The October SVRTC
meeting had twelve divisions represented with attendance of twenty-six education
professionals. Dr. Susan Clair, Learning
Infrastructure Coordinator with VDOE, presented for the professional development
portion of the meeting.
Dr. Clair discussed concerns about how schools are being attacked by a variety of malware and ransomware that want student data. She noted several cases where hackers have targeted schools in Maryland and Virginia, while referencing a map of incidents reported across the United States. Dr. Clair emphasized the importance of student data privacy and shared several websites that contained useful information on protecting data and security training options, including:
Dr. Clair stated
that VDOE is beginning work with several larger school divisions on student
data privacy and will share her findings at a later date. She also reminded members that with Amazon’s new
headquarters heading for our state, many
jobs for cloud computing will be available and it’s important that we start
providing training and certification in our schools now.
Additional discussion
during Dr. Clair’s presentation included updates on the latest Erate
information where members were able to ask questions.
On Wednesday, September 18, 2019, SVRTC members from
fourteen school divisions were present for the first meeting of the fiscal
school year. The topic of professional development included a conference round-up, where various members
shared learning from conferences and other professional development experiences.
Members who shared included:
Melissa Hanes, Media Specialist from Buckingham schools, gave members an overview of the emPOWerHatan conference she attended in August. Melissa presented Google Expeditions at the conference but also shared conference learning in regards to literacy, maker stations, and collaborations across the curriculum using computers and iPads to create projects. This was the first year that Powhatan public schools held the conference, which also served as a professional development day.
Stephanie Playton, ITTIP’s STEM Learning Specialist, reported on the ISTE conference held in Philadelphia in June. She and Dr. Leach presented their work with the InTEL grant that involved eighteen teachers focusing on global collaboration, problem-based learning and alternative assessments. Some of trendy items she found at the ISTE conference included digital storytelling, podcasting, AR and VR, and anything Google. She added some of the newer topics at the conference included artificial intelligence, coding robots and eSports.
Marcia Martin, Director of Instruction, Grants & Technology with Nottoway, shared information on the Future of Education Technology Conference (FETC). It is a four-day conference that costs $600.00 and she stated it is well worth the money to attend. Marcia reported there was a diversity of workshops that were offered during the conference and a very large Expo that provided many hands-on opportunities to try out technology tools. While exploring the Expo, Marcia and others from her division were able to try out a new state of the art interactive Play Wall and ended up purchasing one for their elementary school.
Bill Wilson, Senior Technology Engineer with ITTIP/SVRTC, discussed his attendance at the Interop conference held in Las Vegas in May. This conference is for IT personnel to learn about emerging technology. He stated that augmented reality and artificial intelligence were hot topics. He encouraged members to attend and learn about new products that could potentially save school divisions money.
Other members who shared their conference experiences
included Cori Sowers, ITRT with Danville City Schools. She shared her notes
from the Techstravaganza 2019 on the SVRTC Facebook group page.
Brook Hatcher with Mecklenburg schools informed
members that her division held a one-day conference style event with their
teachers as presenters for professional development. She stated the presenters shared information from
VSTE. This style event worked better
than having several different professional development days. The teachers liked the format and they hope to
continue with this for next year.
Tim Mays, Instructional Technologist with Sussex
Schools, shared his experience from the PowerSchool University in Florida. He
also attended emPOWerHatan conference.
He also shared that he attended CodeVA where he learned how to
incorporate computer science in the curriculum.
The meeting provided an informative view of technology in education across several learning experiences. Links to member presentations can be found on the Professional Development page.