Day 2 of How I spent my summer. Rmorgan

First attended the highly anticipated Global 21 Performance Assessment Updates seminar. This seminar should have been at least 2 hours long and held in the small areana and mandatory for all CTE instructors. Being part of the original test making I saw alot of the same questions that came up over a 18 months ago when we started the process being asked again. Its good that they realize that there were major flaws in the flow of information between departments and it's nice to see that they are being addressed quickly this time through. If you didnt attend this seminar I recommend it highly if you want to be a part of the next wave of test design and procedures to send an email to rgillman@access.k12.wv.us.

TOOL-U

Was a great introduction to a FREE program that can not only benifit many of your classrooms at your facility but also helps us TIS wanna be's with ready made content for many of our programs that we will be helping in the future. Tool-U classes are 24/7 online courses that can be done from home or school with complete grading systems, over 400 course and end of course tests readily available for use. They include almost all aspects of each schools curriculum including a ready made WVEIS check off sheet to show which CSO's will be covered by their programs that they will email to you on request. After seeing their presentation I could imagine our instructors utilizing ready made FREE content in their classrooms with the help of a TIS.


MUWV Call before you dig.

Fairly interesting because it did explain the legal issues about unsafe digging around utilities, cables, and gas lines. Had some cool videos of houses exploding and some disasters due to negligance. Had some good info about how the system works when needing information before excavations and how its a non profit organization and is available for everyone.


Cisco Packet Tracer Applications Part 2

Was a more in depth look at how Packet Tracer should be used in the classroom as an advanced teaching tool. Had some realy nice features and tips of short cutting the errors that pop up during server-router-switch mismatches. Also went online with the actual Cisco Academy and showed alot of features between virtual and real time problems. Overall was very interesting and learned even more than the first session.

STEM Academy

Was O.K. but not realy viable for career and tech schools. Seemed to me to be geared for a project based learning system and not a real world learning system like we have in our schools. Might have been a bit sophmoric for my students who would have gotten bored quickly with the kiddie type projects. Would be a nice home schooling tool or self paced system of learning.