ACTE Techniques February 2012 : Page 42
PHOTOS COURTESy OF MARK BEAVEN aCTE Convention Goes social In addition to ACTEmobile, the 2011 ACTE Annual Convention featured a thriving online dialogue using social networking tools and blogs. On Twitter, exhibitors shared online-only opportu-nities and attendees generated thou-sands of tweets as they shared quotes from keynote speakers, live updates from sessions and more. The ACTE Facebook page was thriving, while on our Convention blog, attendees Mitchell Shron, Lee Smith and Wendy Chalmers shared lessons learned and takeaways from the event and insights about today’s career and technical education. According to agriscience educator Robin McLean (@RCMcLean), her favorite ACTE moment was “the fact that although I wasn’t there, you kept me connected with social media.” Many attendees also took advantage of the online competition sponsored by KP Education Systems. This student-centered learning system tested users on their knowledge of CTE and ACTE in exchange for prizes, including an iPad 2. Congratulations to all the participants! If you missed the Convention or just want to relive the experience, watch news coverage from the event at www.schooltube.com/channel/ACTE . The student journalists and videog-raphers of Ladue High School, with the help of their teacher Don Goble, SchoolTube.com and Dave Cornelius of the Arizona State University Cronkite School of Journalism, recorded inter-views with keynote speakers, award winners and attendees to capture what was happening on site. To connect with ACTE online, visit www.acteonline. org/e-media.aspx . Dr. robinson told attendees that new thinking is necessary about how we educate our children. ray J. McNulty, president of the International Center for Leadership in Education, presented on “Best and Next Practices.” are educated in schools that were built for the industrial age—their innovation and creativity stifled by the confines of such an archaic system. The way forward, Dr. Robinson said, is to see beyond our current challenges and think differently about ourselves and our abilities—and that includes how we educate our young people. “Creativity is the pulse of achieve -ment,” he said. “Many of our kids are going through an education system that doesn’t set out to discourage creativity, but actually inhibits it. I hear it time and again from employers that they have kids coming through the system who don’t have what they want—they [young workers] can’t work in teams, they can’t collaborate, they can’t think creatively and they don’t have a sense of purpose or direction.” Career and technical education, he said, provides possibilities for young people to explore their own creativity and diverse aptitudes in ways that a tradition-al classroom does not. “We need education systems which are built on diversity of opportunity, which celebrate creativity, and we need education systems that are not themselves inherently inhibitive in providing these opportunities.” ray McNulty: Transformation Through Innovation Making a better 20th century school is not the answer to solving the short-comings of the nation’s education system, said Ray J. McNulty, president of the International Center for Leadership in Education. During his presentation on Friday, November 18, he focused on “Best and Next Practices”—the idea that the world is changing and education isn’t keeping up pace, so it’s time to innovate. “Making a better 20th century school is not the answer,” he said, “it’s not about improvement anymore…it’s about transformation. Many of our efforts to transform our schools look like the same old stuff.” The answer to effective transformation of today’s schools lies in asking more questions, McNulty said. With many students in today’s schools having lived their entire lives in the 21st century, continued on page 44 42 Techniques Februar y 2012 www.acteonline.org
Publication List
Using a screen reader? Click Here