On Wednesday, October 19, 2016, SVRTC members from 10 counties joined at Nottoway High School for two virtual presentations. The first presentation was presented by Bea Leiderman, of Goochland Public Schools. She joined the consortium via Google Hangouts to talk about Scrum. Scrum was initially developed as a project management tool for businesses; however, Scrum strategies are now being used in education to self-organize students in collaborative and diverse teams for classroom projects. Results from using Scrum include higher grades and motivated students. “Everyone knows what has been done and what needs to be done on these collaborative projects while using Scrum”, says Leiderman. Students and teachers are able to evaluate the processes to improve their work while students have assigned tasks to contribute to the process equally.
The second presentation was done virtually from California. Justin Beatty of Double Robotics, joined us through software made to control the Double Robot. From an educational standpoint, Double Robot is a technology that allows users to “physically” have a presence in the virtual world. For instance, homebound students can join the classroom remotely and interact with classmates and participate in group discussions. How, you ask? Well, let’s explain a little bit about Double. Double consists of an IPad (to stream video and audio) mounted on a Segway which can be manipulated remotely. For the October SVRTC meeting, there were two physical robots in a classroom in California; however, the members were controlling the robots in Nottoway, Virginia. Members took turns controlling the robots from either an iPad
application or the computer desktop through a URL and login credentials. The robots could turn, move forward and backwards, while also having capabilities to shorten or lengthen the height of the robot’s view (to simulate standing and sitting). Double robot is being used in several school systems, including one in Virginia Beach schools.
Both presentations were well received by members. Members hope to see the physical robot shared at this year’s Virginia Society for Technology in Education conference in December.