VSTE Conference 2010

I recently had the opportunity to attend the annual VSTE (Virginia Society for Technology in Education) conference in Hampton. I came away with some great ideas, new programs and websites that can be very useful.  You can check out the program for yourself and the presenter resources, but I'll give a quick rundown of the best sessions I attended.

Write your own textbook
At the Wittie Project, ODU students are writing their own textbooks.  Students are assigned one of 60 topics (5 students per topic). They research, write and publish, assess one another and then vote on which of the 5 for each topic is best.  Those voted the best become part of the online textbook for the semester.  
This idea could work great with young children, too, with a special site just for K-12 education with instructional videos.  Students could write and post about various presidents, battles, or other topics and learn from each other.  Wittie is basically a wiki for education where you can build a book, make polls, develop forms, create rubrics, give peer reviews and award "barnstars" - points.  

Google Earth in the Classroom
We've probably all played with Google Earth, finding our house, where we work, things like that.  But Google Earth is also a great tool in the classroom.  The user guide provides directions on making your own tours and videos, creating your own content, etc. but you can also benefit from the work of others (as kml and kmz file layers). A simple search can give you a starting point. For example, Google search lewis and clark .kmz yields this page as its second result. Simply download and import for a great learning experience - just remember to move out of temporary places to save it! You can also use the built-in layers - take a look at Ancient Rome, check out Animal Tracking and swim with a white shark, a sea lion, a bluefin tuna or more. Look at the locatons of Earth's volcanoes, earthquakes and more. Add sound for a better show.

Augmented Reality for the Classrooom

What's augmented reality?  It's virtual reality laid on a physical space.  Think of the yellow "First and Ten" line in football.  It's a virtual yellow line overlaying a physical space (the field). And there are multiple ways to use it in the classroom, though all require a webcam or document camera.
ARSights has some great models for use with Google Earth. You have to install ARSights and print the marker, then decide which world site you'd like to view (the Coliseum, St. Peter's, the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty and many more). See an example video here.
 
At Zooburst, make a book jump off the pages for your students.  You can create a 10-page 3D book for free (more pages cost $$).  Create speaking bubbles for characters and narrations at the bottom of a page.

Augmented Reality for Fun

GE's SmartGrid - have wind turbines or a desert scene come alive in your classroom
AR Chemistry Review - see some 3D molecules jump off your screen.
ANMH - extreme mammals in the palm of your hand.
SciMorph - learn about gravity, bugs, and more.
Imaginality - you don't need the markers or a webcam as this can be worked in mouse only mode


Augmented Reality Learning Experiences
Augmented Reality started in Denmark as a real estate application by Layar.  HP made a great looking video game (Roku's Reward) of the future while school districts are designing games to teach students, as close as Newport News.  Here are some examples:

Alien Contact - they've found the crash site in their schoolyard and must use their math and science knowledge to solve the riddles.
The Crane - designed for Balboa Park in San Diego, students take the role of the Emperor, weaver, potter or traveler in this Asian Art game.
Rock Show (start on slide 14) - students have to set up a stage for a Rock Show at their school and take on different production roles.

Free Programs
Allll Aboard the Freebeez Train - list and descriptions of lots of free programs and such available on the web.  I'll review these in a future post.
40 Affordable, Free and Effective Tech Tools -  more free programs and sites (or trials, at least)