The Integration of Minecraft in Education
Meeting for the week of April 9 - April 15, 2018
This Meeting at a Glance:
Program: The Integration of Minecraft in Education
Speakers: Scotty Vrablik and Mitchell Brown
Is this your first time to visit us? If so, welcome to our weekly online meeting! To complete our meeting, please continue reading from here to the bottom of this page.Each Monday our week’s meeting is posted early in the morning, U.S. Pacific Time. These meetings are designed so that you can read and watch what we post anytime during the week. The entire meeting takes about 60 minutes to complete, with the video conference recording of the program being the bulk of the time.Note that you can easily read this meeting with your favorite device, so feel free to take our meeting on the go with you; read it while on public transit, waiting in line for coffee, or even at the park! Please also make sure to complete the attendance form at the bottom and leave a comment. Enjoy!
Welcome to the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley!
Here’s a message from President-Elect Andrew:
Greetings Rotarians and Guests,
This week we have a program about the role of games in education. There's so much value in play and it's always good to have a reminder not to take ourselves too seriously. Last week, Mitty, Yvonne, and I went to the Oakland Plant Exchange where people can donate and take free plants. Those pictures are below. The picture of the event setup is deceiving; once the event began it was a mad house of excited gardeners! It was hard work but there were so many happy gardeners surrounded by fresh opportunities and challenges to make the world around them a little more beautiful or delicious. Hopefully, sometime this week, you're able to take the time to play like the gardeners did. Nothing may be more dire!
In Service,
Andrew Taw,
President-Elect
Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley
Weekly Funny with the Lady of Laughter (LOL)
We believe laughter is an important part of life, and we should all make time to laugh a little. This segment of our meeting is meant to tickle you just enough. These funnies are curated by member Yvonne Kwan, our “Lady of Laughter!”
When do monkeys fall from the sky?During Ape-ril showers!
Can February March?No, but April May!
What can be seen in the middle of the months ‘April’ and ‘March’, that cannot be seen in the beginning or end of either month?The letter “r.”
Weekly Inspiration
Every week we start our meetings with a short video highlighting innovation, inspiration, entrepreneurship, or social change.
This is a video about appreciating an unsung hero. Who are the unsung heroes in your life?
World of Rotary
Rassin, a member of the Rotary Club of East Nassau, New Providence, Bahamas, unveiled the 2018-19 presidential theme, Be the Inspiration, to incoming district governors at Rotary’s International Assembly in San Diego, California, USA. “I want you to inspire in your clubs, your Rotarians, that desire for something greater. The drive to do more, to be more, to create something that will live beyond each of us.”https://www.rotary.org/en/rotary-international-president-rassin-theme-2018
For Members Only
Tell us about service you've done recently in your community. Click here to fill out The Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley Service Survey
Past Announcements
Member name badges will be shipped out soon.
Claim your @siliconvalleyrotary.com email address! Email Webmaster Mitty at mittyc@siliconvalleyrotary.com to get set-up with your own @siliconvalleyrotary.com email address.
Join our members-only Facebook Group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/rotarysiliconvalley/
Our Events & Projects
We hold our meetings online, but we do regular service projects and social events in the Silicon Valley! This section is updated every week with our upcoming events. We welcome guests to all of the events and service projects listed here.
Also be sure to join our Meetup Group for automatic calendar updates and to RSVP for our events! These are open to all guests as well!
https://www.meetup.com/siliconvalleyrotary/
Upcoming Events:
All times are Pacific Time! (San Francisco time)
June 1-3, 2018 – San Jose, CA – Rotary District Conference for our home district, District 5170 – conference activities begin Friday night at 6 PM, includes an all-day Saturday conference, and Sunday morning service projects in San Jose
June 22, 2018 – Toronto, Canada – Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley’s RI Convention Friday Happy Hour in Toronto from 5:30 PM – 6:30 PM
June 22-27, 2018 – Toronto, Canada – 2018 Rotary International Convention
August 2018 – Our eClub’s second annual charity fundraiser is coming up! More details coming soon!
More events coming soon! All events are open to guests, unless otherwise mentioned. Feel free to join us! If you ever have questions, please email inquiries@siliconvalleyrotary.com
What would you like to do?
Hey Members! What would you like to do? We’re working on putting together some exciting socials and impactful service projects for our upcoming quarter’s event calendar. Let us know what you want to do by posting in our members only Facebook Group (if you don’t have access, please request it with Webmaster Mitty). Remember, you’re only taking advantage of the full impact of Rotary when you’re stepping up to get involved.
Happy Dollars: Do Good by Sharing Something Good
Each week we ask our members to share stories with the club and toss in a few dollars to support our efforts. The primary goal of this section is to provide a fun way of getting to know each fellow members and guests, while giving back to a good cause.
Happy dollars is an opportunity to share something positive that has happened in your life whether it is personal or business. Think of it as your opportunity to brag a little, but also put a little bit into a karma jar. The money donated through happy dollars is put to charitable use, and the message that you leave for happy dollars will be posted in our online meeting the following week for the entire week for folks to see! (Pending that it’s appropriate!)Here are the happy dollars contributions from last week!
Member Rory Olsen made a $15 donation to The Rotary Foundation - Polio Plus Fund. Here's what Rory had to say:"Please apply my gift to Polio Plus. I have been in a great mood thanks to the return of my beloved Astros. Construction is still going on--slowly."
So what are you happy about? Share with us below to help with doing good around the world.
Selected Comments
Every week at the bottom of our meetings, there is a comments section for members and guests to tell us what they enjoyed about the meeting or to ask questions to the speaker. We select a few comments every week from last week’s meeting to be featured during this week’s meeting.
Here are the comments selected from last week’s meeting.
Club member Tzviatko Chiderov said,Ramon, Natasha, Elmer, Ron, and Shelley: it was so good to have you present to our club. I am amazed at the great work being done by your club and I hope we can partner on some projects soon.Very cool jelly beans video.
Club member Monique le Conge Ziesenhenne said,Really enjoyed the jelly beans and the visual representation of how many days we may have; makes one think about how little time, really, we have available outside of self-care, work, social activities, etc. Loved the program, too! So interesting - thanks.
Club member Nathan Gildart said,Great team presentation. It's impressive to see this program also take into account the difficult situations that arise in life to ensure support (and #success) is happening. Education is such a crucial step to personal empowerment, independence, and self-confidence.Nice egg jokes. My school's Grade 5 students raise chickens (just outside my classroom). :)
Club member Rory Olsen said,Thank you. Today's program was a very cogent reminder of the good that Rotary does around the world. Keep up the good work!
Be sure to leave a comment at the end of this week’s meeting after you watch the program below, and perhaps you’ll see your comment featured next week!
Program: The Integration of Minecraft in Education
Every week we bring to you a new program on innovation, education, technology, and humanitarian service.
This week, we have two young men who have acted upon an interesting possibility in the educational technology space by creating a company called Clean Minecraft Videos.Minecraft is a widely popular video game enjoyed by millions of students worldwide, and is entering private and public schools throughout the country as a highly-effective educational resource. From the Hour of Code to school projects, Minecraft encourages students to collaborate and engage in educational possibilities. Although Minecraft raises red flags due to the recreational nature of the game, many resources have been produced and developed both by educators and professionals to solve these issues. High school sophomores Mitchell Brown and Scotty Vrablik will introduce the many resources available with MinecraftEDU in this week's programScotty Vrablik and Mitchell Brown are sophomore students at Carmel Catholic High School in Mundelein, Illinois, and student entrepreneurs. The two students are the developers and founders of Clean Minecraft Videos, a website and mobile app offering over 1,000 manually-screened, guaranteed-appropriate Minecraft videos. Scotty and Mitchell discovered a need for a safe Minecraft environment nearly five years ago when they discovered their younger siblings viewing Minecraft videos that included inappropriate content such as swearing, sexual references, drug/alcohol references, and more.The two students initially created a basic, 20-video website, and continued upgrading their site and adding to their content gallery ever since its first release in summer 2013. As young entrepreneurs, Scotty and Mitchell have been exposed to real-world business functions such as managing finances, creating marketing campaigns, and exploring legal protection options all at a very young age. Between the beginning of their journey and now, the two students have received the opportunity to present at the Illinois Computing Educators (ICE) Conference, Future of Education Technology Conference (FETC) in addition to Keynoting at the Students Involved with Technology (SIT) Conference and the Annual Google Chicago Film Festival to discuss what it means to be a student developer. Scotty and Mitchell will discuss their journey and their experiences, as well as the incredible benefits and opportunities they have already been exposed to at just 16 years old.
Share with us your thoughts in the comments at the bottom of this meeting page!If you have questions for our speaker(s), feel free to ask in the comments!
Upcoming Program Recording Schedule
All of our guest speakers and programs are recorded live online over Zoom video conference. We welcome members and guests to join us in one of these upcoming recordings. Recordings are approximately 30 minutes long and are subject to change without notice.
Our online video conference room link for these recordings is always https://zoom.us/j/5104080000. You are welcome to join us! Please note the timezone for all recordings are listed for San Francisco, California, USA time (Pacific Time).
You’re Almost Done! One last thing: The Attendance Survey…
Thanks for reading and watching this week’s meeting. You have two last things to do before you’re done. First, we have a very short attendance survey below for you to fill out to record your attendance.
Visiting Rotarians, this is how you can get an email receipt to pass along to your club’s secretary as proof that you’ve attended our meeting if you need it for makeups.
Non-Rotarian Guests, we would love to see who is dropping by our meetings! This part is optional for you. If you think you may want to join our eClub at some point in the future, we would strongly recommend you fill out the attendance form as it will improve your chances of success for your membership application.
More importantly, for all members and guests — we strongly recommend and ask that you leave a comment below in our comments area below. Tell us how you enjoyed the program. Ask this week’s speaker any questions you might have. Or just stop by and say hello and tell us where you’re from!
