When I Grow Up… Free Career Assessment Tools

by Kristin Firmery
Curriculum Coordinator Marketing Cluster

The current job market requires commitment to learn and self-motivation to stay relevant to business needs. Students, counselors, and educators must stay current and competitive in the career planning process. Students should participate and have a vested interest in their own career development. Teachers and counselors are not alone in supporting this process. This article will look at many free online resources for student career development.

Career assessment refers to using assessments to measure the preferences of the individual and match them to career types. Educators can use online tools such as, http://www.mynextmove.org, to evaluate the student’s judgment of their own personality type, job preferences, and skills. This appraisal should narrow a student’s career path.

With the rising costs of student loans, career and technical education in a secondary setting becomes more important. Students have the ability to try on different programs before they are tied down to large student debt. Students can participate in job shadowing or researching career paths, but these processes take a large amount of time. Teachers and counselors can use technology to assist students in the career exploration process. The Career Explorer website, http://careerexplorer.unl.edu, allows students to learn about careers through a gaming environment. Students can select their desired career clusters and learn about the required skills, time, and education needed for the profession. Once the student discovers all of the necessary proficiencies for the career, the student can identify their current skill set.

The skills identification process allows for the discovery of skill deficiencies. The student must identify the level of proficiency needed in the skill and their current level of proficiency. The absence of a required ability for their career should direct the student in course selection. Simply listing the skill requirements of the career and comparing them to the student’s skill competences connect career to the student on a personal level. This web resource provides an online database of skills matched to individual career needs, http://www.careerinfonet.org/skills. The student will move on to the final stage of the process when they have decided which skills they need to master.

Career planning is often left out of many career assessments in classrooms. The educator or counselor assumes that by selecting the career and what courses the students should take, the student is prepared for the career path. However, the overall plan is still missing. The student must understand that choices like picking a part-time job in their career field in college will have an effect on their employability. Online resources for this step are developing, but they are still in short supply. Monster.com has developed a beta web resource that is very informative, http://my.monster.com/Career-Management. The career management page features a career mapping tool that showcases possible job paths. The process of career mapping is the start to a fulfilling and inspiring career pathway for students.

The Ramification of Gamification in Education

by Kathy Belcher

“Games are the most elevated form of investigation.”    

 - Albert Einstein

Cluster Specialist
Manufacturing and STEM

Introduction
Wouldn’t it be great to have a classroom full of engaged, motivated, and loyal students having fun and solving real-world problems? Gamification, a term coined by Nick Pellar in 2002, could be the key. In the past decade, Pellar’s original definition has evolved into several variations. One variation I favor has particular relevance in the classroom: “gamification is the process of taking something that already exists—a website, an enterprise application, an online community—and integrating game mechanics into it to motivate participation, engagement, and loyalty” (Bunchball, 2013). By purposefully integrating game mechanics into your online lesson plans, activities, and classroom websites, you can achieve desired behaviors from your students.   

Who Uses it and Why?
According to Van Grove (2011), “gamification has been widely applied in marketing. Over 70% of Forbes Global 2000 companies plan to use gamification for the purposes of marketing and customer retention.” It has also been used as a tool for customer engagement and for encouraging desirable website usage behavior. One website, DevHub, announced they have increased the number of users who completed their online tasks from 10% to 80% after adding gamification elements (Wikipedia, 2013). It can potentially be applied to any industry and almost anything to create fun and engaging experiences, converting users into players, such as, business, art, entertainment, environment, design, government, health, life, marketing, mobile, news, social good, commerce, web, work, and education (Gamification Wiki, 2010). “The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation pledged $20 million to support new ‘game-based learning’ applications in math, English, and science, incorporating social networking platforms and other online tools to help kids learn” (GeekWire, 2011). 

Games vs. Gamification
“Gamification isn’t about turning your site into a game; it’s about incentivizing the right behavior that is aligned with your business goals” (Gigya, 2012), or your classroom goals. It works because it leverages the principles of rewards and incentives to help create customer action, while it subtly taps into one’s competitive nature. Think about the many loyalty programs that encourage you to play their games, and the social recognition you receive to help promote a brand or content, while you are having fun (Gigya 2012). Remember when J.C. Penney’s took away the coupon game in exchange for a “Square Deal”? They encountered a backlash from customers and were forced to give the game back. You can “gamify” curriculum and offer rewards, recognition, and social standing for participating in website activities, discussion boards, and blogs. There are numerous online educational games that can be linked to the website and used to keep students engaged and motivated to learn.

 Game Mechanics

“Applying game mechanics skillfully is almost a fail-proof way to engage students and incentivize learning” (Meredith, 2011). Well-structured and carefully designed gameplay is an excellent motivator because it is fun to play (win, and even lose), as long as it is made voluntary and intrinsically motivating (Gamification Examples, 2012). Bunchball (2013) asserts that gamification is built upon 10 primary game mechanics you can integrate into your curriculum and classroom website for desired results:

1.       Immediate feedback or response to actions

2.       Transparency to show users where they stand on metrics that matter

3.       Goals to achieve (short and long-term)

4.       Badges as evidence of accomplishments or mastery of a skill

5.       Status within a community

6.       Video games train you to play as you play; users learn by doing

7.       Competition and how you are doing compared to others (as individuals or in teams)

8.       Collaboration to connect users as a team to accomplish larger tasks, drive competition, and encourage knowledge sharing

9.       Community to give meaning to goals, badges, competitions

10.   Points, measureable evidence of accomplishments

 Online games provide students with immediate feedback, clear rules to achieve goals, a narrative or story that engages students, and tasks that are challenging but achievable to motivate students to move to the next level. Integrating game mechanics into your course content and classroom websites serve to engage, motivate, and keep your students coming back for more.

In the whitepaper, Gamification Five Plays for Winning the Game, the authors identify five keys to succeed at keeping customers engaged and getting them to return to your website again and again. Most of these keys to success apply to education as well. (Gigya 2012)

1. Encourage more user-generated content and feedback with comments, ratings, and reviews, and reward top commenters

2. Savvy sharing (not just clicking, but having a purpose) where users work toward a larger goal of ranking on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn

3. Feedback rewards users for sharing content on the website

4. Social Login is a powerful tool for engagement and it brings an invaluable ingredient for gamification—the user’s social graph. Wanting to be a valued and respected part of a community is a big part of human nature and users are more inclined to participate if there is a real-world benefit behind the rewards.

5. Scorekeeping- be clear on the rules of the game and the rewards for participation; users need to know how to advance within the system; rewards must have meaning and be understood by the entire community; the social value is prestige and influence. (Gigya 2012)

Encourage student, user-generated content through discussion boards, blogs, and publications with comments and feedback by students. Many blogging platforms offer surveys and polls. Tap into social media technologies allowed by your school district, or consider an alternative to Facebook, such as Edmodo. Text messages and emails from teachers provide immediate feedback, recognition, and rewards to students. Think about innovative methods for keeping score and rewarding performance for participation.    

 Gamification Pitfalls

There are some pitfalls with game mechanics that apply to industry and education to be aware of when “gamifying” your course content and classroom websites:

1. Badges and points have a short shelf life, can’t resuscitate a disengaged online community, and carry little likelihood of generating long-term customer (student) retention or activation.

2. Loyalty backlash and disengagement can occur when a customer (student) realizes their behavior has been manipulated with no personal gain.

3. There are no quick fixes because solving problems within a complex environment generally requires more than simple solutions.

4. Customers (students) need to be managed, retained, and activate the culture of their community.

5. Online engagement systems should be self-motivating and self-rewarding and associated with true video game designs.

6. Leaderboards are damaging and demotivating towards the culture; the competitive elements don’t make things more fun or more social.

7) Setting up a strictly competitive environment does not help to build teamwork and peer interaction (Gamification Examples, 2012).

Extrinsic motivation can be helpful, but “learning for the sake of learning” is more sustainable and meaningful than learning for an extrinsic reward. Students appreciate a straightforward discussion of the rules and expectations, a solid investment plan, and a big learning goal to work towards. To be effective for curtailing behavior, the teacher has to convey what skills need to be rewarded (Meredith, 2011).

 How is Gamification Used in Education?

MIT’s whitepaper, Moving Learning Games Forward, discusses how to integrate gaming in education. Good games always involve play, in which a child at play exercises the freedom to fail, experiment, fashion identities, and have the freedom of effort and interpretation.

Games in school can be used as

·         Authoring platforms to produce an artifact (game, video, text, avatar, body of code);

·         Content systems to deliver understanding about a content area;

·         Manipulating systems to test theories about how systems work;

·         Trigger systems to create an experiential context for understanding a topic, issue, or principle;

·         Gateway systems to give students experience with technology;

·         Reflective systems to give contexts for student reflection;

·         POV systems to take on certain identities and points of view;

·         Code systems to use writing as the primary game mechanic as mode of action and experience;

·         Documentary systems as documentary evidence of student ideas and understanding;

·         Ideological systems read as texts that express certain underlying ideologies;

·         Research systems or research activity, which produce material to be used in later learning experiences; and

·         Assessment systems for assessing student learning of curricular content or state standards (MIT, 2009).

 Game Elements in Education

According to Classroom-aid, “Games should be about the experience of learning, rather than the experience of being taught.” Many game elements are covered by learning and gamification expert Karl Kapp in his book, The Gamification of Learning and Instruction: Game-based Methods and Strategies for Training and Education. Among the elements identified, story and character are the most important.

Other elements include

·         A story or plot (the premise of the game, and the scenarios within it);

·         Game play used to attain mastery of the enabling and terminal learning objectives;

·         Characters that are realistic enough for the learner to relate to and learn from;

·         Competition, either between the learner and the game simulator or between a cohort of learners;

·         Recognition and rewards based on achievement levels attained during the game;

·         Increasing levels of complexity to extend skill development and imbed the acquired skills;

·         Challenges that build skill mastery and relevancy to the learner’s performance; and

·         Continual, individualized feedback to reinforce correct behavior and remediate incorrect behavior (Classroom-aid, 2013).

 Summary

Gamification is not about turning the curriculum and classroom website into a game. It is about integrating game mechanics into the course content and website to offer fun, educational learning possibilities that help create a classroom of fully engaged, motivated, and loyal students who are capable of solving real-world problems and are better prepared for postsecondary success. Focusing on the proven keys to success and minimizing the potential pitfalls of integrating game mechanics should result in positive ramifications for your students.

 Are you integrating gamification in your classroom? What is working? What are some challenges? What should be avoided? Let’s continue the conversation.

 References

·         Bunchball The Leader in Gamification (2013). What is Gamification?  Retrieved October 23, 2013, from Bunchball The Leader in Gamification Website: http://www.bunchball.com/gamification 

·         Classroom-aid.com (2013). How to Design Mobile Game-Based Learning (#GBL, #mlearning) – Part I. Retrieved October 18, 2013, from http://classroom-aid.com/2013/10/18/how-to-design-mobile-game-based-learning-gbl-mlearning-part-i/

·         Gamification Examples (2012). Gamification Pitfalls: Badge Fatigue and Loyalty Backlash. Retrieved October 23, 2013, from Gamificationexamples Website http://gamificationexamples.com/

·         Gamification Wiki (2010). Gamification. Retrieved October 21, 2013, from Gamification Wiki Website: http://gamification.org/wiki/Gamification

·         GeekWire (2011). Bill Gates pledges $20M to support game-based learning. Retrieved October 28, 2013, from GeekWire Website:

http://www.geekwire.com/?s=bill+gates+pledges+%2420+M+to+support+game-based+learning

·         Gigya (2012). Gamification five plays for winning the game. Retrieved October 23, 2013, from Gigya Website: www.gigya.com

·         Klopfer, E. , Osterweil, S., Salen, K., Haas, J., Groff, J., & Dan Roy (2009). Moving Learning Games Forward Obstacles Opportunities and Openness. The Education Arcade, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  Retrieved November 5, 2013, from MIT Website: http://education.mit.edu/papers/MovingLearningGamesForward_EdArcade.pdf

·         Meredith (2011). 3 Reasons NOT to Gamify  Education. Retrieved October 24, 2013, from LearnBoost Blog Website:  https://www.learnboost.com/blog/3-reasons-not-to-Gamify-education/

 

·         Wikipedia (2013). Gamification. Retrieved October 25, 2013, from Wikipedia Website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamification

Health Science Career Preparation

Renee Tonquest
Health Science Cluster Specialist

Career preparation experiences connect knowledge and skills obtained in the classroom to those needed outside the classroom.  Career preparation is not a class; it is a method that enhances a related class in which a student is enrolled. The career preparation experience cannot replace the regular class instruction time and students must be enrolled in the related class concurrently with the career preparation experience.  

Career preparation is an excellent way to link CTE coursework and classroom learning with actual work site training. It gives students the opportunity to gain academic, occupational, and employability skills in a structured learning experience that reinforces standards that are taught in the CTE classroom.

In the Health Science cluster, the Health Science and Practicum in Health Science courses may be taught by instructional arrangements, such as unpaid learning experiences or paid learning experiences.  Each instructional arrangement is composed of classroom instruction using the TEKS as the curriculum framework and a paid or unpaid learning component.

Unpaid learning experiences provide students with the opportunity to explore a variety of health careers, develop knowledge and skills related to health care, and transition from student to professional. Students rotate among various departments of local health care facilities in the community to develop an awareness of the many career opportunities available in health care. Unpaid work-based instructional opportunities must be planned and supervised cooperatively by the local education agency and the training sponsor. In the classroom or training site, students are expected to master the essential knowledge and skills for Health Science or Practicum in Health Science.

Paid learning experiences provide students with the opportunity to gain career specific knowledge and skills through a paid instructional arrangement. Students receive instruction by participating in occupationally specific classroom instruction and work-based learning experiences.

Resources:

Texas Child Labor Law Poster

Training Plan Agreement for Paid Work-Based Instruction

Training Plan Agreement for Unpaid Work-Based Instruction

   

Virtual Field Trips for Architecture & Construction

by Dr. Jennifer Smolka

It’s hard to think back to Elementary School without remembering the field trips to the zoo or the history museum. As our students have gotten older, we often do less experiential learning when in reality we should be doing more. Unfortunately, with the rising costs of transportation and fuel, field trips often become a luxury that many classes, departments or school districts can’t afford.

But the experience can actually be simulated through Virtual Field Trips and while the experience is not exactly the same, it can be pretty close. Additionally, it can actually give students an experience that they couldn’t be given due to time, space, and place. Check out a few of these opportunities to engage students in places that you could never get them to in reality.

Queens Botanical Garden Visitor & Administration Building http://www.queensbotanical.org/media/file/QBG.swf
This virtual field trip explores a green building where students can learn about solar energy systems and geothermal systems. Exploration can see how recycled materials, sun shade, bamboo walls, insulation and waste management help this building be earth-friendly. (Content connections: Science)

The Secret Annex
http://www.annefrank.org/en/Subsites/Home/Enter-the-3D-house/#/house/21/
The secret annex has put the family home of Anne Frank into virtual reality. Students can explore the home, passages, and secret rooms. For Architecture and Design students, they could discuss the structure of the building. Additionally, students could create floor plans or 3D models of rooms based on the virtual tour. (Content connections: History, Literature)

Google Wonders
http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/worldwonders/
Using the street view of Google Maps, this collaborative project has made it possible for students from all over the world to “travel” to wonders of the ancient and modern word. When discussing Roman, Greek, European or Scandinavian styles, students can explore visually to be able to compare and contrast components of design. (Content connections: History, art, geography)

White House Interactive Tour
http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/inside-white-house/interactive-tour
Students can explore the rooms and hallways of the White House to learn more about the structure and floor plans. (Content connections: History, government)

Seven Wonders Panoramas
http://www.panoramas.dk/7-wonders/
Brilliant panoramic photos that are interactive and allow students to explore this majestic wonders of our worlds. Architecture and Construction students can identify common building elements and materials to discuss why this wonders have lasted for so many centuries and yet the buildings of today with “better” technology often do not last. (Content connections: History, art, geography)

Flipped! Turning Learning on its Head

By Violet Dickson 
Cluster Specialist for Arts, AV, Technology, & Communications 

On a recent flight, I reached for a copy of Spirit, Southwest Airlines’ publication available to airline passengers for their in-flight reading pleasure. I found it interesting that the August issue was entitled, “New School: How the digital revolution is turning learning upside down”. The cover story, “Flipped Out”, by Jennifer Miller, was all about a new paradigm for classroom learning that’s been getting lots of buzz lately. It’s called different names, but primarily it’s being referred to as flipped learning. 

 

The term “flipped” refers to the concept of switching the work completed at home with work typically done in the classroom. In a flipped classroom, the teacher uses technology to screencast instructional videos (aka vodcasting) to students at home. So some of what used to be done in class (lecture/direct instruction) is now done at home via the Internet, and what used to be assigned for homework is now done in class, with a greater focus on project-based activities and more student/teacher interaction. 

 

Flipped learning is the brainchild of Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams, who are credited with pioneering the use of screencasting in education. According to Bergmann and Sams, flipped learning is more than simply video-taping teacher instruction for students to watch at home. It’s more about determining the best use of in-class time and the best way to engage students in the learning process, whether in-class or at home.

 

Flipped learning offers lots of promise for bringing 21st century skills into the classroom and also for creating a more student-centered approach to learning. However, in discussing flipped learning with teachers, I’ve discovered there are many opinions on the subject, and at times, even a heated debate over whether to flip or not to flip. Some teachers even tell me they’ve shared the concept with their students and gotten a negative response. What I’m finding, however, is that many of these teachers do not have a clear understanding of what flipped learning is and is not. 

 

When people hear the term, flipped learning, most think that it’s all about video-taping every lesson for students to watch at home and providing no instruction or structure in the classroom. Teachers who have tried this method have found that the “new” wears off rather quickly, and students eventually become just as bored watching videos as they did with traditional homework. 

 

Teachers who have embraced the concepts of flipped learning agree that there are many misconceptions, and it takes time to make changes in instructional strategies. Many of these teachers admit to making mistakes along the way when it comes to creating a flipped classroom. Fortunately for us, some of these “forerunner” teachers are now providing valuable pointers, like sign posts along the route, for those of us who are just now setting out on this journey. Below is a brief synopsis of what successful “flipped” teachers have to say about what is and is not flipped learning and their suggestions for the best way to create a flipped classroom.

 

What Flipped Learning is NOT:  

1. It is not a synonym for videos or for replacing teachers with videos.
2. It is not creating an online course.
3. It is not unstructured.
4. It is not about students spending all of their time working at computers in isolation.

 

What a Flipped Classroom IS: 

1. A blending of direct instruction with constructivist learning. 
2. A way to increase personal interaction between teachers and students. 
3. A place where students take responsibility for their own learning. 
4. A place where all lessons can be archived for future reference or reteaching.

 

Suggestions for making the change to flipped learning: 

1. The term, “video” does not mean you should set-up a video camera and record every lesson. Instead, make a short screencast that simply captures your computer screen (for slide presentations, websites, etc). Include your voice and a small webcam of your face. (Directions for making a screencast are in the book by Bergmann and Sams and also in an article from Educational Leadership – see below.) 
2. Start small. Don’t try to screencast every lesson. Start with 1 lesson per week and work up. By the end of the school year, you’ll have a library of 30-50 archived lessons. 
3. Make them short. 7 – 15 minute screencasts are usually adequate. Try not to make any screencasts longer than 15 minutes. 
4. Include activities or assignments for students to complete. This connects instruction with application and also provides a way to check that the student completed the video.  For example: An instructional video on the Pythagorean theory might include an assignment where students walk around their bedroom and snap pictures of right angles. Back in the classroom, they would use those images, along with their textbooks, to solve for the hypotenuse.
5. Use materials you already have on hand, such as slide presentations that go with particular lessons.
6. You do not have to create all of your own videos. You can also incorporate the use of online instructional videos that are available on nearly every subject as well as online virtual tours of famous places.
7.  Allow students to work at their own pace, but keep a record of progress and set a final deadline for all work from that unit to be completed. This allows students time to go back and review previous screencasts and resubmit work if necessary.
8. Allow students without Internet access at home to watch the screencasts at school and complete any “pre-class” assignments before beginning any “in-class” projects. This is easily accomplished since screencasts are short and students work at their own pace.

In addition to the above suggestions, there are also many great resources available to help teachers make the switch to flipped learning (see below). 

 

Flipped learning is not a silver bullet. But teachers who are paving the way in this new instructional design are finding that, with a flipped classroom, they have greater flexibility, students have more time to complete projects, teachers are better able to meet the needs of all of their students, and there is more face-to-face class time to focus on the important stuff. 

 

For more information on flipped learning: 

• Bergmann, J., & Sams, A. (2012). Flip your classroom: Reach every student in every class every day. Washington, DC: International Society for Technology in Education.
• Bergmann, J., Overmyer, J., & Wilie, B. (2012). The flipped class: Myth vs. reality. The Daily Riff. Retrieved from http://www.thedailyriff.com/articles/the-flipped-class-conversation-689.php
• Educational Vodcasting: Flipping the Classroom. Retrieved from http://www.flippedclassroom.com/
• Flipped Learning Network. Retrieved from http://flippedlearning.org/FLN
• Miller, J. (2013). Flipped out. Spirit: Southwest Airlines (August), 72-81. Sams, A., & Bergmann, J. (2013). Flip your students’ learning. Educational leadership, 70 (6), 16-20.

Why Web 2.0 is Good for Teaching and Learning

by Amber O'Casey
Cluster Specialist
Government & Public Administration
Law, Public Safety, Corrections & Security

 What is Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 is the next step for the World Wide Web. It includes webpages and applications (apps) that encourage community and collaboration by allowing anyone to contribute content. It is about social participation, including networking/collaborating focused on common interests or on shared projects (Clowes, 2007). Some examples of Web 2.0 tools are wikis, social networking sites (i.e. Facebook, Myspace, etc.), content hosting services (i.e. YouTube, Dropbox, etc.), podcasting, and blogs. 

 

Why use Web 2.0 in the classroom?

Web 2.0 applications can enhance the learning experiences of students by allowing them to utilize their creative potential while simultaneously developing marketable skills. Most Web 2.0 applications are available at no-cost and user-friendly. Here are some of the benefits of using Web 2.0:

 

• Helps students to access, generate and store prior/new knowledge (Boateng, 2010) 
• Creates interaction between students (Boateng, 2010) 
• Enables knowledge sharing (Boateng, 2010) 
• Increases course satisfaction (Ajjan, 2009) 
• Improves learning and writing ability (Ajjan, 2009) 
• Increases interaction with other students and teachers (Ajjan, 2009) 
• Creates a context that is relevant (Benjamin, 2008) 
• Demonstrates how the world of conducting business has changed (Benjamin, 2008) 
• Illustrates how we must embrace the developing communities and networks on the web (Benjamin, 2008)  

How do you implement Web 2.0 in a way that facilitates learning? 

There are numerous ways to implement Web 2.0 to facilitate learning. Here are a few examples: 

 

Next generation presentation tools (EDUCAUSE, 2010a) 

• Take presentations from the desktop and move them to the Internet 
• Allow collaboration between multiple authors  
• Use nonlinear branching that illustrates the various connections within the information which provides flexibility and promotes audience participation 
• Support dynamic teaching and learning  
• Encourage a new presentation paradigm that includes audience collaboration, multimedia integration, and cross-platform viewing  
• Include

Prezi, SlideShare, SlideRocket, and Zoho Show 

 

Online team-based learning (EDUCAUSE, 2010b)

• Is effective for group work by students on project- or problem-based assignments
• Inspires deeper student engagement in the learning process
• Provides the opportunity to practice and apply collaborative skills (EDUCAUSE, 2010b) 

Online media editing (EDUCAUSE, 2010c) 

• Are cloud-based media editing applications that allow students with a computing device and web access to edit or contribute to media such as video, photographs, and music  
• Are often provided at no cost 
• Are cross-platform and device-independent 
• Allow students to collaborate and create with causal user skills 
• Include programs such as

YouTube (video-editing and music swap services), Picasa (image editing), and Picnik (image editing) (EDUCAUSE, 2010c) 

Works Cited

Ajjan, H. & Hartshorne, R. (2009) Examining student decisions to adopt Web 2.0 technologies: theory and empirical tests, Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 21(3), 183 – 198.

Benjamin, R. I., Birkland, J. L. H., & Wigand, R. T. (2008) Web 2.0 and beyond: implications for electronic commerce, In ICEC '08: Proceedings of the 10th international conference on Electronic commerce, 1 – 5.

Boateng, R., Mbarika, V., & Thomas, C. (2010) When Web 2.0 becomes an organizational learning tool: evaluating Web 2.0 tools, Development and Learning in Organizations, 24(3), 17 – 20.

Clowes, M. (2007). Web 2.0 – the possibilities, Libraries For Nursing Bulletin, 27(2-3), 31 – 41.

EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. (2010a, January). 7 things you should know about next-generation presentation tools. Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7056.pdf

EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. (2010b, August). 7 things you should know about online team-based learning. Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7063.pdf

EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. (2010c, October). 7 things you should know about online media editing. Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7065.pdf

Virtual Concierge

Holly B. Smith

Business, Management Administration and Finance Clusters Specialist
How many of us have wondered, “What more can they do with technology?” Let me introduce you to Virtual Concierges, making their way to a hotel, office, hospital, stadium or mall near you.

While the idea of a concierge isn’t new (it stretches all the way back to those helping kings and queens out of royal carriages and fetching things for them) today we think of a concierge as one who tells us what local restaurants are better and helps us hail a cab.  

Concierges also expand into the realm of personal assistants. If you shop in a high, high end store, you may be assigned a concierge to bring your clothing options to you in a private dressing room. This often happens at high end wedding gown shops…accompanied by champagne and snacks. If concierges were ever thought of as something for the higher echelon, then consider technology to be the great equalizer.

“(A) virtual concierge is an interactive application that allows you to utilize a digital sign in replacement of or as an enhancement to a traditional concierge or guest service representative. It gives your guests the convenience of finding all of the information they are looking for through an interactive experience much like a blown up version of a smart phone.”  

Virtual concierges are popping up around the country, but think beyond the check-in at your favorite airport. Stadiums, hospitals/long-term care facilities, hotels, shopping malls, corporate lobbies and residential complexes are all joining the virtual concierge revolution.

Take, for example, a company like Gee Bo by JCS Enterprises, Inc, and their virtual concierge options. They offer every service from buying your team’s favorite jersey in the gift shop while sitting in the stadium watching the game to paging the on call doctor while in your hospital room to walking into a mall and, using the free Gee Bo app, locating all of the stores with sales for the items you came to purchase.

Image from: http://www.gee-bo.com/jcsNet/jcsNet.html

 

Gee Bo currently has its virtual concierges in Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Florida, where patrons can order their concessions from their seat (on their Smartphone) and even swipe a credit or debit card for payment (with a handling fee charged).

From a hospital bed, you can make your meal choices for the day, watch a video on psoriasis, fill out a survey complaining about the quality of your food, and make a donation to the children’s wing. Virtual concierges aim to bring any consumer with a Smartphone or tablet access to more information and options in a quick and convenient format. Virtual concierges won’t bring you champagne, but they can tell you what stores are having sales. And, if you scan the proper QR Code, a virtual concierge will also give you coupons for your purchase.

Finding the CTE Application

If you are looking for a brainstorming topic for CTE classes, present information on virtual concierges to the class; or, have them research the topic. Then, break the class into groups and have each group come up with their own virtual concierge for your school. What would students find helpful with such a system? Teachers and staff? Visitors? 

Then, have the groups identify the areas of CTE in which the virtual concierge cover. Guide them to discuss entrepreneurship, business, technology, marketing, etc.

(2012, November 20.) What is a concierge anyway? Retrieved from http://blog.thevirtualconcierge.com/2012/11/what-is-a-concierge-anyway/

Retrieved from http://www.fourwindsinteractive.com/applications/virtual-concierge/

Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaqH2kfW3KU

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Best of: 20 Ways to Market Your Program

While our bloggers take a much needed break, I will revisit this blog's most viewed posts. Check back each week!

Re-posted from July 2010

by Pamela Scott Bracey

…now is the time to begin thinking of ways to make your community aware of all of the exciting CTE changes taking place in the upcoming school year!  Not only is it important for students to be ‘in the loop’, but it is very important that parents, administrators, counselors, school board members, and legislators are also informed.

You may be thinking, “Why on earth should I even consider trying to tell people about my program and CTE?  They won’t listen anyway.”  WRONG!!!  Most non-supporters of CTE base their perspectives on the past, and simply just don’t understand all of the great innovative things that we have to offer.  Therefore, it is up to US to get the word out in an effective manner.

What can you do?  Well, I am glad you asked!  Below you will find a list of 20 different things that you can do in order to creatively market your program.

1. Have students create a marketing flyer for each CTE class.  These flyers could be posted online, in school hallways, offices, and restrooms, in grocery stores, business, doctor’s offices, etc.
2. Send mailings (or emails) to parents, and always accentuate positive occurrences.
3. Have your students conduct Career Presentations for local elementary students.
4. Meet at least quarterly with your building principal to update him/her on what is happening in your CTE Program.  Be sure to focus on accomplishments, and also express gratitude for support.
5. Invite school administrators to local and regional CTSO competitive events.
6. Give a presentation about CTE at your local school board meeting.  Some school board members do not really understand the actual benefits of CTE…you could enlighten them.
7. Host a T-shirt logo design contest, and sell the shirts as a fundraiser.  The benefits are two-fold:  raising money and marketing at the same time!
8. Decorate your classroom door. Many people pass your class every day and still have no clue about what actually happens inside.
9. Host events during CTE Month (February). ACTE (Association for Career and Technical Education) usually has special pricing on promotional materials during this time.
10. Utilize CTE Alumni as guest speakers at your promotional programs.
11. Create a “Computer Buddy” mentoring system among your students and local elementary, similar to the former “Pen Pal” system.
12. Decorate a CTE float for the annual homecoming parade.
13. Submit newspaper articles and photos whenever your students excel at competitions!
14. Get involved with 8th grade registration events.
15. Place a CTE “brag book” in the teacher’s lounge or front office.
16. Create a website for your program, and monitor it weekly!
17. Host a Career Fair!
18. Take students to visit legislators with the purpose of “selling” the importance of CTE to them.
19. Contact your local news station about doing a story on an exciting project that the class is working on.
20. Organize “CTE Information Tables” during lunch periods, staffed by students.

If any of you have any additional ideas that could be added to this list, please do not hesitate to let us know by posting to our CTE Forum at http://forum.CTE.unt.edu.  Together, we can create a CTE Awareness Movement like none other… so put your thinking caps on, and promote your programs with enthusiasm!!!  If we don’t do it, who will?

References

• ACTE:  http://www.acteonline.org/
• South Central Service Cooperative:  http://www.mnscsc.org/carlperkins/career_teched/marketing/marketing.html

Best of: Quotations for Use in Motivating Students

While our bloggers take a much needed break, I will revisit this blog's most viewed posts. Check back each week!

Re-posted from October 17, 2011
by Mickey Wircenski

Instructors who wish to have highly motivated and engaged students in their classrooms are constantly looking for different ways to promote motivation and engagement. There are lots of strategies that can be used to accomplish this. One method is to use quotations and “sprinkle” them throughout a lesson, unit or semester. These quotations can be used for class discussion, group brainstorming, individual projects and individual consultations. Posting them around a classroom can be a positive addition to a positive learning environment.

For example, on a daily basis, or at least systematically, the class can discuss the meanings of the quotations as they relate to personal projects. Students scan also keep a list of quotes that are the most meaningful to them. The class might post a list of quotes on the bulletin board and periodically update it.

 The following quotes can be used as a “starter” list:

 “The person on the top of the mountain did not fall there.” (Anonymous)

• “Without a struggle, there can be no progress.” (Frederick Douglass)
• “Genius is 99 percent perspiration and 1 percent inspiration.” (Thomas A. Edison)
• “Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after the others have let go.” (William Feather)
• “I hated every minute of training, but I said, “Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” (Muhammad Ali)
• “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.” (Michael Jordan)
• “Perseverance is failing nineteen times and succeeding the twentieth.” (Julie Andrews)
• “Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no help at all.” (Dale Carnegie)
• “It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up.” (Vince Lombardi)
• “I am the greatest. I said that even before I knew I was.” (Muhammad Ali)
• “Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” (John R. Wooden)
• “Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it.” (Bill Cosby)
• “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” (Eleanor Roosevelt)
• “Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.” (African proverb)
• “Do the best you can in every task, no matter how unimportant it may seem at the time.
• No one learns more about a problem than the person at the bottom.” (Sandra Day O’Connor) 

SOURCE: Marzano, R. & Pickering, D. (2011). The Highly Engaged Classroom. Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research.
 

Best of: Student Characteristics and Self-Concept

While our bloggers take a much needed break, I will revisit this blog's most viewed posts. Check back each week!

Re-posted from January 3, 2011

by Lynne Cox

About 18 months ago I wrote a blog titled “Emotional Intelligence and Positive Self-Concept” which provided an overview for a study I designed for the purpose of investigating relationships between self-concept and participation in secondary CTE programs.

To refresh your memory, self-concept, discussed as a scholarly topic since the time of Socrates and Plato, is an important theoretical construct in education because self-concept is considered to be a desirable trait and a facilitator of positive future behavior. Self-concept is generally considered, by researchers in the field, a multi-dimensional construct and may vary according to domain; the way we think about and categorize ourselves as a “math” or “English” person, as “creative” or “athletic,” or as “beautiful” or “intelligent” is a practical example of the domain-specific nature of self-concept. High or low self-concept in one domain does not necessarily correlate with high or low self-concept in another domain.

General self-concept, also called self-esteem, is an overall view of oneself that is not generally correlated with domain-specific self-concept.  General self-concept is based on personal thoughts, interpretations, and beliefs: “It is not how good (or bad) you really are, but how good (or bad) you think you are that determines your behavior” (Bandura, 2003, p.377). According to Bandura (2003), individuals with high general self-concept set more challenging goals for themselves and are more persistent in the face of adversity than their counterparts with low general self-concept.

Recently I conducted this study to examine the relationship between the characteristics of students enrolled in AAVTC programs and students’ self-concept scores as measured by specific subscales from the Self-Description Questionnaire (SDQ). A total of 196 male and 89 female secondary students (Grades 9-12) participated in the study. Student characteristic variables of interest were age, gender, CTE program enrollment, and participation in CTE. The self-concept subscales analyzed were General, Academic, Verbal, Math, and Problem Solving.

The study detected a relationship between specific student characteristics and self-concept as measured on certain domain-specific first-order factors. Gender and participation in CTE over time were found to be the most important contributors to the student characteristic variable. Verbal self-concept and problem-solving self-concept contributed the most to the self-concept variable.  The interaction between student characteristics and self-concept, for this study, indicates that while participation in CTE does positively relate to problem-solving self-concept, gender is still the primary variable in predicting a student’s self-concept.

Results suggest that females in arts-based CTE programs have a higher verbal self-concept than males enrolled in the same programs, which is in line with prior research in the area of giftedness and self-concept. Findings indicate that male students in arts-based CTE programs have a higher problem-solving self-concept than their female counterparts.

Results from this study, although inconclusive based on effect size interpretation, suggest that students with a high level of participation also have high verbal and problem-solving self-concepts. Considering the instructional activities required in these particular CTE programs, this is a logical outcome and is consistent with self-concept studies of secondary students in specialized arts programs.

Age was found to be unrelated to self-concept.  This lack of relationship, especially when compared to the relationship between participation in CTE and self-concept, is in line with the theory that individuals develop self-concepts as a direct result of the interactions and activities they choose to participate in over time. Because students choose to participate in activities that help them develop their verbal and problem-solving abilities, it makes sense that their verbal and problem-solving self-concepts will improve independent of their age.

These findings add to the literature concerning the area of self-concept as it relates to student participation in CTE programs. Given the shortage of research in this general area, the study represents a first step in examining a relationship between CTE students and the development of self-concept.  Stay tuned to recommendations and more information on this topic!

Reference

Bandura, A. (2003). Social-cognitive theory. In R. B. Ewen (Ed), An introduction to theories of personality (pp. 365-385). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.