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!