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The Connected Classroom

“Information on and from Cooperating School Districts of Greater St. Louis' Learning Division”

Tag Archives: vlc

Thursday, December 1, 2011 Free Cool Tools for Educators Webinar on Wednesday, December 7

Do you want to make your life as a teacher easier? Are you wanting to integrate technology into your lessons, but don’t know where to start?

Join us from your own computer in this free webinar on Wednesday, December 7. Fill your technology toolbox in just 1-hour! You’ll be amazed how many free online tools are out there for you to use after participating in Free Cool Tools for Educators. This event is part of the Virtual Learning Center‘s ongoing free professional development through Webinar Wednesdays. All webinars offered by the VLC on Wednesdays run 4-5 o’clock.

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Monday, September 12, 2011 NEW! Library Media Specialist (LMS) Academy

“Library media specialists empower students to be critical thinkers, enthusiastic readers, skillful researchers, and ethical users of information.” (AASL)

The Virtual Learning Center’s new LMS Academy focuses on the changing role of the Library Media Specialist in K-12 education today. Today’s LMS must play the versatile role of an instructional partner responsible for ensuring that students and staff are efficient and effective users of information. The academy will assist LMS personnel in teaching and connecting the new standards of AASL, ISTE and the NETS. Registration is open for all library media specialists to attend. Participants will:

  • Learn how to develop lessons that support the AASL, ISTE & NETS Standards
  • Understand the meaning of media literacy as it applies to 21st century skills
  • Network with colleagues working in school libraries across the area and globally
  • Learn digital tools that promote effective use of digital media for K12 students
  • Examine problem based activities, plus web & media literacy lessons
  • Examine best practices for Copyright & Fair Use
  • Explore digital citizenship and literacy curriculum resources
  • Contribute in an online learning community, such as Moodle or SchoolTown
  •   Research books by LMS experts such as Joyce Valenza & Kathy Schrock (one of the featured speakers at this year’s METC)
  •   Participate in 40 hours of blended learning professional development
  •   Attend one day of the Midwest Education Technology Conference

Participants will have an option to earn 3.0 credits through Lindenwood University for an additional cost of $60 per credit hour.

Dates and times of participation:

face-to-face classes at CSD

  • October 27 ~ 4- 7 pm LMS Academy Kickoff
  • November 7 ~ 8:30- 3:30 pm ~ Media Literacy tele class
  • December 8 ~ 4- 7 pm LMS academy class
  • January 26 ~ 8:30-3 :30 pm ~ Digital Citizenship tele class
  • March 8~ 4-7 pm LMS Academy Celebration

additional online and outreach activities

  • November 2 ~ online CSDVLC webinar 4- 5 pm
  • November 6-12 ~ Media Literacy Week in St. Louis ~ attend choice of event(s)
  • December 7 ~ online Free Cool Tools webinar 4- 5 pm
  • January 18 ~ online Digital Citizenship webinar 4- 5 pm
  • February 14 ~ attend 1 day of METC

Cost: $495 CSD Members/$595 Non-members. If you have questions, contact Stephanie Madlinger at smadlinger@csd.org or 314-692-1212.

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Wednesday, August 10, 2011 PD in IL from the VLC

Day two of Martha and Stephanie’s Tech Rich class in Alton, Illinois, is taking place today. Click on the photo above to see images from yesterday and today on our Flickr page.

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Tuesday, July 19, 2011 Digital Media w/Flip Cameras

Here’s a photo from Stephanie’s class today on using Flip video cameras in the classroom. To see more images from this all-day professional development session, click on the image above to get to our Flickr account.

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Friday, May 6, 2011 You Can’t Beat Free PD!

Last Saturday, Discovery Education and the Virtual Learning Center of Cooperating School Districts hosted a free educational technology mini-conference. The 2011 Spring Virtual Conference was streamed live with guest speakers sharing their knowledge about online publishing, project-based learning, geocaching and more. Thousands of educators from across the world gathered in their homes or at various locations around the globe to learn, collaborate, and network.

As a free professional development opportunity, CSD offered this the live stream event for St. Louis area educators to participate in from our building, plus we offered hands-on training and instructional technology assistance. The participants were able to choose between watching and discussing the live stream of Discovery Educator Network guest speakers or collaborate in smaller group sessions hosted by the instructional technology trainers in the VLC. The participants brought their own wireless device or used one in the Technology Enhanced Learning Environment (tele) of CSD. Our special guest was Discovery Education Professional Developer Cindy Lane. Cindy shared many of the hidden treasures of DE streaming.

Teachers from ten different districts in Missouri and Illinois attended this event. Attendees also received information about the VLC professional development opportunities and how to become a member of the Discovery Educator Network.

“I am so excited about all that I learn every time I come here,” one teacher from Warren County R-3 Schools shared. Two 4th grade teachers from the School District of Clayton stated that they would be sure to come back for the free trainings CSD offers on Discovery Education streaming- those are offered every-other-month on Mondays. The next session- the final one for this school year- is this upcoming Monday, May 9th. Click here to learn more about this free all-day training. Registration is required.

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Thursday, June 10, 2010 Increase Student Achievement with Tech-Rich Lessons

They're using technology - are you?

St. Louis area educators, are you already familiar with what the Internet offers, but unsure about how exactly to use it in combination with software applications and Web 2.0 technologies in your classes? The focus of this two-day class at Cooperating School Districts will be to help you create an entire lesson plan from lesson objectives and assignments to teacher and student support materials, all the way to a scoring guide for technology projects. Get tools and a model for technology integration in your classroom.

  • Learn easy to use Internet search strategies for you and your students
  • Find lesson plans and classroom projects on the Web to use or modify
  • Store websites in a free location on the web
  • Create lists and/or search engines of approved websites for students
  • Learn the “grammar” of the web     • Create quizzes online
  • Create assignments that require students to use technology
  • Find scoring guide templates for technology projects and create your own rubric online

Creating Technology-Rich Lessons to Increase Student Achievement is June 21 & 23, 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. each day. It costs $279 for a CSD member and $349 for a non-member. Also, two graduate credits are available, for an additional fee, with this course. Register here.

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Wednesday, December 2, 2009 SMART Board Class Overflows!!

Once again the Virtual Learning Center‘s SMART Board class is full!  Our Technology Enhanced Learning Environment, usually referred to as the tele, has educational technology classes, workshops & academies a few times per week.  “This is always a popular class,” said Martha Bogart, the instructor in today’s workshop.  Many classrooms around the St. Louis area are installing interactive white boards as a new & improved method of teaching and interacting with students.  SMART has several studies that show the benefits of using interactive whiteboards.  Further research supports the increase in student learning and motivation.


Teachers, along with administrators from Lutheran North, Ladue, Jonesburg, Meramec Valley & New City, came together to learn about how to integrate this technology into the classroom.  The basics of the SMART Board were covered in this class.  All VLC classes and academies are paperless and handouts are provided in the CSD Tech PD Moodle so teachers can access 24/7.  Click here to find out when the next class will be held.  You can also check to see the VLC’s other technology courses such as Podcasting, Power Point, Moodle, Promethean Boards, Free Online Resources, Internet Safety, and more.

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Tuesday, March 3, 2009 METC 2010 on Twitter

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The Midwest Education Technology Conference has a new Twitter account: METC_CSD. To see what METC_CSD’s been posting, click here. Conference updates will take place there, especially starting this month!  The Midwest Education Technology Conference starting using Twitter in the summer of 2008 to update educators on Twitter about conference happenings. We had 700 people following our updates on our old account! During the 2009 conference, the VLC communicated with our followers attending the conference for up to the minute information. We’re looking forward to people following us at our new METC Twitter account.

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Friday, October 10, 2008 Teaching Students How to be Safe Online

Cooperating School Districts (CSD) is an education consortium serving 64 public school districts in Missouri and Illinois. CSD strives to share the latest in emerging technologies. The Virtual Learning Center at CSD teaches educators how to integrate technology into the classroom. Technology is a tool that prepares students with the higher order thinking and questioning skills needed for the workforce. When students work with technology and the Internet, they are required to use these skills. Each project they work on is, in essence, a performance task. Our cyber safety course shares how to get online and use the resources found there safely and effectively. This course does have 1 graduate credit available; see registration website.

Online “Street Smarts:” Being Legal, Literate, and Secure
Feb 24 & 25, 2009 from 4-7pm | $125 CSD member; $195 non-member

What dangers lurk online for our children? We teach them how to be safe within the physical community, but what about safety in the cyber community? Learn the Internet Safety concepts of:

  • Cyber Security
  • Personal Safety
  • Cyber Bullying
  • Cyber Predators

Do students know how to validate information found on the Web? Too often, information published on the Internet is viewed as truth, but is it really? Also, what about copyright? Do students have the legal right to copy and paste information from a website into their multi-media presentations and/or their own documents and websites? In addition to Internet Safety, learn the new grammar of the Web and how to:

  • Read URL web addresses to find their hidden meaning
  • Locate owners of websites
  • Evaluate the validity of a website
  • Investigate fair use as it applies to student-created digital documents

Participants will have the opportunity to learn about the iSAFE curriculum and the modules available to them in the classroom. They will create model lessons for their students that teach Internet Safety, Literacy, and Intellectual Property/Copyright.

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Thursday, July 17, 2008 She has a point

Tele class participants learned everything from the basics to the more advanced features that make PowerPoint a great tool for student learning today. Ellinder Murray taught the PowerPoint class today at CSD. After brief introductions, Ellinder got the class started.

Participants had the opportunity to create their own PowerPoint presentation for use in the classroom to introduce or clarify a lesson. They learned how to create photo albums, adventure stories, and Jeopardy games. During the second half of the class, participants learned how to design student PowerPoint assignments that require higher order thinking skills & examine assessment methods that will help grade these student assignments. At the end of the day, they walked away with their own presentation and ideas for integrating PowerPoint into the classroom and for their own school work!
       

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