Discovery Education Community Invites Educators Worldwide to Attend the 2017 Fall VirtCon

The Discovery Education Community invites teachers and administrators worldwide to participate in the 2017 Fall VirtCon on Saturday, October 21,  from 8:45AM – 3PM EST. The Discovery Education Community is supported by Discovery Education, the leading provider of digital content for K-12 classrooms.  A global community of education professionals, the Discovery Education Community connects members across school systems and around the world through social media, virtual conferences, and in-person events, fostering valuable professional learning, idea sharing, networking, and inspiration.

The 2017 Fall VirtCon provides a unique, no-cost opportunity for educators at all levels to improve their teaching practice and gain inspiration through stimulating presentations and interesting conversations about building digital learning environments with their colleagues around the globe.  In addition to providing new perspectives and insight on issues important to today’s educators, VirtCon offers participants the opportunity to connect with their colleagues, share ideas and instructional tools, and discover new digital resources they can immediately integrate into teaching and learning. Last year, approximately 3,000 educators participated in the Fall VirtCon.

While the 2017 Fall VirtCon includes a variety of engaging online presentations and sessions, it also features a number of ongoing discussions, facilitated by Discovery Education Community members and the expert Discovery Education staff, on timely education topics, including:

• Share the World with Your Students Through Content, Programs, and Experiences. During this discussion, participants will learn how to combine standards-aligned content, virtual field trips, collaborative projects and more to create engaging student-driven learning opportunities.
• Reaching Diverse Learners.  This session will provide attendees with new and creative ways to engage diverse learners with multimodal digital content. Attendees will leave this session with five new resources for supporting diverse learners as well as new instructional strategies, fresh ideas and perspectives, and will learn new ways to continue the conversation within the DEN Online Community.
• Supporting Literacy with Digital Resources. VirtCon participants attending this presentation will learn to incorporate digital literacy resources with new teaching strategies to strengthen the foundational reading, writing and communication skills of their students.
• Building a STEM Culture. Through this conversation, participants will explore new approaches to fueling the growth of a STEM culture in their school they can immediately integrate into classroom instruction.

In addition to these sessions, Discovery Education’s team of experts will also take 2017 Fall VirtCon participants on an in-depth tour of Discovery Education Studio, the new suite of content creation tools recently added to Discovery Education Streaming. Empowering the next generation of content creators, Studio provides students everything they need to design, build, and collaborate on projects in real-time. Studio includes a variety of innovative features, including tools that help students formulate online, multiple-page portfolios, as well as digital spaces in which students can safely and easily work together with teachers and their peers on real-time virtual projects.

Studio also includes tools that help teachers develop and share lesson plans and other instructional materials with their peers, speeding up the creation process and saving valuable time. Additional teacher tools provide instant feedback on student progress, facilitate the assignment of small classroom work groups, differentiate classroom activities, and more.

“Discovery Education’s Fall VirtCon leads my personal ‘can’t miss’ list of annual professional learning events,” said Instructional Specialist Christina Baroldi of California’s Orange Unified School District. “I encourage every educator to participate in the Fall VirtCon, as it is among the best opportunities for educators to learn new strategies for creating digital learning environments they can immediately implement in their classroom.”

To register for the 2017 Fall VirtCon, visit this webpage and use the hashtag #DEPD to follow along with this event on Twitter.  At the conclusion of the 2017 Fall VirtCon, all sessions will be archived and available at the event website.

“The needs of the students we serve are always evolving, which is why Discovery Education is excited to once again offer the VirtCon as a professional learning opportunity for educators worldwide,” said Lance Rougeux, Discovery Education Vice President of Learning Communities and Innovation.  “This fun event offers participants valuable new insights on using digital content to create modern digital classrooms, so no matter your role or your familiarity with digital content and educational technologies, I invite all educators to make time on October 21 to attend.”

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About Discovery Education
Discovery Education is the global leader in standards-based digital content for K-12, transforming teaching and learning with award-winning digital textbooks, multimedia content, professional development, and the largest professional learning community of its kind. Serving 4.5 million educators and over 50 million students, Discovery Education’s services are in half of U.S. classrooms, 50 percent of all primary schools in the UK, and more than 50 countries. Discovery Education partners with districts, states, and like-minded organizations to captivate students, empower teachers, and transform classrooms with customized solutions that increase academic achievement. Discovery Education is powered by Discovery Communications (NASDAQ: DISCA, DISCB, DISCK), the number one nonfiction media company in the world. Explore the future of education at www.discoveryeducation.com.