.
It’s interactive. Students can color, annotate, measure and embed a variety of engaging and meaningful resources on it.
It is free.
It shows features of the earth in different perspectives.
If we start with the assumption that accurate models of processes or concepts naturally lead to better understanding of them, then it makes sense that Google Earth has the potential to provide a more complete concept of the globe. ( Duh!)
Of course the bread and butter or Google is always about advertising, and that is the default purpose of the globe. If you want to find a McDonald’s in Shanghai, it, and every other McDonald’s , all it’s fast food burger competitors, and nearly every obscure restaurant in the world is on it as well. Which brings us to the most important factor in the effective use of the resource: training. Face it, xeroxing a page on a coloring book is way easier than spending a couple days learning how to customize a sophisticated interactive map. It’s not rocket science, but it does require a real and significant effort on the part of the teacher to first understand how to customize the interface and to design thoughtful and engaging activities that make constructive use of it. It follows then, that any school that wants to make serious use of this tool needs to also take seriously the professional development of their staff to use it well.
But what if you did have the training, the infrastructure and leadership to effectively integrate Google Earth into instruction? What would that look like? In my Utopian world, even very young elementary school children would have the opportunity to explore virtual globes. I see an engaging, and thoughtfully scaffolded use of Google Earth that integrates seemingly separate components of curriculum and that provides learners opportunities to become familiar with it’s features, tools and capabilities. As their general abilities increase, so should the sophistication of the tasks we ask them to complete. Ultimately, I would love to see elaborate projects that allow students to embed all manner of content on the map, perhaps as convenient and useful focal point for digital stories. In my mind, the Holy Grail of the experience would be a World Geography class in which the students are well prepared to use Google Earth as portfolio based course in which students submit a series of projects in which they added content to the globe and shared it with their teacher or the world through the use of KML files.
Somewhere, I hope this is happening right now, but I have yet to see much of it in my neighborhood. As an instructional technologist, I do what I can to share these ideas and to provide students the opportunity to use tools like Google Earth. Such efforts represent but a modest start, and even my colleagues who see me direct engaging and well constructed lessons with their classes are reluctant to undertake instruction with Google Earth, despite giving uniformly positive feedback and witnessing how engaged their students are when they are using it. Alas, it still remains easier to open a box of crayons and send a job to a printer, and that seems to be the primary consideration in the pedagogy of elementary geography instruction. While the current state of affairs in this regard has been slow to progress, I am optimistic that it will change. It just makes too much sense, and I have to believe that even stubbornly entrenched practices will yield ground as Google Earth easily accessible through countless devices that fit easily into a shirt pocket.
Posted by Katie Knapp on 01/24 at 09:29 AM
VSTE knows that Virginia has the most AWESOME educators…and now is the time to show the rest of the world! The ISTE awards program recognizes the best of the best in educational technology. These awards honor exceptional educators who “advance the field, demonstrate vision and innovation, and expand student horizons.” We invite you to consider nominating yourself or a colleague for one of these 2012 awards.
ISTE Outstanding Young Educator
Are you a young educator who incorporates cutting-edge technology into the classroom? This award is presented to an outstanding young educator (under the age of 35) who demonstrates vision, innovation, action, and transformation using technology to improve teaching and learning.
Kay L. Bitter Vision Award For Excellence In Technology-Based PK-2 Education
Do you know a PK-2 teacher who shares a passion for educational technology with students? This award, given in honor of a career early education educator who brought cutting-edge technology into her classroom, recognizes a primary (PK-2) educator whose work has had a significant positive impact on technology use in education.
Public Policy Advocate of the Year
Do you work tirelessly to advocate for educational technology policy in Virginia? This award recognizes an individual who is an outstanding and enthusiastic leader and mentor in advocating for educational technology policy at the local, state, regional, national, and/or international level during the 2011 year. VSTE’s own Becky Fisher was honored with this award at the 2011 ISTE conference!
SIGMS Technology Innovation Award
Are you a classroom teacher who works collaboratively with an outstanding librarian? This award is presented to two teams of a school librarian and collaborating teacher who have conducted an exemplary technology program extending beyond the library to meet the needs of classroom students and teachers. The purpose of this award is to identify, promote, and sustain excellence in collaborative and innovative technology-based projects driven by the school library media center in support of curricular and instructional needs in elementary, middle, and high schools.
SIGOL Online Learning Award
Do you know an educator who effectively shares a passion for technology in the online learning format? This award recognizes innovative educators worldwide, for their leadership and creativity in providing e-learning opportunities for elementary through university aged students.
SIGTE Research Paper Award
Is researching educational technology your forte? This award recognizes excellence in research in the area of technology and teacher education. All research papers accepted for presentation at ISTE’s Annual Conference and Exposition, including those selected for both the research paper and round table categories are eligible for the SIGTE Research Paper Award.
Sylvia Charp Award for District Innovation in Technology
Does your school division offer an innovative approach to educational technology and ensure equity in technology use for all students? Presented by T.H.E. Journal and ISTE, this award for district innovation in technology recognizes a school district that has shown effectiveness and innovation in the application of technology district-wide.
All award winners will receive:
• Registration for ISTE 2012 in San Diego
• A one-year standard ISTE membership
• Various prizes and cash awards
The ISTE awards program is receiving nominations through March 1, 2012 for these prestigious awards.
Further information on each of the awards, including nomination packets and scoring rubrics, can be found here.
Let’s show the rest of world the educational technology talent we have in Virginia!
Posted by Michael George on 11/22 at 08:29 PM
THE BASICS
The purpose of copyright law is to promote creativity, innovation and the spread of knowledge. The law does this by balancing the rights of both authors (copyright holders) and users.
USERS’ RIGHTS
Under some circumstances, users can use copyrighted works as part of their own creative work. The doctrine of fair use (Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976) states that people can use copyrighted works without payment or permission when the social benefit of the use outweighs the harms to the copyright holder. To make a fair use determination, users consider all the factors involved in the context and situation of their use of the copyrighted material. Fair use is especially helpful when people want to use small amounts of a copyrighted work for socially beneficial purposes, like news reporting, teaching, comment and criticism, research and scholarship. In the context of copyright law, the doctrine of fair use is one of the main guarantees of free expression. News reporters depend on fair use because of its obvious importance in disseminating information. Broadcasting professionals routinely claim fair use when they make use of short clips from popular films, classic TV programs, archival images, and popular songs without payment or permission.
Special Exemptions for Teachers and Librarians. Copyright law includes provisions that enable educators to use copyrighted material for teaching and learning. Section 110 allows educators to make performances and displays of all types of works in a classroom. Students and teachers can show videos, read plays, project slides or use copyrighted materials in other ways for educational purposes. When materials are used for online distribution, the law allows posting of materials to servers under some conditions. When teachers want to use materials for online learning, they may also rely on the doctrine of fair use or seek permission.
MAKING A FAIR USE DETERMINATION
Critical thinking is required to make a fair use determination. Ask yourself two questions:
1. Transformativeness. Is my use of a copyrighted work transformative? Am I using the material for a different purpose than that of the original? Or am I just repeating the work for the same intent and value as the original?
2. Amount. Am I using only the amount I need to accomplish my purpose, considering the nature of the copyrighted work and my use of it?
The law empowers users to make a fair use determination for themselves. Thinking about the issue from the perspective of both the copyright holder and your own point of view is important.
Want to know more?
Visit my site: http://www.cityschools.com/copyright/
Or come to my presentation at the 2011 conference: http://2011.vsteconference.org/
Temple Univ. Media Education Lab: http://mediaeducationlab.com/
Posted by John Hendron on 10/17 at 09:52 PM
Special interest groups are a loose association of passionate educators. VSTE this year kicked off a new special interest group focused on mobile devices in education. You can learn more at our VSTEOnline site, where you can join our group. We’d love to have more passionate people for using tablets, “iDevices,” and more.
At this year’s annual conference, we’ll be hosting a session on how to form your own SIG. We invite mobile learning fans to this session - because to officially survive as a SIG, we need VSTE members to take at least 2 leadership positions. Are you the next mobile learning SIG president? As the leader of a SIG, you can provide guidance for the learning that will take place across Virginia among those passionate about using mobile devices in the classroom. Perhaps you’re interested in leveraging students’ own devices in and out of the classroom? Do you have experience to share?
If you cannot attend our session at the VSTE Conference—we’ll miss you! But we will also share our information as soon as the conference is over.
In the meantime, we recommend the following learning opportunity:
This is an upcoming webinar sponsored by ISTE’s own SIGML. Sign up to hear Elliot Soloway and Cathy Norris discuss Education in the Age of Mobilism: The Inevitable Transformation of K-12 Education! Thursday November 3rd, at 7:00 pm EST! To Register go to http://tinyurl.com/NovSIGMLwebinar.
Thanks for reading!
Posted by John Hendron on 09/29 at 06:33 AM
We’ve got just half a month left on our open nominations for two of VSTE’s annual awards. Please consider making a nomination today for someone in your organization!
Outstanding Leader and Teacher Award
VSTE will recognize and honor one leader and one teacher in Virginia who have demonstrated outstanding achievement and leadership in implementing technology to improve education. Award recipients will be selected from a pool of nominations submitted by VSTE members from around Virginia.
Here is your chance to recognize an exemplary colleague. Additional information, nomination documents, and evaluation rubrics can be found at the VSTE website.
Innovative Educator of the Year
Do you know someone in your backyard that’s an innovative educator? Someone who deserves recognition for thinking creatively with regards to using technology in instruction? VSTE is now accepting nominations for the Innovative Educator of the Year. Our aim is to highlight and recognize innovative educational practices—especially those that champion the smart integration of technology. Entries will be reviewed by the Innovations Committee, made up of board members of the Society.
Nominees should be members of VSTE, and can be from public and private schools, can be advocates for education, and faculty and staff of higher education institutions. Complete your nomination here: http://tinyurl.com/3nsgz4n
General Information
Nominations for all awards will be accepted from September 15 - October 15, 2011. Winners of all VSTE awards will be announced on November 1, 2011. Winners will receive a complimentary registration to the annual conference where they will be recognized for their achievements.
The VSTE Awards are sponsored by SMART. We appreciate their support!
Posted by Tim on 09/10 at 06:18 PM
Photo by Photo by cayoup
When I look at the evolution of the web over the past few years one thing that strikes me is how easy it is for us to share information. We’ve had email for what seems like forever, but that was never a great medium to share content widely. More and more these days I’m finding that, while I do still rely a bit on RSS Feeds, the majority of my “wow, that’s interesting” links are coming from Twitter. Between tweets and retweets if something awesome exists there’s a good chance it will find it’s way into my Twitter stream at some point. Hashtags make it even easier to follow conferences (like #vste2011 for example) and large streams of content.
As a part of the Membership Committee at VSTE we created the Hotlink Project as a way for folks to share all the great ideas and resources that they’ve stumbled on surrounding a given topic. On the 15th of each month we tweet out these tips, tricks, tools, and resources with the hashtag #vstehotlink so everyone can follow along. We also collect all these tweets each month right here on the VSTE website and continue to think of new and innovative ways to visualize that information for our membership.
On September 15th we will fire up our Twitter clients and do it all over again. This month’s theme is “Mobile Apps For Starting the New School Year” and with us just having finished a summer of mobile learning events now is a great time to share how you’re using mobile devices in the classroom. Are there any nifty productivity apps that you’ve found helpful? What’s working (and what’s not) in your school division with mobile devices and applications. As we begin the school year let’s take a day on the 15th to share these resources with each other. As always you can refer back to our website for the archive of these collaborations.
Posted by John Hendron on 03/23 at 08:35 AM
This Saturday (March 26), VSTE will be hosting its first professional development event centered around learning with mobile technologies. But is this innovative? In some ways, it is, because never before have the type of programs existed for mobile devices like they do today (everyone and their uncle now is launching an “app store”). And the technology that’s mobile today in some ways rivals desktop computers of just 15 years ago.
But there’s also a history behind mobile learning, and for that we need to go back to the Palm Pilots, the experiences some college students had with Apple’s Newton, and we also have to look at the sophistication of calculators. What we learned early on was that students gravitated towards having a device in their hand. It became personal and something you wanted to hold. Much could be said today about the craze for cell phones and portable devices like the iPod Touch. Visionary Alan Kay many many years ago already knew this, as he envisioned a future where every student might carry a portable computer called a Dynabook.
The concept of mobile learning isn’t new. It’s simply come of age. And while children may gravitate towards using these devices which helps with engagement, we have to remember that there are bigger gains at stake when we invest in mobile technologies. There’s also the convenience of carrying around a giant portion of the world’s knowledge in your pocket. In the 1990s we craved having reliable, fast Internet in our schools. For many, it didn’t come until a decade later. And now, well-into the second decade of this century, we can dream about the “Internet in our pockets.” In order for any deployment of mobile technology to be successful, we are going to have to first deal with the same demon that plagues learning in all schools - access to content and the mechanisms by which we filter this content.
The most powerful aspect of mobile technology, I feel, is that devices know where they are. The GPS capability opens up new possibilities for collaboration and communication, and the social aspect of the Web today is something we won’t for long be able to ignore when students have access to today’s powerful mobile learning tools.
I invite all members of VSTE - even those new to the organization - to take advantage this Saturday of our first Mobile Learning experience. Together, we can help make this age of the mobile device a positive and powerful tool in the toolkit for learning in the twenty-first century.
This blog is an official voice of the VSTE Board of Directors. In March, 2011, the Board decided it wanted a blog to share news with the education community and VSTE members. Learn more about the VSTE Board on our VSTE leadership page.
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