FLVC offering College 101 video series

Tallahassee, FL – April 28, 2021 – The Florida Virtual Campus (FLVC) is offering a series of videos to help students get all the information they need to prepare, apply, and pay for college.
 
FLVC recently hosted “College 101: What to Do, When to Do it, and How,” a four-night virtual series that covered important steps of the college preparation process.
 
That series was followed up with another virtual College 101 event – Finishing the FAFSA.
 
Videos for each of these events can be viewed at https://www.floridashines.org/go-to-college/get-ready-for-college/college-101-event and https://www.floridashines.org/go-to-college/get-ready-for-college/college-101-finishing-the-fafsa.
 
In these videos, experts, and partners from around Florida help students explore their college options, including career and technical programs, understand and excel in the application process, learn about the three main ways to pay for college, and finish their senior year strong so they can start the fall semester on the right track. Students also learn step-by-step how to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which is the best way to make college affordable.
 
Nearly 2,780 people registered to attend the live College 101 event.
 
Partners for these events included: AVID; Broward County Public Schools; Florida Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators; Florida College Access Network; Florida Department of Education; Florida PTA; Florida School Counselor Association; FLORIDA TRIO; FloridaShines; The School District of Osceola County; Office of Student Financial Assistance; Polk County Schools and Take Stock in Children.

About Florida Virtual Campus: The Florida Virtual Campus (FLVC) is made up of several units that provide statewide innovative educational services for Florida’s K-adult students. Working collaboratively with Florida’s 12 public universities, 28 public colleges, K-12 school districts, and other partners, FLVC provides free services to help students go to college, succeed in school, prepare for career success, and in life after graduation.

6 ways to embrace the messiness of math education

Math is not easy to teach or learn. So, teachers use a variety of strategies to boost their students’ numeracy skills as they progress through math education.

But some of those approaches could be unproductive, contended Dr. Juli Dixon, Professor of Mathematics Education at the University of Central Florida, in a recent edWebinar sponsored by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Mathematics. She described standard practices that can derail rather than support mathematical reasoning, and offered alternative methods that would benefit students far more.

Embracing the messiness of math education…Read More

Tampa Middle School Receives the Superstar Treatment with Ashly Audio-Backed System

Sligh Middle Magnet School in Tampa, Florida has an audio system worthy of a superstar performance thanks to professional wrestler Thaddeus Bullard’s charitable organization, the Bullard Family Foundation.

Bullard’s foundation supports programs that provide opportunities to those in struggling communities to achieve more than what statistics might imply of them. His website states that he avoided the reach of statistics because teachers and local leaders took an interest in his success and “his community began investing in him.”

Now it’s Bullard who is investing in the community, and a critical part of that outreach sees him supporting schools. Thus, thanks to funding from The Bullard Family Foundation, Sligh Middle Magnet School – a premier Medical Studies and Explorations program in Hillsborough County Public Schools – now has one of the most impressive audio setups in the Tampa area located in its gymnasium. And at the heart of the installation is Ashly Audio.…Read More

FETC 2019: Day One

Not the driving rain or 50-degree temperatures could keep edtech enthusiasts from the opening day of FETC 2019 in Orlando. Wearing winter coats and braving the harsh Florida weather, lines formed early for the 8 am workshops.

Because this is my 13th FETC, I confidently walked into the conference center as a tour guide for an FETC first timer. However, in its usual manner, FETC changed it up for the better. Though I do miss seeing Hawaiian shirts and skateboards at the Surf conference that shared the south side of the Orange County Convention Center, the extra space taken over by FETC makes the conference workshops more accessible, convenient, and right in the heart of the main concourse. The new and improved conference registration location is an upgrade from its previous place in the corner of the Expo floor.

The Expo floor did not open until 4:30 pm on Monday, but educators and administrators were able to choose from 100 workshops, Apple and Microsoft concurrent sessions, and an all-day Blueprint for Technology in Education Summit. The FETC Experience, in its second-year, models personalized learning with tracks that identify attendee relevant workshops and sessions. The edtech administrators, information technology, educator, early learning, and inclusion and special education tracks ensured that there was something for everyone.…Read More

Resources for creating a school culture of empathy, inclusion, and kindness

Since the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, we’ve heard from many educators who are looking for resources to support students’ social and emotional development. To help, we’ve collected our best social and emotional learning (SEL) resources for building a culture of safety, kindness, and upstanding in your school.

SEL Educator Toolkit
SEL skills aren’t core content, but they’re at the core of all content. Find lessons, activities, classroom tools, and family resources to help students learn about character strengths and develop empathy, compassion, integrity, and more.

Digital Citizenship and SEL
A key aspect of digital citizenship is thinking critically when faced with digital dilemmas. Navigating these challenges isn’t only about rules and procedures; it’s about character. Help students examine challenging online situations with this discussion guide.…Read More

Digital footprint? Try digital tattoo, experts say

In digital citizenship education, the idea of a digital footprint—the “tracks” students leave behind online as they interact on social media and put information online—is nothing new.

But lately, the digital footprint is being replaced by the digital tattoo, to emphasize to students the idea that any information they put online is permanent, just like a tattoo. Even if they think they’ve deleted it, it could have been saved or screen-shotted by others, or saved by the app or platform they use to post it.

Check out this digital citizenship infographic, and other digital citizenship information, from ISTE. These resources from last year’s Digital Citizenship Week may help, too.…Read More

Florida Virtual School migrates to Brightspace

Florida Virtual School (FLVS), a statewide public school district in the state of Florida and international provider of education products and services, has selected D2L, a global learning technology provider, to deploy its Brightspace platform as the district’s new learning management system (LMS).

FLVS, the largest fully accredited online state public school in the U.S., had nearly 400,000 completed semester enrollments in the 2015-16 academic year.

The Brightspace platform includes a number of advantages that were key elements in its selection by FLVS. Since the platform incorporates personalized learning, teachers can deliver their lessons with much greater flexibility and give each student the personal experience they need to succeed. Brightspace was designed with modern students in mind and offers a clean, responsive user experience as well as integrated social media, chat and advanced video features.…Read More

Certiport announces CERTIFIED 2016 Educator Conference

Professional development conference helps educators bring the full promise and potential of technology certification to the classroom

Certiport, a Pearson VUE business, a test delivery solution provider for the global workforce and academic markets, announced the CERTIFIED 2016 Educator Conference, a conference dedicated to helping educators bring the full promise and potential of technology certification to the classroom.

Educators are invited to attend CERTIFIED from June 28-30, 2016 in Orlando, Florida at the Hilton Orlando Lake Buena Vista. Registration is open now at www.certiport.com/certified.

CERTIFIED 2016 is ideal for secondary education teachers, college faculty, and administrators who are working to empower their students by bringing certification opportunities into their school and classroom.…Read More

How a GoPro Got My Students Excited to Learn

One teacher recounts the transformation in learning, collaboration, and creativity he’s seen after adding a GoProgopro-racecar

Rewind to May 2007. . .

I had not planned to purchase a GoPro while out shopping. However, it was on sale, I had a coupon, two gift cards, and two weeks in the Florida Keys was just a moon phase away. Needless to say the summer spent fishing, snorkeling, and kayaking in the Keys yielded very few incredible pictures. I had purchased the Digital Hero 3, the first GoPro with sound. After that experience my GoPro stayed packed up with all my kayak gear and did not see the light of day too often.

Fast forward to August 2013 . . .    …Read More

Florida’s blow to Common Core

On Monday, Florida Governor Rick Scott on Monday ordered the state education department to pull out of the PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) consortium that’s busy building one of the two national tests for the Common Core State Standards, AEI Ideas reports. While it’s not yet clear exactly just how fully Florida is retreating from PARCC, the decision is one more in a series of recent blows to the Common Core enterprise. The Florida decision is especially significant for three reasons. First, Florida has long been one of the states leading the charge. It has acted as a “fiscal agent” for one of the two major testing consortia, and its state superintendents have played an active role as champions of the Common Core effort. This isn’t some state in the chorus pulling back; it’s the drum major having second thoughts…

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The most ridiculous ed idea of the week (so far)

The Washington Post reports that the most ridiculous ed idea of the week so far comes to us from Florida, where Gov. Rick Scott organized a three-day education summit for ed leaders, legislators, teachers and parents. He sent interim Education Commissioner Pam Stewart to lead it, opting not to attend himself. The second day of the summit was Tuesday, when the subject at hand was the Common Core State Standards. Florida was an enthusiastic adopter of the standards but that support began to wane this year amid concerns about the initiative that include cost of implementation and standardized test security. In July, the state’s top Republican lawmakers sent a letter asking the state’s education commissioner — who then was Tony Bennett — to pull out of a group designing high-stakes standardized tests aligned with the standards and not to accept those assessments as a replacement for the state’s current exams…

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