Cathy Nelson’s Professional Thoughts

Thursday I am slated to be a “Career Day” presenter at my school. I’m sure many of you have experienced a day where students are scheduled to hear guest speakers, and this week at school we have a bevy of career exploration opportunities for our students to participate in. Today we had a slew of visitors that spoke auditorium-style. They were community leaders that our 8th graders could turn to and that was the gist of the motivational speeches. Tomorrow we have over 100 8th grade students scheduled to shadow or apprentice adults at their jobs. We also have roughly 30 students coming in to “interview” staff members about their job and how or why they chose it as a career. Thursday we are having shorter sessions where students can rotate to 25 minute sessions where more career representatives are coming, and I’ve been asked to give three sessions on the career field of education. I didn’t want to seem like I wasn’t a team player, so of course I graciously said yes. But our kids, well, they already know me. Many of them have already heard “my” story. What’s a girl to do? My fear was that my session would be challenging b/c they would not have any questions for me or worse, would not choose my sessions. So, in 21st century learner style, I have chosen once again to ask my network to rescue me! My plans are to open up my Skype at school, and have guest speakers that my kids will not know speak to their choice of education as a career. Maybe I can even figure out a way to make it possible for students to ask questions too. We’ll see. Bill Gaskins of Carvers Bay Middle in a neighboring district is going to skype me tomorrow for something different, so it will be a perfect opportunity for me to “test” this before the big day.

Oh! You want to know who is virtually coming via skype? Let’s see:

Carolyn Foote, School Library Media Specialist, Austin, TX

Lisa Parisi, Elementary 5th Grade Teacher, Long Island, New York

Alec Couros, Ed. Tech Professor at the Faculty of Education, University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada

Dean Shareski, Digital Learning Consultant with the Prairie South School Division in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Marcie Hull, Art teacher/Media Services, Science Leadership Academy, Philadelphia, PA

Zac Chase, High School English Teacher, Science Leadership Academy, Philadelphia, PA

Chrissy Hellyer, Year 7 Teacher, Taradale Intermediate School, Taradale, Napier, New Zealand

Doug Johnson, Director of Media and Technology at the Mankato (MN) public schools

I’m also hoping to snag David Jakes   (though i do not have a commitment as of yet-just a twitter dm beg and an email request.) Here’s to crossing my fingers! [UPDATE Wed PM: David has conflicts in his schedule, but did graciously participate in my trial of using Skype at school from a PC so I could make sure video and audio would be good on both ends. Thanks Dave! I primarily use a MAc w/ Skype, but only have access to a PC at  school.]

Attribution:

Image: ‘Dr. Adam‘
www.flickr.com/photos/38074672@N00/109380082

Image: ‘Question mark‘
www.flickr.com/photos/77476789@N00/2201907500

Filed by Cathy Nelson at 9:35 pm under 21st century,Education,Skype,Social Networks,Twitter  Tagged Network, Professional Learning Community, Skype, Twitter
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