Lawrence Reiff - Roslyn UFSD

According to a 2021 study by the National Institute of Mental Health, social anxiety disorder (SAD) affects 1 out of 3 adolescents between 13 and 18 years old. Over 19 million people across America suffer from social anxiety disorder. It is the third most common mental health disorder in the country today. Despite this data, many educators still make class participation mandatory and link it directly to a student's grade. Imagine students suffering from social anxiety disorder and how they must feel when they learn that 20% of their grade will be based on "class participation." 

Utilizing avatars in the classroom will become a growing trend as the "metaverse" develops and expands, but they can serve as a valuable tool for student expression right now. An avatar is a digital representation of a student that can be as simple as a 2D image or as complex as a 3D rendering of their own face. Creating an avatar is a valuable exercise in social and emotional learning because it truly allows students to show you how they see themselves. "Avatars in the Classroom: Giving All Students A Voice" will demonstrate how avatars and other associated technologies provide a safe environment for students that "get it" but are hesitant to "share it." Attendees will leave with their own avatar and ideas they can implement in their classrooms immediately.

Conference Strand: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)

Target Audience: Grades K-12

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Aditya Vishwanath - Inspirit VR

Inspirit uses virtual labs and 3D learning content to transform the way science is taught. We offer K-12 access to a next-generation learning platform with a large collection of immersive labs and simulations, available across a range of desktop/laptop and VR platforms. Through our 3D STEM learning platform, our students experience the power of metaverse education. It provides a hands-on learning experience for diverse groups of people across geographical distances with equally diverse learning styles, all at the same time. Our platform helps in deepening the level of student engagement and critical thinking skills using affordable, accessible, interactive, gamified STEM experiences and student-authored storytelling techniques. 

We will teach participants how to align with existing curricula and systems, and existing beliefs about the technology, to support more meaningful and long-term integration. We will also cover what it takes to bridge the best practices of academic research in VR with practical considerations for making this technology work in a real-world setting (both virtual and in-person).

Conference Strand: Emerging Technologies

Target Audience: Grades K-12

Recording

Carol LaRow - Carol LaRow - Educational Technology Consulting and SUNY Albany, School of Education

Create customized, interactive Google maps, which are included in Google Drive. Use for lessons you teach and/or have students use them to demonstrate what they learned in units of study. Students can use "My Maps" for collaborative student projects, project-based learning, individual reports, and teaching their peers. Maps help students visualize the world around them and understand where places are located and events took place. Teachers can illustrate lessons by showing students exact locations for historical events, famous landmarks, science lessons, upcoming field trips, timelines, current events, and more. Maps can be used with Google Classroom. They can also be embedded on school webpages, blogs, etc.

This is a great tool for having students create projects to show geographical features, national parks, volcanoes, famous battlefields, the states, and more. Users place colored pins anywhere they choose and add content - text, images, slide shows, and hyperlinks. "My Maps" is useful for both teachers and students. Teachers can add maps to web pages and/or post maps in Classroom for students to access as part of assignments. Student maps can be "shared" with teachers via Google Classroom, and they can be added to teacher websites to "publish" student work.

Conference Strand: How to/Integration

Target Audience: Grades K-12, Post-Secondary, pre-service teachers, tech integrators, homeschoolers

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Arlen Kimmelman - Iorad

Learn how to use a free online, interactive tutorial builder to create and share a learner repository of tutorials for any online applications and programs. Save time and frustration by making tutorials that capture the steps as you do them and can be used in 6 different learning modes: Try it, watch it, view it, do it, print it, and quiz it! Learn about the free extension providing extensive public tutorials on everything Google-related. Learners access tutorials in any of Google's available translation languages directly from the tutorial player.

Conference Strand: eLearning

Target Audience: Grades K-12, Post-Secondary

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Connie Perkins - St. Bonaventure University
Suzanne Soltysik - St. Bonaventure University
Erin Lundeen - St. Bonaventure University

Nurse's Eye View is the triple threat for skills lab lessons. Using Apple products, nursing faculty can efficiently teach visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners simultaneously. It also offers a unique view of hands-on skills that only this technology can provide.

Conference Strand: Emerging Technologies

Target Audience: Post-Secondary

Recording