Ed Tech Regional Mini Cadre — Career Fairs and Technology

• • What: Learn a little more about technology and what we might do to help our 8th graders become a little more tech literateFormat: FUN! Each time we get together there will be some good conversation, a little learning, some hands-on activities, and food. When: There are four sessions — participants must commit to attending all four sessions.Thursday, February 10, 4-6pm @ TMS / Survey — Agenda

  • Friday, April 22, 8:30-3:00pm — Agenda

  • May 12, 4-6pm — Agenda

  • Monday, August 29th, 8:30-3:00pm @ Tech Services — Agenda

The Details: For many years, we have had “career fairs” in our middle schools. These events are part of addressing the state Career-Related Learning Standard (CRLS)  requirements. It is time to take a fresh look at how these events can be used to help teachers understand that we must be preparing students for the read/write web — arming them with the skills needed to be productive online readers, researchers and writers.

This project proposes to provide professional development to a core group of teachers from across the Springfield Public Schools who are in leadership roles with respect to (1) the career fair at the middle school level and (2) the high school business departments.

There are four components of the career fair, that are implemented to varying degrees throughout the district that we believe can be impacted through this proposal, including:

• • Resume Writing — including a  “technology skills” section with an emphasis on "the cloud" (e.g., Google Docs) -- Two of the middle schools expressed a bit of frustration around the resume component (kids had to make up what was on it rather than including on their own skills); this could be geared for the students' 9th grade teachers --kind of a here's what I can do kind of thing.

  • Career Presentations by Community Members—discussion on embedding a technology component into all presentations

  • Mock Interviews— use of technology (e.g., iPods, Garageband, cell phones) to record and listen to themselves in order to practice their interview skills

  • Online Research Component — ensuring students are learning appropriate research and citation skills