Level Up Village is First to Receive the ISTE Seal of Alignment at the Proficiency Level for the 2016 ISTE Standards for Students

PRESS RELEASE 

Old Greenwich, Conn. – March 13, 2017 – Level Up Village (LUV) today announced it is the first organization to receive the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE®) Seal of Alignment at the Proficiency Level for the 2016 ISTE Standards for Students. A pioneering provider of Global STEAM (STEM + arts) enrichment, Level Up Village connects K-9 students from around the world for virtual collaboration and cultural exchange. ISTE is the premier membership organization serving educators and education leaders committed to empowering connected learning in a connected world.  

“The ISTE Seal of Alignment reviewers found that Level Up Village’s Global Courses shared a consistent and effective approach to the use of technology to promote shared learning, problem-solving and work strategies, with a particular emphasis on the development of the cultural understanding necessary to work with international partners. Reviewers found the courses to be interesting, engaging, challenging and highly professional in their design and implementation,” said Mindy Frisbee, Director of Alignment for ISTE. 

“We are delighted to receive the ISTE Seal of Alignment for our programs, which bring together children from across the world to learn cutting-edge STEAM skills and share the spark of learning across geographies and cultures,”  said Level Up Village CEO & Co-Founder Amy McCooe. “By participating in Level Up Village courses, children learn to appreciate different perspectives and collaborate with global partners, an experience that will help prepare them to navigate our global economy.”

Level Up Village offers more than 20 global STEAM courses covering a wide range of topics, such as CAD & 3D printing, web design, video game design, anatomy, genetics and water chemistry.  Students apply design thinking to real-world challenges, conduct experiments and develop prototypes all while communicating and collaborating with global partner students who are following the same curriculum. Using LUV’s mobile-friendly global communication platform, students work with their global partners in a variety of ways, including the exchange of video letters, the creation of personal profiles and collaboration on shared project files.  

ISTE determined that Level Up Village courses support an effective foundation of knowledge and skills foundational to the following 2016 ISTE Standards for Students at the Proficiency Level:

1. Empowered Learner
   • 1.c. Use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways.
2. Digital Citizen
   • 2.c. Demonstrate an understanding of and respect for the rights and obligations of using and sharing intellectual property.
3. Knowledge Constructor
   • 3.d. Build knowledge by actively exploring real-world issues and problems, developing ideas and theories and pursuing answers and solutions.
4. Innovative Designer
   • 4.a. Know and use a deliberate design process for generating ideas, testing theories, creating innovative artifacts or solving authentic problems.
   • 4.c. Develop, test and refine prototypes as part of a cyclical design process.
   • 4.d. Exhibit a tolerance for ambiguity, perseverance and the capacity to work with open-ended problems.
5. Computational Thinker
   • 5.d. Understand how automation works and use algorithmic thinking to develop a sequence of steps to create and test automated solutions.
6. Creative Communicator
   • 6.b. Students create original works or responsibly repurpose or remix digital resources into new creations.
7. Global Collaborator
   • 7.a. Use digital tools to connect with learners from a variety of backgrounds and cultures, engaging with them in ways that broaden mutual understanding and learning.
   • 7.b. Use collaborative technologies to work with others, including peers, experts or community members, to examine issues and problems from multiple viewpoints.
   • 7.d. Explore local and global issues and use collaborative technologies to work with others to investigate solutions.

“We are thrilled that ISTE’s detailed review of our courses determined there were many areas of significant alignment between our courses and the organization’s leading-edge Standards for Students,” said Erin Dowd, Director of Curriculum for Level Up Village. “ISTE has set the bar for how to guide educators in bringing global education and technology together in meaningful ways that focus on the well-being of the learner.”

Level Up Village’s rapidly expanding global network includes more than 250 schools across the U.S. and more than 40 global partner organizations (schools and NGOs) in more than 20 countries, including Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Ukraine, Nicaragua, Honduras and Brazil.  Schools receive with fully developed curriculum, trained global partners, teacher training, comprehensive management of the global collaboration process and ongoing support. U.S. school partners directly sponsor Global STEAM education in developing countries through LUV’s “Take a Class, Give a Class” model.

Level Up Village will exhibit at the 2017 ISTE Conference in San Antonio, Texas, June 26-28th, an event that will attract more than 15,000 educators from across the globe and offer more than 1,000 sessions and learning opportunities.  As a Seal holder, Level Up Village will participate in specialized Seal of Alignment events, including a poster session and a networking mixer, and will also be featured within the ISTE mobile app game.

About ISTE

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE®) is the premier membership organization serving educators and education leaders committed to empowering connected learners in a connected world. ISTE serves more than 100,000 education stakeholders throughout the world. Innovative offerings include the widely adopted ISTE Standards for learning, teaching and leading in the digital age – as well as the ISTE Conference & Expo -the world’s most comprehensive edtech event. The organization’s robust suite of professional learning resources feature online courses, consulting services for schools and districts, books, and peer-reviewed journals and publications. For more information, visit iste.org. Connect with ISTE on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

About Level Up Village

A social impact company based in Old Greenwich, Conn., Level Up Village (LUV) delivers pioneering Global STEAM (STEM + Arts) enrichment courses that promote design thinking and one-to-one collaboration on real-world problems between students from around the world. Launched in 2012, LUV runs courses during school, after-school and in the summer for students at more than 250 U.S. schools, with 40+ Global Partner organizations in more than 20 countries. For more information, visit us at levelupvillage.com or find us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter @LevelUpVillage.

Media Contact: 

Andrea Sherman
Director of PR & Communications for Level Up Village
andrea@levelupvillage.com

This news was reported by Education World and Greenwich Time and was announced by ISTE here.