ASTE- Alaska Society for Technology in Education

08/18/2026

Why are we so excited to bring STEM For Change to ?

Because we know our students will learn skills that they will use throughout their lives!

Listen to STEM For Change Creator, Yaritiza Villalba, explain Creative Pitch Day!

Interested? Fill out form in the comments!

08/18/2026

Check out our August Newsletter:

📢ASTE 2027 Call For Proposals OPEN

08/14/2026

Share with the educators in your life!

Submit 👉🏼 ASTE.org/conference 🙌🏽

08/12/2026

Alaska's first statewide student game jam starts September 1. Sign up by August 28.

Students in grades 6 to 12 spend September building a video game. In October, those games get showcased at the Alaska Game Dev Expo in Anchorage, where people who actually make games will play them.

Can't start that first week? Fine. All the resources and checkpoints stay up all month. Jump in when you can.

We're working mostly in MakeCode Arcade, which runs in a browser, works on a Chromebook, and needs no student accounts. Already building in Roblox, Minecraft, Unity, Unreal, or Godot? Bring it.

Open to classrooms, individual students with an adult point of contact, homeschool families, charter schools, and anyone else working with young people who have a computer and an internet connection.

And after the expo, students can enter their game in ASTE's iDidaContest for actual cash prizes, statewide recognition, andthe possibility of world domination*.

Sign up by August 28: https://www.aste.org/2026-alaska-student-game-jam/

*We can only personally guarantee the cash prizes.

08/12/2026

Melody is having a great time at Anchorage School District’s New Teacher Symposium at Clark Middle School!

If you are there, stop by & sign up for the ASTE Newsletter & enter a chance to win Full ASTE 2027 Registration!

Thank you, ASD!

08/11/2026

Bring STEM For Change to your High School classroom!
https://forms.gle/eUc4R7E1PUoEKnRt9

We’re excited to launch iDidaImpact, a new category within the ASTE iDidaContest designed to amplify student voice, innovation, and real-world problem solving across Alaska. Led, supported, and facilitated by McKenzie’s Adventures, this opportunity invites high school classes statewide to take p...

08/11/2026

Please join Melody & Anthony as we share about our new ASTE iDidaContest catgetory "iDidaImpact" inspired by Founder/CEO Yaritza Villalba of McKenzie's Adventures and her program, STEM For Change.

Two STEM For Change students, Sruthi & Vedant, will also join us to share about their experiences and showcase their projects.

We hope you'll be inspired to share this with your students and enter our iDidaContest that concludes at ASTE 2027 in February.

Find out more: aste.org/conference https://www.mckenziesadventures.com/

08/04/2026

We built a set of AI planning partners to help Alaskan educators develop a session for ASTE 2027.

You have something worth sharing with other educators. The hold-up is usually time, not ideas. These are built to shorten the part where you sit staring at a blank proposal form trying to work out what your session even is.

Three versions: a Claude-based web tool, a Gemini Gem, and a plain-text prompt for any assistant.

Proposals close September 30. Conference is February 13-15, 2027 in Anchorage, Alaska.

https://www.aste.org/ai-planning-partners-for-aste-2027-proposals/