VSTE Team Meetings

We decided recently that we needed to hold team meetings and agreed on Wednesday nights at 9 PM our time. Here we are in the VSTE Community Center board room. We discuss upcoming meetings, calendar, related PR events, and upcoming conferences. We have been invited to be in a podcast by Sebastien Lucero (SL) AKA John Hendron (RL). Marie has VBTV coming to see her students benefit from the Grant she got for VSTE Island's Jamestown. She has graciously invited us to participate. We plan meetings up to a month or more in advance. We each take turns. It's pretty easy to do when there are four to share the weeks. You barely get one turn a month. So many awesome people are willing to help us. We have several guest speakers lined up. We are still working out what exactly the NECC 2009 conference in DC is going to be like. We aren't doing much, a little volunteering and one session on VSTE in SL and professional development there. It sounds like VSTE in Roanoke in Nov. 09 will be very much like VSTE in Feb. in Virginia Beach. That's wonderful. There is probably never going to be another three days like that, but it will be nice to try.

Combining Universal Design for Learning and Technology to reach all learners

JessieMarie Flanagan presented at DEN this Wed. Here is the description of the session. I can't really add a lot to that. :-) I found that we do a lot of what UDL calls for already in Virginia Beach. This was a feel good session for me. I love the casual, confident way that JessieMarie presented at her session. DESCRIPTION: The Universal Design for Learning model, developed by CAST in 1994, is a helpful framework for organizing learning experiences that reach all learners in the classroom. Explore successful examples of UDL learning journeys that embrace diversity, meet learners where they are, and help you successfully meet your curriculum goals.

VSTE Meeting April 6

Alfredo was in charge of the VSTE meeting April 6th. He always has different ideas than we girls come up with. I guess we girls aren't really all that similar either, but I enjoy seeing what Al will do. This week he introduced Nings. Several people really don't know what nings are so this was very educational. To get us to use the ning Al offered prizes for completing tasks and uploading them there. We had three notecards to choose from. Each sent us to a different sim. I chose Africa. Here I am with the baby giraffe wearing the Africa t-shirt, part of the assignment. We met in Paris at the end where we flew hang gliders to the ground. I didn't win but we all had a great time!

Serena Visits Channel

One of the things I'm most proud of in my Second Life is making friends with other educators. We meet, get to know each other, and sometimes, when I'm lucky, find ways to collaborate in real life. This is Serena, who is really Mary in Maine visiting me at my house on Channel Island. She teaches third grade and I teach five third grade classes. Sometime this fall we scanned our curricula for similarities and found Animal Adaptations. I worked with my library media specialist and five classroom teachers on a plan to use Web 2.0 tools to share what we know about animal adaptations. The LMS and I are a team. She often does the research with the students in support of the project we are completing in the lab. In this case she created a graphic organizer and helped the students get information about animals. We grouped the third graders into fifteen teams. Each team had an adaptation to find an animal for: long beak, sharp teeth, scales, etc. They came to the lab with this information and wrote what they would say about the animal. They they all drew a picture of their animal in Pixie. One was chosen from each group for the slideshow. Three of the third grade teachers were able to be in the computer lab to help when their students were working. Some of them did some additional work with the students in the classroom without me. I created a Voice Thread with my students and Serena's class listened and responded. Hopefully we will find more to do together in the future. I can tell you that knowing Serena was going to look at our work helped us step it up a notch! It doesn't affect only the students who put their work on the web. The teachers involved want to do their best, too. This was a fun project. The Voice Thread is at http://voicethread.com/share/350978/.

Speech and Hearing Island

I was excited to find this build for Speech Pathologists. The Speech and Hearing group in SL is NMU Speech Pathologists founded by ProfJZ Zeiler. There are displays all over this island with information about speech therapy and theories. http://slurl.com/secondlife/Second%20Earth%207/125/121/44 I created a movie of myself flying through the larynx, watching vocal chords for Jen, the speech teacher at my school and my friend. I'm not very good at filming yet but Jen got to see an animation of something interesting to her for the first time. It's amazing what is available in Second Life for educators.

Plans for May 4th VSTE in SL Meeting

I'm planning the first VSTE meeting in May. It was supposed to be a visit to a Japanese sim for Golden Week but my contact for that is suddenly being vague about whether this will happen. I began to think I need a back up plan. Now, after several evenings thinking while waiting to fall asleep, I think I have a plan I like even better.

May 5th is Cinco de Mayo! Mexico celebrates a victory over the French army at the capital city of Puebla in 1862, 41 years after it's independence was won from Spain. France had invaded Mexico to demand payment on debts owed since Mexico's war of independence. Cinco de Mayo is most fervently celebrated in the state of Puebla.

Plans:

• Use the voter that ScotMerrick Oh had for multiple questions about Mexico while still at VSTE (use the meeting house?)
• Go to Visit Mexico sims (3) get outfits and horses and tour
• Have a checklist of things to find (animals, buildings) Explore. Have notecard with questions to answer. Upload photos to ning.
• Use the Spanish language some? (Mi casa sim?)

Bono of U2 in Real Life

Jaz and I followed one of my roommates to this sim. She heard from someone that it is owned by Bono of U2. Shamefully, I don't know U2 or Bono. Yes, I've heard of U2 but I'm not one to learn the names of songs or bands and therefore don't know who is who. Sad, right? Whatever the story is, there is plenty to do in this sim. The owner welcomes visitors. In this series I pulled Henny Z into this fantasy to see what he thought April 12. We explored many of the free offerings of the sim. There are lot of fun things to do. This sim and everything in it is owned by a female. That female is supposed to actually be Bono. I wonder if it is a myth or truth. I wonder how many famous people we walk among when we explore Second Life. Interesting to think about. Even so we got bored. I donned my dragonfly avatar and Henny's ass rode a flying pig. (You had to be there.)