Career Tech Talk

October 16, 2009 - Interview with Enviropals! Creators

Catherine Imperatore:  Hi, Don and Ray. Thanks so much for talking with me today. So, tell us what “Enviropals!” is all about.

Don Brunning:  Well, I guess we’ll split this one in half. “Enviropals!” is a new, green kids’ show focusing on educating and empowering the youngest stewards of the planet   I guess that’s our official line   to just be better caretakers of Mother Earth.

Ray Grimard:  The second part of it would be not only is there an ecology and an awareness of the environment that’s important, but also from a science standpoint. We’ve lost the ability for the kids to ask the question as to why or how things work or what they can do to actually become active participants. So it’s not only environmentally focused, but it’s also science focused from a standpoint of practical physics and different aspects with regards to whether it’s alternative energy, additional ways of thinking things, the whole green movement, which involves a lot of conventional things that have been adapted for the green movement.

CI:  Great. And what’s the setting of the TV show?

DB:  Well, there is a magical land known as Naturia, where everything is perfect. The weather’s perfect. The environment’s perfect. All the animals are perfect. Nothing’s endangered. That is where there is this giant house tree—not a tree house, a house tree. A tree house would imply that it was manmade. This is made by Mother Nature herself, and it has three alternative power sources: windmill, hydroelectric through a water wheel, and solar through its leaves. Like we all know, any tree has leaves that act as its solar panel.

And Rae Rae the red panda, who’s the star of the show, is an adorable, five and a half foot, endangered red panda from China. He’s really the only endangered species there, playing the lead role. Rae Rae lives in the house tree. The house tree itself speaks and has a personality.

Four children come and visit every morning and wonder what they can do or what they can learn to help the environment, and Rae Rae takes them through an episode of various subject matter and teaches them how to do that with 16 puppets in the background always raising mayhem.

RG:  The show basically takes place in the interior of this house tree within the land of Naturia, so it’s a larger than life experience. It’s actually a pretty big interior. In real life, there would probably be about a 100 foot circumference to this tree.

CI:  How did you come up with the idea?

DB:  Well, it’s been a synergistic journey. I’m earth/space science and biology; that’s my certification, even though I teach TV production. And Ray’s been involved in, gosh, physics and you name it. He’s taught ROTC. Haven’t you, Ray?

RG:   I have a practical physics background, which deals with a lot of electromechanical things, and mechanical things, and pneumatic, and hydraulic; all the stuff that’s really around everybody that nobody notices.

DB:  So we got together a year and a half ago, and we were trying to figure out what would make an interesting tie in with this green movement. We worked together on a lot of music before, and had done one other pilot for PBS years ago, a travel show for kids, and kind of pulled everything back together and created this character, Rae Rae the red panda, who is a real endangered species like we said.

From there it just blossomed into where is he going to live? We need a place. The tree could actually be living itself and have a personality. Look at all the alternative energy that could run it.

Naturia’s got to be this perfect make believe land where nothing goes wrong because we want the kids to be centered in a very comfortable place when we’re talking about—some of these green movement subject matters can get pretty scary. We always try to approach it from a very positive point of view for the kids.

CI:  What steps did you take to pull this production together? When did PBS get involved?

RG:  That’s a good question. Outside of working with the “Enviropals!” stuff, I had been doing a lot of audio and different video stuff for the local public broadcasting station throughout the years. And not only that, but in another business I own we do a lot of mascot oriented shows with Clifford and Arthur and Paddington, Corduroy, all those, in malls, amusement parks, and a lot of industrial settings.

And I knew the power of the mascot, so I figured that how do you teach kids to not only learn stuff they should know, but also how do you instill some kind of inquisitive vehicle into them so they want to ask why and want to learn more.

They became almost like the Flintstones vitamins. How do you convince kids to   I don’t know   eat an iron pill? Well, you disguise them like Fred or whatever.

So what we’ve done is, given what we know with the power of the mascot, package the message within that, wrap it up into some songs, which are really always some of the best teaching tools. That’s how we all learned our ABCs.

Once we packaged this all together, we put a proposal together, and we pitched it to the local television station. Of course, there are all of the guidelines and the myriad of meetings we had to go through to convince them to let us do it. Then we threw caution to the wind and went for it, and now we’ve got 16 episodes in the can.

CI:  Great. Was national PBS on board from the beginning, or did you have to pitch it to them to show nationally?

RG:  What happens with the process is you’ve got to get a host station to first believe in you. Then, once the host station believes in you, then you go via the various different broadcast carriages, whether it’s PBS national or NETA [National Educational Telecommunications Association] or APT [American Public Television] or the MHz network. There are only four or five that share the same satellite. We ended up going to the NETA Convention. We were invited to the NETA Convention by our host station in Tampa last year. And we did a presentation, and from that point, NETA approached us, and asked us if we would go through them via distribution.

So we’re on the NETA stable of distribution, which is a national distribution, and PBS national. They’re almost all the same people who share the same programming content.

But it took revision after revision. It took multiple approaches to packaging this thing. It took focus groups. It’s been a journey. Though it’s really only been about 18 months, it seems like it’s been 18,000 years.

CI:  I believe that there are lesson plans available that go along with the episodes. And I was wondering if you think that this combination of watching a program and having a related lesson plan is popular now, is going to be increasingly popular as an educational tool over time?

DB:  Sure, absolutely. Jeremy Blinn is one of our directors of science for one of our elementary schools here in Volusia County. He’s in charge of basically our curriculum mapping, figuring out the science, not just the state standards, but the national science standards as well. Individual segments of the shows are each tied to an activity that can then be broken down further into a science curriculum for K through, really, fifth grade. We probably target close to third grade, if you really want to, but we skew young, with very young kids. Three  and four year olds love watching it, and we skew older into middle school as well, which is interesting.

We’ll have some real numbers on that in the next couple of months as we beta test our first season out around Florida and a few other locations in the United States before we go national.

RG:  With all the pressures put on, especially the elementary school teachers where they teach multiple subjects, they might not have an hour to spend on a subject, they might only have a 15 minute block to do science, and then they’ve got to do spelling, or they’ve got to do math skills, and so on and so forth. So what we did when we made the series is we segmented it up into about seven or eight two  to three minute segments—and you can see them on the Web site—whether it’s the Critter Connection, they go to the zoo, or the Do and Shows, or Enviro-tips, or the songs, or whatever.

This allows the teacher to just show a three  to four minute piece, go the Web site, get the corresponding activity sheets and unit guides, and have a real, tangible lesson they can teach. So you could actually take, per episode, you can break it apart seven days. It’s kind of unique approach where nobody’s ever really packaged them in small, little archetypal units.

Either we’ll be brilliant or broke is the way it works.

DB:  That’s our slogan now: “Brilliant or broke.”

CI:  [laughs] I love it.

DB:  I can tell you like that.

I have to tell you—Ray remembers—it was a real neat night the night we were together actually writing music, because we write all the music and we record it all, and we perform it all ourselves, so we’re kind of a one man production team—I should say a two man production team. The night we realized that we were going to segment the show, we were just, “oh my gosh, if we focus on a little Critter Connection and introduce a real animal, if we focus on a little science Do and Show segment where they could build something.”

Because we don’t have a toy line yet, so they could each learn to build a little something environmentally focused and science oriented, and take it back with them, or a teacher could help them, or a parent could help them, or however that worked.

As we segmented these things into smaller and smaller pieces, we realized we just had a very powerful teaching tool that you didn’t have to watch the entire thing. If you focused on just Critter Connections and you just want to look at 15 of them, and a teacher’s just teaching about animals, she can do that.

If she wants to have an actual activity, she can go to our Do and Shows. If she wants to visit something ecologically important that’s going on—like we visited a real, certified greenhouse with windmills and solar panels on it and cisterns and things like that—they can focus on just that little two- or three minute segment of each show.

You can break it down any way you want, and we encourage people to go ahead and break it down into pieces and use just the pieces if that’s what they want.

Whereas, I think like a “Sesame Street” or a “Barney,” they’re not saying, “Gee, we want you to focus in on just that two or three minutes. We want you to watch the whole show for our message.” We can actually get the message across in two or three minutes because we’re teachers. We’ve been doing this for almost 20 years each.

RG:  Too long.

DB:  Yeah.

RG:  Want to trade jobs, Catherine?

CI:  [laughs] That’s OK.

DB:  It’s great money.

RG:  Yeah. [laughs]

CI:   Most of our listeners are career and technical education educators on the secondary and postsecondary levels. So in your high schools and in your studios, are you doing anything with the high schoolers about sustainability and green issues?

DB:  Well, Ray is a completely different curriculum than I am. With me, my push with my students … We have an academy here, that’s one of the new buzzwords for Volusia County. We create academies and then focus you in on a particular career path. And then of course budget issues come up like any school system, and then we have that to deal with. And then we have to work our academies around all of these things. But the point is that we have taken my academy students; out of the 40 or 50 kids in the academy, we’ve taken 16 of them, and they’re actually our puppeteers. They are the performing arts side of the Enviropals you don’t see; you just see their puppets out front. They’re hidden behind the wall.

So we are integrating our students as much as possible. One of Ray’s students is actually the principal Rae Rae costume performer, and not to mention a number of the supporting technical roles and cast roles and things are all filled in by our students, too. That’s all been on a volunteer basis, which has been fantastic.

RG:  I teach aerospace science, and I also teach construction. I used several of my students when we were building sections of the set and stuff. They would meet at the location where we were building the sets. It was pretty cool for them to come from the classroom, learn how to use the tools, and then help build a set, and then see the set on TV in HD every weekend. So it was very cool.

CI:  That’s great.

RG:  We’ve been really lucky. We’ve had great kids, too.

CI:  Any of them going to continue on into a career with children’s shows?

DB:  Well, I teach television production, so a number of my students in the past and present and hopefully in the future have continued on. The creative director of the Warner Bros. television network is one of my former students. The Webmaster for the CW is another one of my students. There are people out there that have taken on real careers: anchors, local TV stations, national TV stations. So there are a number of people that have been fit into our industry. I think one of our most impressive ones, Ray, was the one we shared.

RG: Jason Tuchman went on to become one of the top photo retouching people in the business. He does all of the “Sports Illustrated” covers. He does all the Absolut vodka spots. He does all of Revlon’s stuff. He was definitely a creative, technical kid that Don had, and I had when I was teaching electronics at Atlantic High School when Don and I worked in the same school. Jason’s gone on and just exploded exponentially. And he has a company called Pistol Studios, and they’re one of the most sought after, just outside of New York in Greenwich Village.

DB: But those are our success stories. We have a lot of kids that just choose not to pursue, and there is a degree of difficulty in this industry, if we’re talking television or film, as opposed to other vocational industries. There’s just a degree of difficulty that’s overwhelming to some kids because you’re constantly putting your product out there, and it’s constantly just being stepped on and told it’s not good enough. We’re pushing 50, and this is the first show that we’ve had to this level, where we’ve got national interest now. We’ve been at this for 20 years or so. We try to tell them don’t lose faith. Look at us. You can always teach. [laughter] That’s usually when they quit. Just kidding.

CI: Well, thank you guys so much. Please remind our listeners when they can watch your show, either if they’re located in Florida or maybe when it comes on the national circuit.

RG: Well, in central Florida, they can watch it any Saturday and Sunday at 9:00 on WDSC. That’s PBS 15 out of Daytona Beach, which expands all the way over to almost Tampa via the different carriages, and down into Brevard County. But on the 15th of October, we’re looking for a state wide release. We’ll be in all the markets, whether they’re in Miami, or Jacksonville, or on the panhandle. And also, that will spill over into I guess it would be eastern Alabama, Mobile area, and the southern part of Georgia, which could go up into southern Atlanta…

DB:  It would push almost up into Atlanta, right.

RG:  …the local PBS stations there. WLIW in New York hopefully will pick up some time in November. That will be the greater New York metro area and also the Finger Lakes region up in central New York. And also, the last beta site will be New Hampshire Public Television, which comes out of Durham, New Hampshire, which is going to cover most of greater Boston and all of the state of New Hampshire.

So they can contact any one of those, or they can contact our Web site, let us know the location they’re in, and we can give them the specific site at raerae.tv. Especially educators or anybody, we’ll go out of our way to send them any materials they might like and let them know when it might be on.

DB:  Also, to add to that real quick, national release some time late February, early March to all PBS affiliates, 300 plus affiliates. And international, right? When is that, Ray? Internationally released?

RG:  International streaming would begin some time through the MHz network in the greater DC area, and I don’t know with the overseas markets, but some time. I would say that would be November also.

CI:  All right. Well, thank you so much for talking to me today.

RG:  Thank you.

DB:  Well, thank you.

RG:  Thank you for having us. We really appreciate it. Definitely.

Transcription by Casting Words

September 21, 2009 - Interview with Chef Jeff Henderson

Catherine Imperatore:  Hi, Chef Jeff. Thanks for talking to us today.

Jeff Henderson:  My pleasure. How are you?

CI:  Great! How are you?

JH:  Good, good.

CI:  So, can you give us a brief overview of what you’ll speak about at the ACTE Convention in November?

JH:  Yes, my talk is basically going to be about the power of potential and the importance of higher education and learning. And, you know, I always go back to my story, how I picked up a trade through an unfortunate situation in my life to become a chef. And once I realized the potential that I had it allowed me to value education more and embrace it and allowed me to become a successful chef in the culinary world.

CI:  Great! I believe you also speak to young people in culinary school or in culinary student groups. What sort of message do you impart to them?

JH:  Well, you know, I travel the country and motivate and inspire young people in culinary schools and whatnot. And my core message to young people is that life is about choices. And the importance of valuing education, that education is the key to building wealth, the key to success, the key to putting away for your retirement and the American dream. And I hit hard on that. I talk about the importance of being to work on time, being to school on time, being focused and sacrificing to achieve one’s educational dreams.

CI:  What kind of training do you think is most beneficial for future chefs?

JH:  You know, there are so many different schools out there of higher education for chefs. Me, personally, I like the technical schools, the trade schools. Because one thing about the trade schools, you have a lot of the instructors who come from the environment in the community that a lot of young people come from. So, it becomes a community that fosters change, that fosters building self-esteem and I find that a lot in a lot of the local culinary technical schools.

CI:  The economic recession, is that impacting young chefs entering your industry?

JH:  Absolutely. I mean, the economy, the downturn in the economy has impacted every genre of work in this country. However, the food industry is still the second largest employer to the federal government. And one thing now is that young people have to continue to elevate their skills, elevate their knowledge and have to work harder and be more focused on the job. And I think entrepreneurship has really opened up for many young people to come out of the culinary schools, the technical schools, to begin doing private chefing because the industry has shut down so much, restaurants are closing, they’re laying off in the huge hotels. So a lot of young chefs now are going into private catering, whether cooking for individual families, or working on cruise ships, going out of the country and cooking, and whatnot.

And again, our industry is an amazing industry and one thing they haven’t invented yet is a machine to cook food and taste it.

CI: [laughs]

JH: So, it’s wide open. We just have to make adjustments in order to maintain working during the economic downturn.

CI:   So, tell me about the Chef Jeff Project.

JH:  The Chef Jeff Project. Oh, it’s the biggest thing in my life, it’s my legacy. It means not just so much to me, but to so many people around the world. The Chef Jeff Project was an amazing opportunity I received from the Food Network to give young people who come from diverse communities and unique backgrounds a second chance in life using the power of food to impact them in a way to where they can be independent and build their self-esteem up, so they can begin to see themselves differently, you know, through a different set of eyes. And when I launched the Chef Jeff Project, which was a 28-day culinary and life skill boot camp, it was amazing to see the young people being exposed to so many new things; food and different sets of skills that really helped them.

And one of the things that I truly believe in: exposure is the foundation of change because you can teach someone a skill, but they still need to expose themselves to circumstances and situations that allow them to be able to utilize those skills and believe in themselves.

CI:  Are you going to get the opportunity to do another version of the Chef Jeff Project?

JH:  Absolutely. And I have some great news. Hopefully, when I come to speak I’ll be able to talk about the good news of the Chef Jeff Project. I’m pretty sure I will be able to.

CI:  Oooh, great!

JH:  It’s a surprise. So, everybody come now. [laughs]

CI:  [laughs] So, what else are you working on now?

JH:  Well, I have a lot of things going on. I’m working on a new cookbook called Pass It Down Cookbook, which is a collection of over 150 recipes that have been passed down from generation to generation by an African-American community, which is a partnership with Tavis Smiley. And I’m really excited about that project, and I’m working also on another book called The Chef Jeff Principles for Success, which will talk about all the strategies, all the principles, all the rules and lessons that I had to learn and what I went through to reach the level of success that I did in the culinary world.

CI:  We’re going to be in Nashville for our conference. Is there a restaurant in Nashville that you would recommend?

JH:  Well, you know, I haven’t been to Nashville before, but I know down in Memphis … How far is Memphis from Nashville?

CI:  I think it’s about three hours. [laughs]

JH:  Three hours. Oh, that’s too far to go to the Neelys. They have a restaurant—they’re on the Food Network, the Neelys.

So, I’m going to definitely have to find one of them down-home booth barbecue joints. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to do some research and find out where Chef Jeff ’s going to eat when he’s there, and hopefully we can pack the house.

CI:  Awesome! We’re so looking forward to seeing and hearing more from you at our Opening General Session, that’s Thursday, November 19th.

JH:  Absolutely. I’m excited.

CI:  Thanks so much for talking to me today!

JH:  My pleasure.

Transcription by CastingWords

August 14, 2009 - Interview with Matthew Crawford

Lacey Reeves: Hi Matt, thanks for speaking to me today.

Matthew Crawford: Hey, thanks for having me.

LR: Sure. Could you please tell us what the premise of your book is?

MC: Well, I’d say it’s an attempt to speak up for the honor of the manual trades, and say that that kind of work can be a life that’s worth choosing. I do that by, in the first place, trying to show that the kind of thinking that goes on in the trades is genuinely impressive, if we stop to notice it.

LR: OK, great. And what are some of the factors that caused you to make such a dramatic career change, and to write this book?

MC: I’ve had a lot of different kinds of jobs. I’ve worked in an office, and I’ve worked as an electrician and mechanic. And the book grows out of an attempt to understand why I’ve always preferred doing work that is concrete. The office jobs that I’ve had, I got because of my academic credentials, yet all of those jobs were dumbed-down in one way or another, to the point that doing the job often required me to actively suppress my own ability to think.

But in working as an electrician or as a mechanic, the physical circumstances in which you do the job really vary too much for your role to be reduced to just following a set of procedures. It always requires improvisation and adaptability. And one result of that, I think, is that you feel like your actions are genuinely your own. I think that’s what we want from work.

LR: And what do you find to be the most challenging aspects of your job?

MC: Well, in a way, it’s the same sort of thing. The aspects that are most challenging are most rewarding. In fixing motorcycles, either the bike starts and it runs right, or it doesn’t. And if it doesn’t, you can’t BS your way out of the situation, or spin a cover story that makes it OK. So it’s challenging in that sense. But by the same token, when you get it right, and some bike that hasn’t run in years fires up, it’s a powerful experience of validation, I’d say. At that moment you know that you’re not insane; not locked up in some fantasy version of the world that you might have in your head. And the proof is right in front of you on the lift, making a whole lot of noise. That noise pours out of the shop and lets the whole world know. It’s a good feeling.

LR: Wow, that sounds great! What do you believe to be some of the factors in the decline in manual jobs such as yours?

MC: Who says they’re in decline? Manufacturing jobs have certainly been hurt, but the trades have a very different outlook. Thirty years ago we learned that anything than can be put on a container ship is going to be manufactured wherever labor is cheapest. And for the last ten years, we’ve been learning that a similar logic applies to the products of intellectual labor that can be delivered over a wire. So accountants, programmers, architects, even radiologists are now competing with people overseas who are well-educated and speak very good English. But, as one economist points out, “You can’t hammer a nail over the Internet.” Similarly, the Indians can’t fix your car because they’re in India.

So the point seems to be that any job that has to be done in person or on site is safe from that logic of outsourcing, so the manual trades are relatively secure, compared to many other jobs.

LR: And what educational pathways do you think produce the most skilled workers -such as career and technical education in high school, apprenticeships or community college courses?

MC: Apprenticeship seems pretty indispensable to me, since the kind of knowledge that we’re talking about can’t be put in a book or downloaded off the Internet; it depends on personal experience. Also, I think there’s an ethic of doing good work - of caring about the finer points of your craft - that can only be imparted by example. I think you have to spend time in the presence of someone who has made a life of it, someone for whom the standards of excellence that are intrinsic to the work carry real emotional force. In that kind of relationship with a mentor, you submit to his judgment. And by doing so, you develop your own judgment, and it’s enlivened by a sense of honor about your trade, and a kind of personal identification. You say, “I am a mechanic,” for example. And you have some idea of what a mechanic is because there’s a real flesh and blood person whom you emulate, and often you can feel his judgmental gaze hovering over your shoulder years later. A real mentor is someone who gets installed in your imagination and you feel you have to answer to him forever more. And I think that’s what gives people that sense of really being invested in doing good work.

LR: What do you feel are important steps to take in changing the stigma associated with hands-on technical careers?

MC: Well, I think a lot of people assume that if the work is dirty, it must also be stupid, and don’t want their children to go into it. We seem to have developed what you might call an educational monoculture that’s tied to a vision of what kind of work is valuable and important. So everyone gets herded into a certain track where they end up working in an office, regardless of their natural inclinations. But some people, including some who are very smart, would rather be learning to build things or fix things.

And why not honor that? I think one reason we don’t is that we’ve had this fantasy that we’re going to somehow take leave of material reality and glide around in a pure information economy. I think that fantasy is tied to this false dichotomy of knowledge work versus manual work, as though they’re two very different things. But, say you’re trying to diagnose why a car doesn’t idle properly. That’s not a trivial problem.

And I think career and technical education could be energized by carefully showing and explaining the intellectual challenges that are inherent in the particular kinds of work being taught, and that’s quite different than simply adding a layer of academic material in a sort of remedial spirit. In other words, I think CTE needs to be taken seriously on its own terms because, after all, using your mind and using your hands are deeply connected.

LR: Great. And what role do you think hands-on careers will play in economic recovery?

MC: You hear it said that we’re about to spend something like a trillion dollars on infrastructure, so there’s going to be high demand for – well, for welders, certainly. I think if I were 17, I’d be working on my MIG [metal inert gas] welding technique.

LR: You were recently quoted in an article saying, “It is a rare person, male or female, who is naturally inclined to sit still for 17 years in school, and then indefinitely at work.” What do you believe to be the best solution in classrooms to address the problems associated with traditional learning styles?

MC: I guess I’d say get out of the classroom. Do something. You may then find that you actually have a use for trigonometry, say. Suddenly it’s very interesting. Having some kind of hands-on stuff is school could really spark that love of learning for a lot of people who are just left cold by studying for academic tests. And again that includes some people who are very smart but feel that the environment set up for them is schools is kind of contrived and that it just doesn’t fully engage them. Tinkering with stuff, taking stuff apart and learning to put it back together, that can really bring a kid alive.

LR: Definitely! And are there ever times that you miss the work you did that involved sitting still at a desk, the “knowledge work”?

MC: Well, sit-down work has its charms, that’s for sure.  Air-conditioning would probably be the most important part of that. But I guess what I’ve learned is that knowledge work can take a lot of different forms and for me, figuring out why a motorcycle doesn’t run right and then making it right is very engaging intellectually. So I’m pretty happy with what I’m doing right now.

LR: What would be the best piece of advice you have to offer students interested in a career such as yours or in a similar field?

MC: Maybe good advice would be to identify some class of equipment that is really, really expensive, and big enough that it can’t be shipped around the world, and become an expert at troubleshooting it and fixing it. And you’ll be pretty solid, I think.

In fact, it might be you that gets shipped around the world. I have this friend who is a mechanic for these enormous forklifts that are used to lift boats at marinas. He was just in Egypt recently; he gets flown all over the world to fix these things. So, that’s just one example.

I think, more broadly, that that kind of work cannot only pay pretty well but I think there’s a really basic human satisfaction that comes from taking a tool in hand and seeing a direct effect of your actions in the world.  And that can take a lot of different forms; it doesn’t necessarily mean working in the trades. It can even mean using various intellectual tools, but the point is to find work that really involves using your own judgment so that you feel like your actions are genuinely your own.

LR: Well, those are all that questions we have for you to today. Thank you so much for your time.

MC: Thanks! It was really nice to talk with you, Lacey.

LR: You can order Shop Class as Soulcraft from the ACTE Book Store at www.acteonline.org/shop.aspx.

July 17, 2009 - Interview with Edward Gordon

Catherine Imperatore: Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Edward Gordon:  Well, I have been in the field of education for the past 30 years working in both special ed and in career and technical education with adults and with children all over the United States and Canada and now beginning in Europe and Asia. I have provided training and educational services to children, schools and business and have written 17 books and several hundred articles on different issues regarding human development.

I live in Chicago and Palm Desert, California, in the winter, which I think people can understand if they ever came to Chicago in the winter. And I taught at DePauw, Loyola and Northwestern Universities for a total of 20 years. Now I teach all over, but they tend to be in conferences and workshops all over the place.

CI: So tell us about this latest book.

EG: Winning the Global Talent Showdown is important for your listeners because it really talks about the beginnings of a new cyber-mental age when technology will be embedded in almost everything we can think of. As a result costs of technology will fall dramatically; uses of technology will be innovative in many different areas   certainly in education and teaching, but in almost every single concept of daily life. Soon I will be doing a major speech for The World Future Society and I’ll be telling them that in the next 10 years we will see services and products in technology as much as we’ve seen in the last 50 years introduced into our society. But there’s one hitch. And the hitch is that we need, as a result, better educated people in our workforce   young people and older people.

But let’s talk about the young people. The people in school today are the children that will be starting into education over the next 10 years. The issue now is not a question of whether a child needs a good liberal arts education or they’re going to have some form of technical education. For years technical education has been considered by too many in our society as something that people only went into when they couldn’t make it in liberal arts or business or teaching.

This is changing now in a very dramatic way. And the book highlights all around the world the efforts being made by nations, by communities, by school systems to better integrate in elementary and secondary and postsecondary career-technical education, particularly for those individual students who have the type of aptitude and interest in those areas.

Right now we have a shortage of people in technical education coming into the workplace. As the baby boomers are retiring not enough individuals now in Generation X and Y, who love to use technology, sleep with technology … But unfortunately they’re not interested in the design, manufacturing, maintenance, repair and management of those technologies. One of the major reasons is they lack the necessary literacy skills, math and science skills.

And they don’t even know what these careers are. There’s a huge lack of information for parents and children, starting with first graders going all the way up the continuum. So that as a child progresses through elementary school, what the book talks about are the models in which children and parents are gradually educated regarding what is going on in their communities, regarding these types of jobs, the types of education children need to enter careers and the future of those careers.

So when the child gets to high school and the prevalence now of what I call liberal arts, college prep career academies all around the world, where children are receiving a longer school day, a longer school year and a very well rounded education. So that we have a much higher proportion of our students graduating from high school, and that the dropout rates start going the other way, they start going down, not going up.

And at the same time the idea that the majority of students not only will graduate, but that they will go to college and get a four year degree, a two year degree, a one- or two year technical certificate or go to what I call apprenticeship college.

As I think I’ve told listeners for ACTE in the past in a similar broadcast, my father was a carpenter/contractor for 50 years. He was a brilliant mathematician and a technical designer of homes and did custom remodeling. He was a very brilliant man. I don’t have the skills he had to build a house, even to drive a nail straight. Ask my wife, she has to do it. But he had these types of aptitudes and interests; I didn’t. I was encouraged by my parents and the schooling I had in order to enter the work I do, which is writing books, working in psychology and history, working with schools and businesses in human development, which is another area of technical skills.

Now my sister, who is five years older than I am, she had those skills. And if it had been another generation, maybe she’d have become the carpenter/contractor. I’d have been very good at helping market what my father did and write about what my father did.

But that’s what parents need to think about for their own children. I do workshops for parents all the time in communities talking about the future of jobs and skills. And I talk about the fact that in the next decade, “it’s technology, stupid”. This is what is going to drive good-paying jobs, and we are no longer going to be looking down upon people who are in technology because technology more and more will drive our way of life, even more than now.

So in summary, that’s what the book is about, and also about how the communities are rebuilding their local education-to-employment systems so that children have a better opportunity of selecting ultimate career areas; not jobs, but career areas tied to their aptitudes. And that school systems diversify elementary, secondary and postsecondary   the way in which children are taught and the information that they are taught, so that it better matches this wide diversity of exciting careers that will be available in this cyber-mental age that we are now entering.

CI: How did this shortage of talented and skilled technical workers develop?

EG: Well, first of all, there are a number of forces driving this; there’s not one factor. The first factor though, as I’ve already mentioned, technology is requiring better educated people in the workforce. Companies have more and more technology but they need better educated people behind the technology in order to make it work.

That’s where we need people who can think, who can problem solve   some of these critical thinking skills that your audience is aware of. But now we’re talking about embedding this kind of technology in clothing, in other static devices. The instrumentality that we have that I’m looking at here in your studio, of computers, etc., and keyboards, much of this will vanish over the next 10 years because of the upgrades we will have in memory and instrumentality.

But to make all this function and manufacture it and keep it going, we’re going to need the people behind that to design it. We have had them with the boomers growing up during the Space Race, the arms race, the Cold War. As some of our listeners know, the government passed the National Defense Act and literally forced more science and math education into elementary and secondary schools.

That has gradually waned over the last 20 years for a variety of cultural reasons. And more students in schools where I’ve taught are communication majors, finance majors, graphic design majors   and not enough have gone into the hard sciences. Many times it’s the parents who discourage them because of the up and down cycles within different industries in engineering and manufacturing in our society.

But what I’m saying now to parents is that we’re in for a dramatic change and this is a global shift. The idea that we are in a postindustrial society is a great myth. The U.S. exports a great deal of high tech products, but they’re high-end products. And we’ll export more of them if we have the people behind them to design and make them.

So, first then is technology is demanding more. Second is the retirement of the boomers. Third, the generations behind us: the Xs are fewer, the Ys are more but unfortunately we have two issues here: one, a lack of good math and science education and second, declining literacy. We have too many children who are poor readers, too many young adults who are poor readers. And in fact we see literacy as a declining skill in our society. People are scanning computers but they don’t pick up a book and read it for entertainment. And there’s an old theory: if you don’t use it, you lose it.

Well, if I stopped writing for a year or so, I’m sure my writing skills would get a little rusty. If you don’t sit down and read and try in-depth comprehension, those skills get rusty. And now we need people who have higher and higher levels of reading comprehension and vocabulary and writing skills for every job, whether that is a scientist, a teacher, a mechanic working on a jet airplane, a lab technician, someone in IT, mammography   and on and on and on it goes.

So that’s the second factor. And the third factor is we’ve become very used to importing skilled talent from overseas. And this is a global problem I’m talking about, and unfortunately other countries are seeing their populations shrink dramatically, in Europe and parts of Asia.

And even India and China - they have grown tremendously - and I wish them well. Their educational institutions graduate large numbers of engineers and scientists. Unfortunately, the quality in many of those programs is not to a world standard. So as China and India increase the sophistication of the products and services that they are making or selling, they are now calling back home many of their sons and daughters who were educated in America.

So we’re going to have a harder and harder time importing the talent we need to the United States. What that means, the bottom line, is that communities are going to have to do a better job in preparing youth here in America for these jobs. And these are good-paying jobs.

Particularly, again, if we’re talking about what interests a child   and I want to emphasize something else. Again, I’m looking at liberal arts with technology education. It’s not a question of either/or; it’s both and more. Lifelong learning means your child and your students   and this means everyone.

Now you’re going to say, “Well Dr. Gordon, this is idealistic. This will never work in a million years.” I say to you, if we don’t set our goals high, if we don’t have by 2020 at least 50 percent of our young people graduating from high school reading at the 12th grade level   and today we have far less - if we don’t have at least 50 percent of our students going and completing postsecondary education and getting these degrees and a good proportion of them going into these technical career areas and supporting that, we will lose our role as a technological leader around the world.

So those are the forces shaping this and that’s why I’m here at ACTE today because I want to give all the support I can to your educators who continue to prepare students for these fields and to interest more students in these fields.

CI: Great! What are some of the specific solutions you suggest in the book?

EG: What I have found is, in community after community across the United States, businesses have left or they’ve diminished in size. And as a result, tax bases have declined and school systems have a harder time raising funds for their programs.

Community leaders don’t want to see their communities decline. They have organized community-based organizations to partner with business, unions, civic groups, Kiwanis, rotary, chambers of commerce, workforce boards, economic development commissions, in order to get the participation and financial support of these groups. And to help prepare information on careers and jobs, help teachers to receive training within different types of industries and businesses to do a better job teaching math and science, and providing information for parents so that parents, from the time a child is in first-grade all the way through high school, have a clear understanding of what types of jobs, what types of careers are available, what the entry-level salaries are, the median salaries, the types of education requirements. And students are exposed in elementary school to a variety of career awareness information. Curriculums are changed so that children who have tactile intelligence, mathematical intelligence, musical intelligence, the use of fine and gross motor skills, all of this is built into the curriculum.

This costs a lot of money, and that’s why it is very important that we get a close working partnership through these CBOs, these community based organizations. These are neutral civic spaces that are trying to build a broader network to do two things. One is to help schools better prepare students for a broad range of careers   many of them in technology, though not all. And second, these CBOs are also trying to help the incumbent worker, the current worker, to upgrade his or her skills so that companies can continue to compete and introduce new technologies and procedures, so companies can survive and thrive.

And also, these communities want to try to attract new businesses, new start ups from overseas and across our country. I am happy to tell you that in this book, Winning The Global Talent Showdown, and in my prior book, The 2010 Meltdown: Solving the Impending Jobs Crisis, I spotlight many communities from coast to coast that started in the ’90s and are continuing to work with youth through the school systems in order to achieve these goals.

CI: In the book you discuss career academies as part of the solution. Can you expand on that?

EG: Yes. Well, what we see developing in many communities is you can’t do everything. You can’t prepare children for all different types of job categories. So, the community schools and community leaders often do two things. They zero in to support those businesses and industries and business sectors that already exist as well as those areas that they potentially would like to attract into a region. They then try to build those programs up.

Of course, children may decide to leave a community and go to another part of the United States to live ultimately as adults, and Americans do this all the time, as your listeners know. But, in general, what we find is that there’s a tremendous amount of support by civic minded individuals and local educators to help them better prepare children for a diversity of careers that reflect what the culture is of the local region and community   and what the parents and leadership think is important for their community to survive and to thrive. That’s what a republic is all about.

And at the same time, to emphasize the liberal arts so that children are raised as thinking members of our republic so that they can be responsible citizens. I want to emphasize this because, again, we’re not running factory schools. We’re not talking about corporations taking over elementary and high schools for their own purposes. That’s a myth. I don’t see that happening. I don’t see school systems and I certainly don’t see companies interested in doing that.

CI: So you’ve seen the career academy model be effective?

EG: Yes. The first career academy started in Philadelphia in the ’60s. Philadelphia Academies, Inc., exists today and there are over 1,000 career academies that are full academy models across this country. I see the career academy model working within the high school context. But, what I also see is that communities are preparing elementary schools with more diversified curriculums and also career information and educational programs prior to high school so that children and parents have a much better concept of what are the child’s aptitudes and interests as they progress from the primary, into the middle grades, into the junior high grades.

Again, none of this should be designed for a child to say that they want to do this job for life when they’re in sixth grade. That’s not the concept. The concept is that children -obviously we each have gifts, aptitudes and interests. And it’s best to just familiarize children and teenagers, and then young adults, with what are the different career opportunities that exist around those interests, aptitudes. What type of education do they need to fulfill careers in that area, alright?

And this is a lifelong experience because that’s the other area that we need to inculcate better into our citizenry. Education is for life. It’s not a question that we’re trying to turn every child into an intellectual, into a college professor. That’s not the point. The point is knowledge and our society will continue to change dramatically over the next 20, 30, 40 years. Careers will change dramatically. Jobs will change dramatically. For people to keep up they’re going to have to be able to absorb new information, learn it and apply it. To do this we need to teach children throughout school that learning is for life, so when they become adults this is not an onerous task as it is for many adults today - I think many feel that lifelong learning is a real pain, that they don’t like it. And that the quality of education will improve.

I’m sure many of the educators listening to me today think of all that in service that they have to sit through. And many of it they feel is of very low quality, and really they need more help. And that’s the whole point: they do. Whether it’s a teacher in an elementary or secondary school district, or it’s someone in the workplace, we have to and we will raise the quality of this simply because without it schools will not be able to do their job and businesses can’t do their job either.

CI: Do you envision courses becoming more blended between e-learning and face-to-face learning?

EG: Yes. And I think that blended learning will become more prevalent, but not just pure e [e-learning]. I think pure e is very difficult. Maybe 10 percent of the adult population get it. Maybe with the next generation it may be slightly higher because they spend so much time now on the Internet.

But the fact is that the social component of learning, of being with other people in a support structure, is very significantly important for most learners. Very few people are good autodidactic learners where they can learn all on their own, they’re driven, and they complete the task on time, etc. That kind of self discipline is difficult, and discovery learning.

It also means that we are going to improve the quality of teacher education by attracting more of the best and brightest students into teaching. Many other countries are doing this by front-loading salaries so that a person with a master’s degree in an area of technical teaching and instruction in math or science or some other area will be paid at the same rate as if they are going to a major corporation.

Why? Well, I think that what your listeners do in school is just as important as what is being done at Goldman Sachs or at IBM or at Microsoft because the minds of children are the most important resource we have in this country. And right now we simply are not preparing enough people for those areas.

There are huge, huge shortages of technical people. We may have between 12 and 24 million jobs vacant in the next 10 years. And too many of those are going to be teaching jobs, particularly math and science teachers, at every level. We need math and science majors who also love children and want to teach in our schools across America, and compensate them so they will stay.

CI: How can we spread this academy/partnership model you’ve described across the country?

EG: Well, what I see happening as a social scientist and as a researcher, what I’m reporting in my books and talking about across the country, is how community leaders once again through civic activism are using this model. This is not my model. I’m just reporting on what I see going on, and it’s also occurring in other countries. But because of the flexibility of this country and its diversity, I see that this model is catching on very rapidly.

Most importantly, this is the approach we did 100 years ago when we set up the first education to employment system. Our first K 12 system that first put immigrants in classrooms, sent girls to high school 100 years ago and started what we’ll call now career and vocational education, what now I call career education because these are all careers. And I don’t think we should segregate them out into technical and nontechnical because now I see so much of this is being fully integrated.

So these CBOs, community based organizations, and NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] are spreading across the United States very rapidly. What they’re going to do is, community by community or region by region, they will form coalitions and networks to provide the funding to redesign the curriculums to help students and incumbent workers get more education and training.

They in turn will then partner in their states, and will go to their state capitals, and will lobby to change all the mandates in the state so that all the elementary, all the high schools, and the postsecondary … and to provide impetus and maybe a good push for business so that lifelong learning, training and development are implemented as a societal requirement across the board.

This is where we’re going to be by 2020. I predict that between now and 2020, all 50 states will go through a major revolution in changing all their mandates. Mainly so that America can compete, so that we can have the type of good-paying, high skill jobs. And I predict that by 2020, 74 percent of all our jobs will fall into that category.

If we have these mandates, we will have the education to employment system, because this is a systemic issue. This is not just an issue about more technical education, or more literacy, or training incumbent workers, or helping immigrants, or helping children who have different special needs. It’s all of the above and more.

It strikes at the heart of what our country is all about: human development and helping people to maximize their potential in a free society. We did it 100 years ago, and we’re going to do it again now.

And I see this as something being supported by unions, teachers, parents, businesses large and small, Democrats, Republicans, liberals and conservatives. This is not an ideological issue. Again, this is an issue to preserve the American way of life.

CI: Great! Do you have anything else to add?

EG: I’m very grateful to have this opportunity to talk to the members of ACTE, and I highly recommend that they become involved in their own communities in these community based organizations. Help one get started in order to move with partners. You’ll be amazed how many other people think like you do and see the need for this type of true revolution. With them you can do it, so don’t get discouraged.

CI: Learn more about Ed Gordon and his firm, Imperial Consulting, at www.imperialcorp.com. You will soon be able to order Winning the Global Talent Showdown from the ACTE Book Store at www.acteonline.org/shop.aspx.

Transcription by CastingWords

June 15, 2009 - Interview with Byron Garrett

Catherine Imperatore: This is Catherine Imperatore with ACTE. Just a reminder that you have until July 15 to register for the ACTE Convention at the early-bird rate, which is a 30 percent savings. ACTE member and award winner Allan Sulser attended last year’s conference and talked to the SchoolTube video crew about his experiences:

Allan Sulser: I’ve been to a lot of national conventions and a lot of regional meetings. And it seems like every time I come to an ACTE Convention—when you look around, it’s just amazing how many exhibitors there are here–I always bring something back. It seems like everyone I come to, I always find something that’s going to apply to me and my school back home.

Learn more at www.acteconvention.com.

Now, on to my interview with Byron Garrett, CEO of the National Parent Teacher Association.

Hi, Byron. It’s great to talk to you today.

Byron Garrett: Thank you. Glad to be joining you.

CI: So, what is the mission of the PTA, and what does the PTA do on a national level?

BG: Well, PTA as most folks know is the National Parent Teacher Association. We have been around for over a century - we’re approaching 113 years of existence - and our mission is to ensure that every single child succeeds, not only at home, but also at school and in life.

And so on a national level, we advocate on behalf of parents and families across the country from an educational perspective, from a health and well-being perspective, and then we also provide support materials and resources through our 26,000 local units that exist across the country and in military installations worldwide.

CI: Does the PTA offer it at all levels, all ages of education, or is there an age range at which the PTA tends to be most active?

BG: You’ll find that, yes, we do operate from a K-12 perspective and we have what we call PTSAs as well, parent-teacher-student associations that are most active in our middle schools and high schools. But, you will find that the majority of our membership is in the K-6 area, and we’re steadily working to find new ways to engage parents in middle school and high school.

CI: What is the setup of a PTSA?

BG: Well, it’s relatively similar. It’s just it adds the student component. So just as your normal PTA would be composed of parents and teachers, a PTSA is composed of parents, teachers and students who choose to get actively engaged and serve in a variety of ways with their local organization.

CI: That sounds very useful to, at that older age, have the students able to step in and speak for themselves.

BG: Oh, definitely because you find that the students in middle school and definitely when they get to high school, they are certainly able to articulate and advocate on their own behalf. And they have some very clear ideas about what can improve the educational system for them, and so we look for them to get engaged and involved in any way that makes sense and is appropriate for them.

CI: So, what is the current policy agenda of the PTA?

BG: Well, obviously, nationally PTA is first and foremost going to be concerned about education, and so this past year we recently released our public policy agenda for 2009. And of course, we are focusing on a series of issues. One of them is calling for a greater increase in Title I funding. We believe that more dollars need to be spent there with our more vulnerable populations in society.

We also have policies and recommendations as it relates to the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that most folks know as “No Child Left Behind.”

And then we also have some recommendations dealing with students who are truant and absenteeism because we recognize that there are some linkages there with the lack of student achievement. And we believe that there are some compelling solutions that need to be put in place to help resolve that issue.

CI: I was interested in reading about your policy goals related to truancy and absenteeism. While we find that career and technical education is effective for many students, it has been shown to be effective for students who are at a risk to drop out. I believe an early indicator of that is attendance problems. So, is there anyway that CTE could play a role in helping the PTA achieve that goal?

BG: I think we need to ensure that we are sharing more information with parents, not just when a student gets to high school or middle school and CTE is most critical and most widely known, but helping parents understand that as they prepare their children to matriculate through our higher ed that they are able to see the relevant connection between career and technical education and student achievement.

And there are studies that show that students that are engaged in CTE programs and CTSOs are more successful and more effective for a number of reasons. Truancy and absenteeism is one of them in terms of that being lower but also higher test scores and better attendance. All of those things have a significant impact.

And CTE has been critical, I believe, in helping stem the tide because it’s helping students understand a real world connection for the value of their education.

CI: You kind of touched or hit the nail on the head there of a problem that we have. We find ourselves combating many parents’ lack of knowledge about CTE as a viable pathway. Can or does the PTA educate parents about pathways like CTE?

BG: So, we definitely support that notion. But what we need to do is communicate more to parents so that they understand how CTE can be included as part of a rigorous pathway to graduate from high school and to meet postsecondary entry requirements into schools.

And we need to help them understand that CTE is not yesterday’s vocational education, but it’s important for parents to understand that CTE is for all students and not just those who are not going to college. But those students who recognize the value of getting additional education, whether that’s through a traditional four-year program, a community college or a career tech program, that they understand the value and how that benefits them long term.

More people than ever before are really thinking about “how do I ensure that I am prepared to succeed so I’m not the person on the other end of the pink slip?” And obviously, research would show the greater your skill set and the more adaptable you are to the marketplace the greater your likelihood for being successful. And so, parents are now thinking about that message in a very different way than they have in a long time.

And now we need to help translate that to the educational setting so that not only students but also their parents understand the need to have a child engage in CTE course work.

CI: What about your educational background? I’m just always curious when I interview people to know if they have ever taken any CTE classes themselves.

BG: I have. I mean, in terms of high school education, I was directly engaged - for example, FBLA, Future Business Leaders of America, is a program I was involved with for part of my high school experience, but even since I’ve gotten out of the formal educational setting I’ve spent a lot of time working with CTSOs on a national level: DECA, FBLA, FFA. All of them I’ve worked with at some point in time in some way, shape or form, and I recognize a clear need. And even when I lived in the state of Arizona doing policy and educational work for the governor there, I was really instrumental in helping highlight the need and the value for students being engaged in CTE.

So, I know it both firsthand as a student, but I also know it from an individual who is looking at how society can benefit from students who are currently engaged in those great programs.

I mean, you know, all one has to do is go to the competitive events floor at a SkillsUSA conference, and they would quickly realize that our young people today are not short on ingenuity or imagination or creativity. And they have the skill set, they just need to continue to reinforce and the opportunity and funding to ensure that every young person has an opportunity to be engaged in those programs.

CI: What challenges is the PTA facing right now? With the new administration, are you finding it easy or difficult to sort of get your goals accomplished?

BG: Well, I will tell you that the climate is definitely different with this administration, both from a Department of Education perspective but also in the White House and even in the Office of the First Lady.

I had a great opportunity to work with the previous administration, and know that there are some significant differences. Once the President was officially elected, we were invited to sit down with part of the transition team, throughout the process in the fall before he was officially inaugurated to even talk with him about our desires and plans and our agenda as it related to education.

I find them to be open and as transparent as you hear President Obama talk. And we continue discussions and conversations with them on an ongoing basis.

We have a public policy team and government affairs team that’s based in Washington, D.C. And so, not only do we spend time at the request of the administration to come meet with them and give them advice and counsel and raise our issues, we also go actively knocking, saying, “Hey, we believe we have something cutting edge or that could be beneficial to the administration.”

So we view it as a partnership. We’re delighted to have an opportunity to partner with both the White House and certainly with Secretary Duncan and his staff as he continues to figure out how we resolve this educational crisis in the country.

CI: How are the local PTA units - How would the economic crisis affect those local units?

BG: Well, in a couple of ways. PTA is a membership-based organization so each individual member – you know, we have five million of them - so each individual member pays dues to their local PTA. And certainly the impact of the economy will definitely play out on our school campuses across the country just as it will in our homes, and parents will have to make a decision whether they spend the additional dollars to get a PTA membership.

We don’t think that that’s going to be the issue as much because as parents realize, the stronger our membership base is, the better we’re in position to advocate to ensure that we maintain the level of funding, if not get an increase for education. So, parents get that.

We haven’t seen that same impact or fallout from a membership standpoint. What we have seen is that folks are being much more conscientious about how they spend their dollars from a travel standpoint. So, where we may have 500 people at a state convention, this year we may have 450, so numbers may be down a little.

Or If there’s a training event, folks may say, “Hey, I can only come for half a day. I can’t stay the entire day because I’m working at a part-time job,” and so you see that play out in a couple of different ways, all the way down to parents who are saying, “Look, I’ve got key priorities that I need to focus on with my family, but these are the things that are critical. Can you help me shape this to ensure my children have the resources that they need?”

So, it’s not just the financial impact in terms of the dollar transaction that has an impact on the organization. But we’ve also seen the crunch on time when mom or dad are working two or more jobs or trying to go back to school or taking additional class to increase their skill set and competency. That has an impact in a multitude of ways.

CI: Great. Well, thank you very much for talking with me today. Do you have anything else to add?

BG: Any time that anyone wants information or resources, they can always visit us on the World Wide Web at www.pta.org. And we look forward to continuing to partner with ACTE and all the CTE programs and CTSOs across the country in any way we can.

CI: Thank you.

BG: Thank you.

May 15, 2009 - Interview with Butch Spyridon

Catherine Imperatore: Today I’m speaking with Butch Spyridon, president of the Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau. Nashville is the site for the 2009 ACTE Convention and Career Tech Expo this November. This premier professional development experience will feature more than 200 sessions, more than 200 exhibitors and tons of networking.

Member Sharon Lawrence shared her thoughts as a first-time attendee to last year’s conference with the SchoolTube video crew:

Sharon Lawrence: I anticipated greatness but it’s far exceeded my expectations, even with the opening session. This is a whole another level, and if you’re looking for the best of the best, this is the conference and the organization that you want to be a part of.

Register by July 15 for early-bird discounts! Now, on to the show.

Hi, Butch. It’s great to talk to you today.

Butch Spyridon: Thanks. We appreciate the opportunity, and it’s my pleasure to speak with you.

CI: So as you may know, our Association, ACTE, is heading to Nashville this November for its Annual Convention, specifically to the Gaylord Opryland. And we’re probably bringing about 5,000 attendees…

BS: Thank you.

CI: [laughs] …and a few hundred exhibitors. So, what makes Nashville a great tourist destination?

BS: Well, in a word, I’d say “fun.” It is one of the few great American, authentic destinations left. It’s a truly unique experience, and it all revolves around fun.

CI: So what do you think about the Gaylord Opryland that we’re heading to?

BS: Well, I would tell you, you couldn’t pick a better time to stay out at Opryland hotel. Their Country Christmas extravaganza is incredible. A couple million lights, so you can just marvel at how the interior and exterior are lit up. They have incredible dinner shows. They will have a themed indoor ice exhibit. Last year it was Dr. Seuss. And this year, I think I have a hint, but I’m not allowed to say it, but another legendary cartoon-themed ice exhibit worth the visit. So, plenty to do out there, and plenty to do all over the city.

CI: So, how has the Nashville tourism industry weathered the recent financial storms?

BS: Well, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say I’m really glad y’all are coming with 5,000 people.

You know, we’re doing better than the majority of the cities around the country. Specifically, our tax collections are down about 6.9 percent, which isn’t horrible. You never like to have a minus sign in front of any number.

What we are seeing is there’s a shift. We had our rough January-February, like everybody. Cancellations have slowed, and bookings are picking up. So we’re cautiously optimistic. We hope we’ve seen the bottom. We’re not sure. I hope the swine flu has subsided and not caused any more change in travel plans. But you keep getting hit with one thing after another, and you have to be resilient, creative and resourceful. And I think Nashville has been all of those things.

CI: What are the trends in the hospitality and tourism industry right now?

BS: Several things. First, without question, people are looking for value. There are some great deals out there all over the country. And so, value first and foremost. More people looking online to find those values.

On the meeting side, we’re starting to see a loosening, but short-term bookings, without question. And even both on the convention and the leisure side, short-term decisions to go do something.

We recently had a Country Music Marathon. And it was behind last year until 10 days out, and then it picked up and exceeded last year’s numbers. Last year was a record, so this year was a record. We expect to see the same thing on the CMA Music Fest. And weekend travel, lot of last-minute decisions.

CI: So, what is your industry doing to meet the demands right now for green and sustainable resources?

BS: A little bit of everything. First of all, as an organization, we’re a major sponsor of two green meeting initiatives coming out of Washington. One is called Convene Green, and one is a program of social responsibility from the American Society of Association Execs.

In our office, everything is recycled paper. Everybody has a recycle bin at their desk. We’re pushing more online, if we don’t have to print it, and conservation. The industry itself played a big role in the city’s involvement in Earth Hour. We had the honky tonks go acoustic and turned down the lights, the neon. We moved a hockey game up three hours, to get it off of Earth Hour. We were able to light one of our bridges green without using any extra lights.

CI: Wow.

BS: And just putting the message out there. Probably the most significant thing we will be doing is we’re working on building a new convention center. Minimally, it will be LEED-certified Silver [Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design]. And it will have a green roof. And to me, more importantly than LEED, is the sustainability. Everything about it will emphasize energy efficiency, sustainability, unique recycling features. It’ll be a state-of-the art example for the meeting industry. But we also believe music is green. So we think we have a leg up on most of our competition.

CI: Excellent. [laughs] What do you predict for the next couple of years? Will this global economic slowdown kind of keep going? How do you think that will affect the industry long-term?

BS: I happen to be in the camp that believes we are beginning to see some confidence. We’ll see the bottom no later than mid-summer. Don’t expect to see any significant growth in return, but we’d be happy just to see the bottom and know where we are.

And within a couple of years—so where does that put us, maybe late ‘10?—beginning to see some real recovery in growth. And really, for the industry, you won’t see a lot of new rides at theme parks. You won’t see a lot of new hotels if they already weren’t under construction. And you’re going to continue to see a lot of good value. So it will be a buyer’s market for the next 18 months, at least.

CI: Do you think you’re going to see things taking on a little bit more simplicity, rather than some of the luxurious options that people have had? I was listening to a radio story about these pod hotels in New York City that are, you know, very inexpensive to stay in because they’re so tiny. Any ideas about that?

BS: Yeah, I think that goes back to value. I think people are going to travel and people are going to entertain themselves when they travel. So, yeah, they’re not going to spend as much on a hotel room if you’re just there to sleep six or eight hours. You’re going to put your money into the experience. You’re not going to put your money into expensive airfare. If you can drive you’re going to drive.

Where people are smart and creative and tap into, again, my word is value, that’s what’s going to drive people’s attention. And it’ll happen at every level. You know, the people that are real budget conscious are going to take it down a notch. And the people that travel with a little more luxury in mind might go from a five star to a four star, or shop that five star value when it occurs.

But, you know, we have a lot of confidence in the future, and certainly in this market as a destination, and really the industry as a whole. We’ve been through a lot over the last 20-plus years. And we’ve seen just about everything, and we always bounce back and we always bounce back stronger. I do think, going to your point, authentic experiences are going to play big. Rafting, outdoor, and I put Nashville in that category with the musical experience you get here.

You can come to Nashville and you can get free entertainment anywhere, all day, every day. If you think about it—if you like music, if you want to just escape, and music is great escape—we give it to you free; we are your theme park.

CI: So what path did you take to get into the tourism industry?

BS: Good question. I was unemployed, out of school, job hunting and looking for economic development. And there weren’t any career educational paths at that time. There was a CVB [convention and visitors board] in Mobile, Alabama, was looking to hire their first salesperson ever. And the good news is, for me, they didn’t have much money and so they couldn’t hire anybody with experience. I didn’t have any experience and I was cheap.

So I took the opportunity to get my foot in the door and I worked my way up. And I worked in Mobile for six years, from sales, up to running to running the CVB. And I worked in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for six years. And then the opportunity in Nashville presented itself and I’ve been here for seventeen. It is unusual in my industry to last or stay that long in a city.

CI: Some of the people listening to this podcast are teachers of hospitality and tourism. Do you think that students that are coming into the industry are well prepared, and if not, what could be done better to prepare them?

BS: You know, probably not as prepared as they could or should be. I think more internships and more understanding of the depth of this industry. We tend to think of hotels or attractions, and not really understand if it’s branding or sales and marketing, or just the other career opportunities operationally.

Transportation, you know. We have one guy who started his own company just doing logistics for shuttle buses for conventions. He owns no equipment, but he travels all over the country running their shuttle systems. He does it for the Southeastern Conference, the NCAA, the National Tour Association. He built his own industry.

The decorating company, the event production—and when I say event, that’s the whole theme concept, decorating, production, execution, booking of talent. There are as many different career paths within this industry as any industry I’ve seen.

We don’t look at it broadly enough, I don’t think. I think that’s going to be an important challenge in the future. We can’t always pay. Sometimes we pay internships, but we always welcome interns especially if they can earn credit. And we’ve hired a number of our interns in the past.

CI: Good advice for our hospitality and tourism teachers out there.

BS: I’d be happy to talk to any of them.

CI: So, as we talked about earlier, ACTE is coming to Nashville. You talked a little bit about the Country Christmas, but what would you recommend as three other things that any visitor to Nashville in November, the week before Thanksgiving, should look into doing?

BS: Weather should still be nice. I have not looked to see if the Titans are in town. But both the Tennessee Titans and the Nashville Predators, our NHL team, will be in season. It’d be worth checking out. A Predator Game in the Sommet Center is a great experience. A lot of people don’t go to hockey games. I highly recommend it. The team does a great job of entertaining. Our Titans had the best record in the NFL last year. They should be good again. It’s worth a visit.

If I had to put it straight up, I would say either a paid tour or a self-guided tour of really the backbones of why this is Music City. And that’s Studio B, or the Quonset Hut, the Ryman, Hatch Show Print. Take … and not that it’s not big, but take the country music stereotype and set it aside and really look at understanding what goes on in this city. And it’s who records here, who lives here, who writes here.

This is a town where the music of all genres is made, and getting a sense of the history and the cool places where people have made incredible sounds. It’s an eye-opening experience and it’s an “aha” moment in Nashville.

CI: Well, thank you so much for talking to me today.

BS: Well, you are welcome. Thank you. We look forward to having ACTE here. We operate a visitors center in the tower of the arena downtown. It’s open seven days a week, so if people need information or help.

They can also go to visitmusiccity.com and buy tickets or check out the calendar and plan activities. So use our Web site, use our resources, use our staff and take advantage of the experience. And that doesn’t mean you have to spend a lot of money. I’ll go back to the value.

CI: Great. Thank you so much.

BS: Thank you.

May 1, 2009 - Interview with Jim Scott

Catherine Imperatore: This is Catherine Imperatore with ACTE. Today I’m speaking with Jim Scott, ACTE’s national Teacher of the Year, about the awards program, his experiences as a winner and his work teaching Turf, Landscape and Greenhouse Management at Tolles Career and Technical Center in Ohio.

May 8 is the deadline for nominating your colleagues for ACTE awards the Arch of Fame, Award of Merit, Carl Perkins Humanitarian Award and Outstanding Service Award. May 8 is also the deadline for nominating a celebrity who supports CTE for the ACTE Image Award. This award is a great way to spotlight stars who support CTE and to draw extra attention to CTE itself.

Hi, Jim! It’s great to talk to you today.

Jim Scott: Well, it’s a pleasure talking to you today, also, Catherine.

CI: So, tell me, what does it feel like being ACTE Teacher of the Year?

JS: Well, what an experience! It truly is humbling and quite an honor to represent educators in ACTE. And it’s really a great opportunity to represent all of the many teachers across the country who are doing outstanding teaching on a daily basis.

CI: So what was the nomination and application process, the path that you took to get to the Teacher of the Year award?

JS: Well, it was quite surprising. A local teacher named Wendy Nichols who teaches social studies at our school nominated me to our state-level competition. And I was unaware of it until they called me and said, “You are the state winner!” And when I was fortunate enough to win Ohio, then, I had a collaborative team of teachers and business/industry people who helped me put together the application for the regional level. And I was fortunate again to be selected as Region I winner.

And then, when I did my interview in Charlotte, with my other regional winners, I was fortunate enough to be selected as the ACTE National Teacher of the Year.

CI: So have you participated in any special activities as Teacher of the Year?

JS: Well, what a great opportunity to have had this chance to talk about career and technical education. I had the opportunity to go to the Ohio State Board of Education and present for the first time ever about what career and technical education is about.

I had the opportunity to go to the Ohio Education Economic Forum, conducted by the lieutenant governor of Ohio and had the opportunity to give a workshop on economics and how education ties into that.

Additionally, I had the privilege of speaking at the National Policy Seminar, to talk to our fellow educators and meet with legislators at Capitol Hill and to promote career and technical education.

And then a couple of other things that have happened: I had the opportunity to go to the Ohio Education Association’s convention and speak before about 2-3,000 delegates there about the importance of career and technical education.

One of the unique things that we did this year was the Ohio ACTE put together a proposal or counter-proposal to the Governor’s plan to change education requirements. And I was fortunate enough to be chairman of that committee and write our recommendations back to our Ohio Board of Education for their consideration.

So those are some of the things that I have been blessed to do, and I had the great fortune of doing.

CI: So what education or experience or service with ACTE - what would help others attain this distinction that you’ve achieved?

JS: It’s very simple - kids first, people always. If we work every day in our classrooms to put kids as our first priority, and to take care of our other partners: business/industry, our fellow teachers, our administrators, our community.

All of those things happened … It’s not planning, saying you’re going to be the Teacher of the Year. It’s planning to go to be the best servant to students every day and to be the best role model for them and for our community. And because of all those things I was fortunate enough to have this opportunity.

CI: Has being a member of ACTE helped you progress through your career? And, if so, how?

JS: It surely has helped me. My 31 years of membership in ACTE has given me the opportunity to learn what the cutting edge issues are, whether it’s Perkins funding or whether it’s a state issue, keeping me on the cutting edge so I can be an advocate at my local level, at my state level, and at the federal level.

And when I’m able to do that through the Web site, which is so well done; to keep up-to-date on podcasts; or whether it’s the latest issues. Or if it’s going to meetings, whether it’s our state conference or the national conference, and as I mentioned earlier, the National Policy Seminar. It allows me to rub shoulders, to connect with colleagues, and to be advocates for career and technical education. So, those things have truly helped me become the teacher I am today.

CI: Great. In this time of political and economic change and upheaval, what sort of influence can ACTE leaders have trying to get the word out about career and technical education?

JS: Now is the time. We have a unique opportunity in our history, not only in education but in our time, to really have an impact through education of our policymakers. There are so many new legislators in the state of Ohio and also at the national level that may not have an appreciation and a full understanding of what career and technical education can do for students and for our community.

So, we have an opportunity to be advocates and to educate. Our leaders need to be our voice for career and technical education and when we go with a unified message we’re going to be better able to meet the needs of our students and the future students.

One of the things I truly believe is so important is if we can help our legislators understand the importance of the economy and how career and technical education has an economic impact upon them. That’s when they truly start to perk up and listen because they’re looking for an investment, and they need to see that every dollar spent in career and technical education and all education is an investment for future and the security and the ability for Americans to live a good, productive life.

CI: So let’s talk a little bit about your area of expertise. What are the trends, the newest trends, in agricultural education and in your particular area of turf/landscape/greenhouse management?

JS: Well, the thing that we are finding that is really significant today is certifications. Business and industry are saying to us very clearly, we want students that are coming out that are prepared and/or have certifications in areas of the green industry field. And so, as we tailor our curriculum, it’s really tied to meeting the industry needs of what is being asked for of our graduates. And also to prepare those young folks to go into postsecondary education.

The other interesting opportunity we have is that we’re tying our competitions through our CTSOs and connecting those leadership in technical development skills to the industry needs. So students again are learning the skills in the classroom, and then from that classroom experience being able to compete at the local, state and national level. And at the same time preparing themselves to become employable and/or to go on to college for additional training.

I guess the last thing I’d say is that we’re seeing more and more renewed young folks that are not terminating their education in twelfth grade but going off for that associate or that four-year degree. So that real connection that ties into the need to get our young folks skilled to become foreman, leaders and entrepreneurs and owners of businesses. They’re going to need additional education and we’re starting to build that connection stronger.

CI: Are you doing anything with green or sustainable issues in your class?

JS: One of the things we do at our school is we’re fortunate enough to have a one-hole golf course that our students built. And now we’re taking a look at how do we tie that into growing organic herbs that are from another country. And so, along with my superintendent and a business leader from Arizona, the three of us are starting to put together a plan to say, “how can we make this happen? How can we use the environment of Ohio to grow herbs that are native to Italy that could be used here in America?”

And so, trying to tie the whole hydroponics, that whole concept together. There are some real neat opportunities there where we can grow crops and also have the recreational facilities that are needed for Americans today.

CI: So you developed an advisory committee at your school with business leaders and others? What were the steps you took to start this and how do you keep it going with everyone’s busy schedules?

JS: One of the things I did when I began teaching at Tolles Career and Technical Center was to take a serious look at “What did the program need to look like?” Not what I wanted it to look like, but what did the community need? And as I brought together people that had an interest in the green industry - I brought together golf course superintendents, landscape owners, people that were truly committed to saying, “We want to have a future. We don’t want jobs, we want careers for folks.”

And so, I brought together the owners, the presidents of companies - companies like Miracle Hills Golf Club or Peabody Landscaping; bringing people together to say, “How can we partner so that we can prepare a curriculum that meets your needs, but also that meets the needs of the students so they can go onto college or enter the workforce immediately?”

The way to keep that going is a simple word: ownership. The program belongs to my community, it belongs to my fellow teachers, it belongs to my students and their parents. And when you turn ownership over to all those parties, then it will sustain itself. It’s not a matter of what I want, it’s what they want.

For instance, we’ll be taking a field trip to Chicago in the next month, and my advisory committee has recommended the green industries we ought to see in the greater Chicago area, including visiting the Chicago White Sox baseball field to learn about sports turf management, going to some of the landscape design and build organizations that are predominant in that area.

So that our students can see that education is bigger than just the local school, but it’s nationwide and it’s worldwide. And the way you do that is simply by involving your advisory committee and promoting them and helping them to promote what you’re trying to do.

They do my recruiting. My current students are part of my advisory committee. And again, they give me input, and they give our advisory committee [input], on what students are looking for and how we have to tailor the program to their needs.

If we believe in marketing, in that we take students’ desires and interests and connect it with what we have to offer, that combination ought to allow us to market a program that will meet their needs as well as the needs of business and industry.

CI: Well, due in large part, I’ve heard, to your efforts, enrollment in your program has increased, as has the number of students going on to employment or to postsecondary education. How have you accomplished this?

JS: I use three words that all start with R: rigor, relevance and relationships. And I believe the most important of those three is relationships. If we can build relationships with our students, with our community, our parents, the business/industry world, and build that connection, then the rigor and the relevance will come together.

Our students know that it’s important to be successful, and they want to be successful. Some of the things we’ve been able to do in our program is to show them the opportunities that, beyond high school they can go out and get a good career by earning an associate degree.

We’ve been fortunate enough and blessed to take students on field trips. From Ohio, we’ve been able to go to Augusta National Golf Course and see what a world-premier golf course looks like; to learn about getting partnerships with a company like that.

We’ve been able to go to Myrtle Beach and visit the green industry there and talk about golf course industry opportunities there. We’ve been to Nashville, were we take students to hardscape workshops, so students can learn the skills that are necessary in that area. As I mentioned earlier, we’ll be going to Chicago for an opportunity for students to learn about sports turf.

So the real effort is following relationships first, then you’ll develop the rigor and the relevance. And then students will follow, as long as they see that you care about them and that you’re promoting and trying to help them be successful. Then you put the curriculum together that ties that rigor and relevance.

I guess my final thought would be that to help teach that rigor and relevance, my advisory committee comes into my classroom and they’re regular participants. They will do workshops, they’ll do one-day training, they will have shadowing experiences. Whatever we need to make the students succeed, my advisory committee will do anything to make that happen.

CI: That all sounds great, but on a practical note, how do you secure the funding to help take a bunch of kids to Chicago and get the time off, get them off the rest of their classes so that they can go and do that?

JS: Catherine, that’s an excellent question and I think that goes back to an earlier response I shared: it’s relationships. It’s building relationships with my fellow teachers, so they understand that my students are not on a “fun” field trip. They’re on an educational experience, and that that education ties into the academic world.

So when we’re out and we’re looking at a baseball field, we’re talking about geometry, we’re talking to the PR people, we’re talking about public relations and how to communicate with folks. If we’re out on science, we look at the agronomy of the soil.

And so students are getting application of those principles they’ve learned in the academic world. And so involving the academic standards and seeing where you’re headed and where you want the program and students to go, they feel part of it. This is a team effort here at Tolles. And that’s one of the things I’m most proud of is that our teachers really care about serving students first. So I’m able to do it.

Now, financially, how we do it - I learned a long time ago you never let money get in the way. There’s always a way. In fact today I had a young man I spoke to and he didn’t want to go to Chicago with us. And I kind of pulled him aside and said, “Why don’t you want to go?” And he said, “I don’t have the money.”

I said, “So, if you had the money, would you go?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “Then you’re going.” Now, where am I going to get the money? I don’t know. But we’ll get the money. It’s not the issue. I’ve had people offer to pay for trips for kids who can’t go. Occasionally I’ve taken students to Washington, D.C., when we go to do a national day of service in Washington, D.C., at Arlington Cemetery. And students don’t have money, but I have people in the community that say, “Let me donate. I want to do something to help your young people.”

So it’s that relationship building that you can do, and you show them that it is educational and it’s tied to the curriculum. It’s hard to say no when all these things are in line.

CI: So what is the next step for you in your relationship with ACTE, after your year as Teacher of the Year is up?

JS: Well, I’ve really been blessed to have this honor, but it’s only the opportunity to open the door. And I’ve had my foot in the door, the window’s been opened, as our president says - Bryan Albrecht says, “it’s a window of opportunity.”

And because of that, I have been selected as an ACTE Fellow, and have the pleasure for this next year to go and promote career and technical education within my state, within the nation, my local area also. And so I look forward to that. I’ve spoken to ACTE people and told them I am an advocate, I want to do whatever I can. So I want to be totally available to their needs to promote our programs.

Additionally, I’ll be attending the national conference in Nashville. And I’m really looking forward to that. I’ll be presenting one or two workshops there, just so I can help my colleagues see and steal some of my ideas that might help them or they could model to meet their needs.

This week I’ll be going to the Region I ACTE meeting in northeastern Ohio, and I have the opportunity to speak to fellow educators there and to participate in their program.

So there are lots of opportunities. I just keep looking for some others. I know we’re looking at some things we’re doing in July in Washington, D.C., where we’ll have the opportunity to meet with some legislators. When I take students to Arlington National Cemetery, we’re going to have an opportunity to partner there with the PLANET [Professional Landcare Network] organization, and also hopefully take students to visit legislators and talk about career and technical education.

One of the great things we did this year that I’m really proud of - and this is a case where the award has opened that opportunity - we had a newly elected U.S. representative, Mary Jo Kilroy, from our area, come to our school to see what career and technical education was. She wasn’t necessarily certain what it was today. She knew what it was in the past, but didn’t have an idea what it was today. Once she finished her tour of our programs, from the turf program to the cosmetology to the video gaming programs, she walked away and said she really understands that students have confidence, skills and ability, and the desire to succeed.

This award has opened that door up for her to come in and visit us, and now our students are having the opportunity to say what they know. So when she’s voting on the House floor for education, we hope that she sees our students in her mind when she casts her vote to support career and technical education.

CI: Wow. You’re certainly taking every advantage that you can of these opportunities presented. It’s great to have you come on the air, and thanks for all you do for ACTE.

JS: Catherine, I want to give a special thank you to you and to the entire ACTE staff. One of the things that we often take for granted is the work that others are doing on our behalf, because we don’t see it every day. I just really appreciate and value what ACTE is doing for career and technical education. I want to say thank you very much, and keep up the great work.

CI: Oh, thank you. And thank you for being on the air today. Have a great day.

JS: Thank you very much.

CI: To learn more about the ACTE awards process, and ACTE award winners, visit www.acteonline.org/awards.aspx.

April 17, 2009 - Interview with Guy Cecil

Catherine Imperatore: This is Catherine Imperatore with ACTE. Today I’m speaking with Guy Cecil, a Technology Student Association alumnus who served as national political director for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Hello, Guy. Thanks for speaking with me today.

Guy Cecil: Thank you.

CI: So what was your experience in the Technology Student Association?

GC: Well, I was an active member of TSA for six years, as part of Florida TSA. And really, I joined the organization as a result of a graphics communication class that was part of our elective requirement in junior high, and immediately became involved, partly just because we had a very active teacher who was recruiting students to be a part of the organization.

And since then, my involvement included running for local and state office. I served as the Florida TSA president. And eventually, my senior year of high school, I was the national TSA president, which gave me an opportunity to travel around the country talking about the importance of TSA, competing in competitive events, participating in leadership activities and community service projects. And really, a lot of what I apply on a day-to-day basis today I learned as a result of serving in a leadership capacity in TSA.

CI: Great. So what career and technical education courses did you take? I think you just mentioned graphics?

GC: I took a graphics communication class. I took a manufacturing class, in seventh grade. A long time ago.

[laughter]

CI: Did you continue that in high school?

GC: Interestingly enough, my high school did not have technology education courses until after I graduated. And so the student members of my high school chapter continued to be engaged and involved. We continued recruiting students to be a part of TSA, and we participated in competitive events and oftentimes would travel to our local junior high to put our events together with our adviser.

CI: Wow. That shows a lot of dedication, to keep on going when you don’t have those courses right there for you to access.

GC: Well, and I think one of the things that it illustrates, too, is that, obviously, technology education has a specific curriculum, it has classes that it offers, like many other CTSOs. But a lot of the lessons that can be applied as a result of those events and by becoming a member can apply to careers outside of technology education, and I think that’s one of the things that I’ve come to appreciate the longer I’m out of high school.

CI: So how did you get from there to your experiences now? I know that you’ve worked a lot in the political arena.

GC: I did. I went to the University of Florida, and after I graduated, I actually taught high school and worked for an education nonprofit that developed partnerships between local public high schools in Boston and local corporations. And while I was working with the nonprofit, I went in to volunteer for a local congressional campaign, and after about two weeks of volunteering they offered me a job.

And I had always been involved in politics, in high school and in college, but had decided to kind of take the leap professionally and become a part of this campaign. And really, from there, like any other job, if you do a good job, if you work hard, people will recognize it. And I applied for other jobs and continued to work my way up.

My two most recent jobs were, one, I was the political director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and we worked to recruit and raise money and support Democrats that are running for the U.S. Senate around the country, and then, most recently, I was the national political director for Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president.

CI: So tell us a little bit about that experience.

GC: Well, it was a great experience. I learned an incredible amount about myself and feel stronger about Senator Clinton today than I did when I started the campaign. I ran our state operations and our political activities and field activities around the country. I got to spend about six weeks in New Hampshire during the largest snowfall in New Hampshire history over any month period, which, being from Miami, you can imagine is always quite a shock.

But it was a great experience, and I learned a lot. Obviously, I wish that the primary had turned out differently, but I don’t regret for a minute being a part of the campaign. It was the hardest job I’ve ever had, and it was the best job I’ve ever had, and a lot of times those two things go together in politics.

CI: So what are you doing now?

GC: I am the president of a public affairs and issue advocacy firm, based in D.C., called Thomas Circle Strategies. And we help nonprofits and corporations and different coalitions to develop issue advocacy campaigns. The idea being that. you know, campaigns are pretty unique. They usually run over a short period of time. They’re very intense. You often work, 18, 20 hours a day. You’re attached to your phone or your BlackBerry or your iPhone. And really, there is no such thing as time off or a day off.

And I think one of the things that I do now is apply a lot of the lessons I learned from political campaigns and use them to work with nonprofits and NGOs [non-governmental organizations] and organizations, corporations, when they have issues. They may be government issues, they may be reorganizing issues. It may be a nonprofit that has a particular political issue they want to work with.

I still stay involved in TSA. I’m a sponsor of a competitive event. I’ve traveled to a couple of national conferences and state conferences since I graduated, and I’m always looking for new ways to get involved.

I think one of the interesting and unique things about TSA is it is one of the younger CTSOs [career-technical student organizations]. And so, really, we are just now beginning to see a lot of our alumni really taking leadership roles in their respective fields, whether they become a technology teacher or they get involved in politics or become an engineer. And so it’s a really interesting time and an interesting growth period for TSA.

And I think it’s an exciting time because, more and more, we realize that science and math and technology are an important part of education. And I think TSA is uniquely poised to really play a critical role in making sure that students graduate with the skills that they need to be successful in college and to be successful in the workplace.

CI: Definitely. So, as you may know, of course, the Perkins Act for federal CTE funding has really not been funded with an increase for the past several years. Now that we have the new Administration, the new Secretary of Education, what do you think is the future of CTE funding and support for STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] education?

GC: Well, I’m cautiously optimistic. I mean, I think that the Obama administration and Secretary Duncan are very focused on education. We’ve seen that with the stimulus package and the amount of money that they are using specifically for school reconstruction. So I think we have, really, a unique opportunity to make our case.

The caution comes because we all need to do our part. There are lots of organizations and interests that are all competing for the attention and time and money of the decision-makers here in Washington. And I think that it’s really important for educators and members of your organization and members of CTSOs to call and write and communicate with their members of Congress to express to them why it’s important that we increase funding and why we pay particular attention to science and technology and education and CTSOs and the Perkins Act.

Because, again, I do think that we are in a pretty unique position to make a difference in the classroom and beyond. And so, again, I’m optimistic that we’re going to see some positive changes from the administration, but I just want to encourage everybody to do their part to make sure it happens.

CI: So with your experience with campaigning and with working on issues advocacy, do you have any advice on what kind of message we should be getting out there about the benefits of CTE and CTSOs?

GC: Well, I think the first thing is that everybody that has been a part of a CTSO in particular, or a part of ACTE … everyone has a personal story about how a particular class or a teacher or an organization made a difference in their lives, and I think it’s important that we tell that story to those folks that are in a decision-making role.

I certainly know the impact that TSA had on me and my life, and I know that there are thousands of people that can share some of their stories about FFA or FBLA or other organizations that they were a part of. And so I think it’s important that people share their personal story, because I think one of the things that gets lost in these discussions, a lot of times, is that story, because we focus so much on how many millions of dollars that we lose sight of the impact that we can have.

And so I encourage everybody to tell that story to their member [of Congress]. Whether it’s e-mailing their office, whether it’s making a phone call or visiting a local office, talk to them about how this legislation, about how the classroom, and about how their CTSO has impacted their life, and how many more lives it could impact if the funding was actually there.

CI: So I get the feeling you would recommend participating in a CTSO to any current students out there?

GC: [laughs] Yes. Yes, I would. In the case of TSA, I did not pursue a career that was specific to technology education, but I don’t think there’s been a job that I’ve had where I haven’t applied the skills, whether it be problem solving or critical thinking or public speaking. Being able to identify a problem and take it apart and put it back together solved, those are all things that I learned in TSA.

And I think perhaps the most important lesson that I learned is that we all have a voice and that we all should participate in the process. I did that in TSA as a student officer. I like to think that I do that today with my political involvement. Regardless of whether you think you’re going into a career that is specifically related to the organization, I would encourage folks to get involved in CTSOs. And in particular, TSA, obviously because that’s where my experience lies.

CI: Great. Well, thank you so much for speaking with me today.

GC: Thanks for having me.

CI: Learn more about the Technology Student Association at www.tsaweb.org.

March 13, 2009 - Interview with Carroll McGillin

Catherine Imperatore: This is Catherine Imperatore with ACTE. Today I’m talking with Carroll McGillin, national initiatives manager for the Cisco Networking Academy. Hey, Carroll, it’s great to be talking to you today.

Carroll McGillin: Catherine, great to speak to you as well.

CI: So tell me about the Cisco Networking Academy.

CM: Well, the Cisco Academy has been in place for the past 11 years. It was launched in 1997. And it really is a unique public/private partnership with education, state, local, national governments, community organizations, really focused on providing students with the foundational and advanced skills and knowledge that are needed to begin an advanced career in networking and IT.

CI: What institutions become academies?

CM: Well, Catherine, one of the exciting things as the program has matured is that we have academies from the high school through the community college into four-year and even some graduate programs, as well as, I mentioned, community-based organizations.

And I think that this has almost been something that has developed in the last 11 years organically. And I think what’s critical and why that’s so important right now, is a real emphasis on creating viable pathways between high school into postsecondary.

I know that a lot of the emphasis on the Perkins over the last couple of years has been in creating those pipelines and those pathways from high school to postsecondary. And I think what’s really a tribute to the collaboration that we have with educators across the United States is that they recognized very early on that, especially in the IT industry, creating pathways - both academically and into careers - is really critical for the success of students.

And so we’ve got wonderful examples of that. And at the high school level, again, what I think is really exciting is the program is in both, very often, advanced technical career centers as well as in comprehensive high schools, especially those that are focused around creating small learning communities and might have an IT or a STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] focus within their academies.

CI: Okay. And I was interested to read - and you briefly mentioned it there - but it’s not just schools that are academies, it’s also local workforce development organizations, for instance, that could become an academy?

CM: Yeah. Again, we’ve got some very strong community-based organizations that do outreach to transitioning workers. Focus: HOPE, I think of, out in Detroit. We have a very strong partnership at the federal level with Job Corps. And, again, I think their work in terms of really helping to educate and train nontraditional learners, kind of in that 18-24-year-old framework, has been a very important partnership.

And what’s interesting about the Job Corps relationship is very often they’re partnering with community colleges in their local area to create not only … training workforce in careers that are marketable in high-demand, high-tech areas, but also are creating, again, that articulation for college credit. Which we see not only in the community-based organizations but very, very strongly in the partnerships between high schools and community colleges.

CI: So with a partnership, what do the partners bring to the table? Do they bring both information and funding? Sometimes one, sometimes the other?

CM: Again, this element of partnerships, and I said I think that’s one of the real strengths of the program that has really helped it be sustained through so many variations and iterations from the dot-com bust, where we saw a lot of jobs going away, as well as the industry has been changing.

And I think right now, as we’re looking at what it might look like in terms of economic recovery and the whole importance of developing the technology infrastructure, not only in schools, but our whole network as a nation.

Elements of the partnership, what do they bring? Well, obviously what the education institutions bring are the teachers, the classrooms, the infrastructure to be able to teach the program. What we try to bring as Cisco is we provide the curriculum at no charge to not-for-profit education institutions. It’s a very, not only academically rigorous curriculum, we try to align, or we do align, with national standards for math and language arts.

But we also have it as a Web-based curriculum and have introduced very exciting interactive Web 2.0 tools, so that it’s a very engaging interactive environment. Cisco has invested probably over $300 million in the program since it started. So that’s sort of our element of contribution.

Obviously we create what we call an “ecosystem of collaboration.” The education institutions providing, you know, the area, the location, embedding it into degree programs or into IT career cluster programs at the high school level.

But we also have business partners involved. And where they might be involved in their contributions, it could be areas where they’re sponsoring an academy. They may help to supplement some of the hands-on equipment. We also look for business partners to create internships, job shadowing opportunities, so students can really understand the relevance and the excitement of what a career and starting to build a career in IT would look like.

CI: Could you give us an example maybe of a couple sort of pathways that an academy student could take?

CM: Absolutely. I mentioned one of the things, one of the key partnerships that we have as Cisco, with putting together and enhancing and revising the whole program, is the work that we do with the National Association of State Directors of Career and Tech Ed. We’re very involved in the IT career cluster or the career cluster project. And so one of the things that we have really worked on is to ensure that our curriculum maps very closely to the knowledge and skills competencies that are core to the networking pathway within the IT career cluster.

So one example would be, that I’ve seen in many schools that I work with at the high school level, they may have 10th, 11th and 12th grade where they have a pathway which is an IT academy. And so there is a sequence of courses, we call it CCNA Discovery. But what that is, is very much a project-based approach to learning foundational skills of networking within a business context.

So students are going through a four-course sequence that is teaching networking, first of all for small office/home office, going up then to the networking competencies that you would need in a larger network. And then finally, in the last course, is a capstone project pulling all of this together and integrating all of their knowledge set.

So I’ve seen high schools where they may teach this in a two-year course sequence. Then also another element of the partnership or pathway, as you mentioned, might be where in the senior year the Cisco Academy is taught in a dual enrollment environment between the high schools and community colleges, where the students might be going over to a community college to take the last course, the capstone project. Or they may actually be doing it on the high school campus and then continuing on at the community college or four-year college in the more advanced networking courses.

What’s been really exciting to see in terms of the partnerships is that these typically aren’t courses … Sometimes they’re offered in a stand-along environment, but very often they are integrated at the college level within an IT degree program. At the high school level, they are core to schools putting together a strong IT career cluster, and then high schools tying it into dual enrollment articulation opportunities at postsecondary.

CI: And will the students be qualified to work with systems other than Cisco?

CM: Yeah. I’m glad you asked that question, Catherine, because I think it’s an important one. Sometimes people think, when they hear “Cisco,” they say, “Oh, you mean they’re only going to be working, you know, [laughs] with Cisco?” Really, what the courses are focusing in on are the foundational and advanced skills that are critical to all networks, to the Internet.

To give you the alphabet soup for some of them in IT networks, you know, they’re learning about subnet masking, which of course is calling for strong and reinforcing math skills. So they’re learning the knowledge and skills that are going to be transferable and critical for whatever IT network they might work on.

You know, obviously, in the hands-on area in the labs, what we do is provide opportunities for schools, if they don’t have hands-on lab networking equipment, to be able to purchase Cisco equipment at a discounted price. But the skills and knowledge they’re working on are transferable and are foundational to all of the networks.

And the one other area I just thought I’d mention, Catherine, is one of the great new tools that we have added to this Cisco Academy are virtual simulation tools that really supplement and enhance the hands-on lab experience. And this, I think, is going to be critical, especially as schools are faced with budget constraints, et cetera.

The tool is a virtual network simulation and visualization environment. The tool is called Packet Tracer. As I mentioned, we provide it at no charge as part of the give-back that the curriculum allows, or that Cisco brings to the program. But this tool is available to students 24-by-7, as is the curriculum, so that not only do they have access to the curriculum when they’re in school, but if they have access to the Internet at home or at a library or an after-school program, they have 24-by-7 access to the online curriculum, as well as this really, really strong visualization, simualization tool.

CI: Well, that leads me to ask: it sounds like the program has a lot of virtual components. What’s the ease of implementation? Are there also hardware and software components? Non-virtual, real-world components? [laughs]

CM: Yeah [laughs]. I think the real leadership that so many CTE teachers and ACTE have provided is to understand really how critical an active learning, hands-on learning, is for many students in terms of really being successful in school environments. And I think that’s what really is a hallmark of successful CTE programs and really is a foundational principle of the Cisco Academy program.

So there is a real element. Not only is there traditional learning in an instructor-led environment, but our hands-on labs are a critical part of it. So in terms of implementation, there are a couple of key areas. We do have a strong teacher training program, where we partner with Cisco Regional Academies that are located in every state in the United States and District of Columbia, and these are really the core areas.

And these are typically either community colleges, regional training centers, like an education service center down in Texas, a BOCES up in New York State. But these become the Cisco regional training centers, where the teachers learn and become certified to teach the course. So they really learn, at that point, what it will take to implement successfully.

In terms of hardware, as I mentioned, at a minimum, schools are expected to have a core Cisco Academy lab bundle. And typically, in the US, that runs anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000, that initial hardware implementation.

As I said, what we’re really excited about in the last couple of years is this new simulation tool, called Packet Tracer, which is really supplementing very, very effectively this initial hardware implementation requirement.

And then, as I mentioned, the curriculum is a Web-based, interactive curriculum, licensed at no charge to not-for-profit education institutions. So the schools would download that to a local server, where the students would have access to that. You know, obviously, a school is going to have to have a classroom with Internet access, you know, some of the things that are going to be foundational for any kind of a technology-based interactive course they might be offering.

CI: And what’s the evidence of the academy’s effectiveness? Do you have any success stories?

CM: Another key element of the program, and one that I know educators really find very valuable, is there is an online, very robust assessment program that is built into this, so that the element of accountability, where teachers, students, administrators can know instantaneously the success and how a student is doing is something that is ongoing, both for formative as well as summative evaluation.

One of the other things that we also do is we have an alumni site where students, after they graduate, can continue to be part of the Cisco Academy community. And so we have metrics, not only hard-data metrics in terms of graduation - I think, in the United States, we have currently some 128,000 students that are in the program and over 2,000 institutions. We have over 800,000 graduates that have come through the program.

But we also — on a regular basis, on a yearly basis — create a document at a state level, kind of a state-of-the-state report, which shows some of the metrics and data around the academy program in that state, but also profiles the human face of “who are these graduates?” And that is a wonderful way of understanding the impact that the program has had on graduates of the program.

We also have out on our public Web site videos that show some of the ways that the academy program has really made an impact on young people in terms of thinking about pathways onto postsecondary, or actually going out and getting a job, or partnerships with IT businesses who might be Cisco partners or state and federal agencies that are looking to have internships and job shadowing opportunities for the students.

One of the things that we were very excited about last summer, the summer of ‘08, was that Cisco Academy students, for both the Democratic National Convention and the RNC [Republication National Convention], were actually job shadowing some of Cisco’s senior systems engineers in terms of installing the network which really was at the foundation of both of those conventions.

CI: Wow. Well, that sounds like a great program. Do you have anything else to add?

CM: Well, I think just to add, in completion, I think that this is a very, very exciting time, a challenging time in the United States, obviously, in terms of the economic stimulus and economic recovery. But I think all the indications are, in terms of the future, that IT and IT jobs are going to be foundational to the build-out of the network for, really, taking our country to the next level.

And we’re really excited, as we read some of the priorities from ACTE, from the American Association of Community Colleges, that programs like the Cisco Networking Academy, partnerships that we have at the high school and at the postsecondary level, are going to become critical in terms of creating that workforce that will be absolutely required to take our country to the next level. So we’re really proud to be part of the partnership, and really excited to be working with so many leaders, like our teachers, like our state leaders and our national leaders.

CI: Great. Thank you so much for speaking with me today.

CM: OK. Thanks a lot, Catherine.

February 15, 2009 - Interview with Timm Boettcher

Catherine Imperatore: This is Catherine Imperatore with ACTE. Today I’m talking to Timm Boettcher, president of Realityworks Inc., a company that produces interactive tools for education such as the RealCare® Baby simulator. Hi, Tim. Thanks so much for talking with me today.

Timm Boettcher: Well, thanks for giving me a call and for the interview. I appreciate the opportunity.

CI: So what products does Realityworks offer?

TB: We [audio distortion] specialize in simulation technology and curriculum for career-tech. We also have a focus on health education and life skills training. Most people know us by our infant simulators that are used in high school for Family and Consumer Sciences education and early childhood education classes as well.

CI: Can you tell us a little bit also about your tobacco addiction and your financial literacy products?

TB: The financial literacy product that we have is called Juggling Act. That program simulates or allows the student to walk through and see what it’s like to really have a child and what it costs, and what it really is like to be on your own.

Our smoking prevention program is a wonderful interactive program that allows a student to experience what it’s like to be in a smoker’s shoes, and then to build those refusal skills that are so important for students to have. So really to build those refusal skills to leverage them later in life.

CI: Now, your infant simulator—I haven’t seen it in person, but it looks very realistic from the photographs that I’ve seen. Is there any data that interacting with such a highly realistic simulation is that much more effective than lower tech simulators?

TB: Well, there have been more than 20 studies conducted on our products that support the significant positive effect of including infant simulators in life skills curriculum. As you might guess, the results show that using simulators improves students’ attitudes more than using curriculum alone. This makes sense to most people because learners are immersed in the subject matter as part of the simulation, as part of the interactive hands-on experience.

The research findings are based on experiential learning theory and our product is based on that same theory. And as with all of our products, the hands-on learning that we’ve had great success with, the educators very much believe in that hands-on learning and drive us towards the realism that we have in the programs.

They really like the baby to be as real as possible so the students can really experience what it’s like, in the case of the infant simulator, to really have a baby and the issues that come with it, and it’s not easy. And to really think about what they need to do when they’re caring for that infant and the issue of parenting ed.

And then looking at how that product is used in early childhood development, to have that real infant to be able to get that student engaged in the curriculum, and get that student engaged in having that real experience.

CI: On the flip side, does anyone every say, “This is too real for kids?” I’m thinking maybe of the Shaken Baby simulator.

TB: No. Actually, educators who work with young people and adults tell us the impact is just right for what they are teaching. Parents to teenage babysitters need to know how to cope with the frustration of caring for an inconsolable baby and what can happen if they are tired or not prepared for the stress of all that crying.

I don’t think we’ve gone too far on the realism side, it’s just right for where it’s at. And our customers are educators and believe that it’s right at that right point as well.

CI: Do software and curricular resources come with the simulators?

TB: Yes. All of our devices are paired with curriculum that meets select national standards. The software for programming the simulations and retrieving data comes with the RealCare® Baby II-plus program, and it has been a huge timesaver for our customers in recent years.

So we’ve got a very comprehensive program that we supply to our customers and try to cover what our customers need and what the educational standards are that they have to teach.

CI: And if a teacher is going to implement these in the classroom, is it done on a case-by-case basis, ad hoc, teacher by teacher, or do you find that entire schools or entire districts are purchasing these resources for all of their FACS classes, for instance?

TB: In many cases we have entire districts purchasing our programs for the FACS classes within that district. We have products in approximately 70 percent of the schools in the US since we’ve been selling them to education for the last 14 years.

[audio distortion] Teachers really appreciate the programs that we bring into the school system, the product, and really love it. We’ve been able to do pretty good getting our programs into schools and having an impact on students.

CI: Are there any challenges for teachers integrating these products into their courses, especially now that there’s such a great emphasis on integrating academics into CTE?

TB: We’ve always maintained that our products not only build skills in the area of infant care health and safety, I guess those foundational knowledge and skills as well. But we also focus on the aspects of health and social [audio distortion], problem solving, critical thinking, communications … The program also takes you into, you know, financial literacy and other areas.

CI: Are Realityworks products used in settings other than the classroom?

TB: Well, that’s a very good question. Our products have a high impact in the areas of infant care and responsibility; you’ll find our programs in health care settings, social service agencies, afterschool programs such as Boys & Girls Clubs, public health outreach programs and correctional facilities.

I think we’d all be surprised at how many markets we’re in because people found us and they found a need to learn what it’s like to be a parent, have to care for an infant. That simulation piece is very valuable in many other markets that I mentioned. The hands-on value reaches well beyond just the young people in the CTE classroom.

CI: Your products are tied to important and sensitive life issues. Do you keep your curricula pretty neutral on these sensitive topics?

TB: When it comes to educators using the RealCare® program for teen sexuality or pregnancy prevention, which I think is what you’re referring to, our curriculum is [audio distortion] independent of any one viewpoint. The emphasis is on the baby and the infant care simulation and how our programs can be a great supplement to build on whatever the instructor is trying to teach the students.

The lessons end up being “if you were to have a baby at a time in your life, here are the impacts it would have on [audio distortion] you, you and family, physically, emotionally, financially, and are you ready for that?” The answers to those questions differ from youth to youth but the educator’s part is to provide some context to [audio distortion] examining life choices and rules.

I think the great thing is that the take-home relation with the baby gets parents talking with their kids about all of this important stuff as well: contraception or abstinence or physical or spiritual health depending on the program’s motive. Extending the classroom beyond just the physical walls of the school is one of the great things our program does as well, so that it gets that parent engagement, that family engagement.

So, whatever the outcome we’re convinced that babies being cared for by people who’ve been through our program are better off for the experience, education and the skills provided. If I could go as far as to say that our programs foster healthier babies, healthier families and healthier communities, I certainly would. We’re passionate about what we do here at Realityworks.

CI: And are you developing any new products?

TB: Yes, we’re working on additional products and technology, in particular for CTE, that is our focus today. We can see the direction that education, workforce development, technical literacy is going and want to continue to be part of that exciting work.

Health sciences, information technology and financial sectors are probably the particular areas of great interest to us. We’re always looking for partners in innovation as well.

I don’t have any programs or new products that I can announce today [CI laughs], but keep us in tune because we will be working with other people around the country to bring some new programs to life this year and directly into CTE.

CI: Great! I believe that you’ve met with Steve DeWitt, ACTE’s public policy director, to kind of talk about some CTE policy funding issues and support, and we always think it’s great when companies want to get involved in that aspect. That’s really not so much a question as a kudos to you. [laughs]

TB: Well, thank you very much. We try to keep involved as Realityworks in policy and in helping provide any kind of direction that we can. I sit on a workforce development board to the regional area here, and part of economic development. We like to be involved if we can to help provide direction.

CI: Great. Well, thank you very much for talking to me today. To learn more about Realityworks’ simulators and other products, visit www.realityworks.com.

January 22, 2009 - Interview with Kevin Faughnan

Catherine Imperatore: This is Catherine Imperatore with ACTE. Today I’m speaking with Kevin Faughnan, director of IBM’s Academic Initiative, which gives university professors access to hardware, software, IT course materials, tools, training, discounts, books and more. Thanks for speaking with me today, Kevin.

Kevin Faughnan: Well, thank you, Catherine. I’m pleased to be here.

CI: What skill set do you see emerging in the future workforce, in general, or specifically in the information technology workforce?

KF: That’s a very good question. We believe that the industry has changed significantly. And the types of skills that business, IBM and others, in all industries, are looking for are students who are well balanced, who have an understanding of IT—information technology—and can also apply it to a business, whether it’s an industry like healthcare or banking. So we’re looking for a balanced set of skills, and we frequently refer to them as T-shaped skills.

CI: Can you expand on the T-shape?

KF: Sure. If you think of the block letter T, consider the vertical line being skills in a particular area, a discipline—could be a biology major, could be a journalism major, could be a computer science major or a finance major. And that’s terrific to build skills in a particular discipline. And historically, people were trained that way in colleges and universities for generations. I myself was a math major. And we trained students in that particular discipline so they were good at that particular skill. What we see now as being required of an individual is not necessarily I-shaped but T-shaped, where the horizontal bar across the top represents an interdisciplinary skill set to complement the vertical set. So, if you are in biology, you ought to know something about the arts or liberal arts, but more importantly, in our opinion, something about technology and how can technology be applied to, say, biology. Or the same thing for an accounting major or a finance major, or marketing. You can’t do marketing today without understanding data mining and analytics and the value of information and technology.

So we commonly refer to it as T-shaped skills. And in addition to having a knowledge of IT, more and more, since we’re a services-based economy, students have to learn more about project management; communications, both verbal and written; interacting with different cultures. So, it’s all embodied in what we refer to as a T-shaped individual. Is that clear?

CI: Mm-hmm. So, what is IBM doing to foster this T-shaped skill set in future IT employees?

KF: We’re doing a lot. And one of the principal programs we have is something we refer to as the IBM Academic Initiative. And the Academic Initiative is a program available worldwide for faculty at universities, or, in fact, for high schools, where they can gain access to the latest technology—hardware, software technology—at no charge, and courses and so forth, and allowing the faculty member to become skilled on most contemporary topics available, whether it’s software engineering, Web 2.0 skills, serious gaming skills, and so forth. And we allow all of the software to be used by faculty for free. They download it. They infuse it into their curriculum as they so see it and perceive the need. They are pedagogical experts; IBM is not.

But the students, in turn, are being exposed to, say, serious game technology, and how that might introduce them to topics like business process management, or service-oriented architecture. Other faculty members might be using enterprise computing as a topic area, or collaborative computing, or it could be data mining and analysis.

All of this information, all of these technologies are available to universities around the world. And over the past four years, we’ve reached more than two million students. More than 5,000 faculty members are registered for free on our Web site, teaching courses in well over 3,000 institutions. And so students are becoming more and more aware.

The reason we like that is because faculty members are getting an opportunity for technical vitality themselves. They don’t have large budgets. They can’t go to conferences like they may have in the past. So, IBM comes to them via the Web site.

But, in addition, we have IBMers around the world who are what we refer to as university ambassadors. And these ambassadors are experts in different fields, and they work with local colleges and universities in their geographic proximity and interact with faculty members.

So, we have people going out and doing perhaps a seminar for faculty on all of these topics—large systems, SOA [service-oriented architecture], Web 2.0, collaborative computing. And the faculty members who may not have been familiar with those technologies gain some insight and, as I said, can infuse it into their courses.

We feel that this is a compelling value proposition and has returned some good rewards to the students, to the faculty members, to the universities, and to industry—not just IBM, because we team with our customers and business partners because they’re consumers of the skills that universities are producing.

CI: Can the Academic Initiative resources be used in high schools, or do you have another, similar program for high school classrooms?

KF: The Academic Initiative can be used in high schools, number one. So, there are several progressive high schools that are taking advantage of it. But, in addition, IBM has a K-12 program available for that targeted audience, where students can come onto IBM Web sites and try science and try engineering and other areas. That is not my team’s focus. We’re focusing on the higher ed and the business end of it. But, certainly, high schools have taken advantage of our Academic Initiative program. They’ve downloaded software such as teaching Java, using Eclipse as the integrated development environment framework. So, we have courses on there that can be taught at college, introductory courses, or it could be taught in high school.

So, yes, high schools have been using it. And there are other things that IBM has for high school as well—high school and, in fact, K-12.

CI: Great. You mentioned that these are resources that teachers can integrate into their curriculum as they see fit, that they’re the pedagogical experts. But, is there any kind of courseware or anything to help them with that integration?

KF: Yes. I’m glad you asked that. You probably are familiar with ACM, the Association of Computing Manufacturers. ACM is an association, and they have, for example, a recommended curriculum for computer science, they have a recommended curriculum for information systems and so forth. So, that is something that many college faculty members use as they pattern their particular curriculum for their respective schools. That’s number one.

IBM also has mapped, if you will, open source technology that might be relevant for the different recommended courses in that ACM curriculum. So, if they’re teaching programming fundamentals, for example, you know, there might be some open source code, Java, Eclipse and things like that—tools that are available for faculty members.

Well, we’ve taken the time to do that mapping so, if you’re a new faculty member, you may look at the ACM curriculum and say, “What’s available, from an open source standpoint, from an IBM standpoint, that might pertain to this particular course that I want to deliver?” And you go onto our Web site and you can see, here’s the ACM curriculum mapping for computer science, the curriculum mapping for business MIS and things like that. So, we make those things readily available.

We’ve got some kits available for faculty, and, in fact, kits available for students, student training kits so they can learn database, they can learn Web 2.0—WebSphere sMash, we call it. They can learn about open source application serving. So we have a WebSphere Application Services Community Edition that’s available for students, and we have a little kit for them to learn how to get educated on that. Or software engineering. We’ve got a software engineering bundle for team-based software engineering development—an enterprise systems bundle to learn large systems.

So, we’re adding more and more deliverables to our portfolio, and we’re finding that more and more students are interested, and faculty as well.

Which, by the way, we think is terrific because the need, as we go forward, is increasing. I think if there’s one message I’d want to convey, the need for skills—integrated, interdisciplinary, IT-related skills—is important and will become increasingly important as we go forward as a society. The world’s a smaller place, we’re more services-centric—probably 80, 90 percent of the world’s GDP [gross domestic product] is in services-based economy, services-based industries. And when you think of it, sort of the factory floor, the drivetrain of services businesses is the computer and the IT infrastructure that they’ve established.

So, all employees at most firms will have to have some facility, some level of acumen in IT-related disciplines. In fact, I heard a professor in North Carolina, Dan Reed, refer to IT as the liberal arts of the 21st century, which I think captures the notion that we should be thinking more about IT, no longer as a vertical but a horizontal tool set.

So what we’re trying to do is suggest to universities that they should weave IT topics into all of their courses, regardless of whether it’s in the sciences, the arts, computer science, engineering—because all of us have to work with systems, have to work with information, and the IT industry is really a collection of these tools that help people to be more and more productive.

And so IBM, as a company, you know, our mission in life is to create and apply technology to make the world better. We also want our constituents—our customers, our students, our partners—to learn how to use that technology in their particular industries.

A big part of what we’re trying to accomplish with the Academic Initiative, Catherine, is to build that skills pipeline; work collaboratively, cooperatively with faculty members; and focus on the areas that the industry perceives to be in most need.

CI: That’s very interesting, as I can definitely see the pipeline very clearly with business, marketing. But when you kind of start integrating IT and the arts … Have you had a lot in that vein, or has it been mostly integration with more of the business and marketing courses?

KF: Most of the work, quite honestly, has been in business and engineering and the sciences. But there are some students who are in the arts. I mean, if you’re a journalism major, you’re using the technology more and more. Everybody interacts with the Web. Technology is ubiquitous—everybody’s using it that way. Some progressive folks are learning not only how to use the technology, but how to create and innovate with technology. So they go a layer deeper, if you will, and learn how to harness the talent or the capabilities that are encompassed in hardware or software or a different type of application.

When you look at Google and Google Maps, Google Earth, Google mashups, more and more people are beginning to say, “How can I use, say, a Google to get at the information I need, and how can I merge different information sources and pipes to get at the answers I need?” So that’s a creative application of information technology.

More and more people are on social networks. More and more people are looking at the use of serious games and virtualization as a way to learn and create new products, new industries, and do it in the virtual realm without incurring the expense of having to do it in the tangible realm, if you will.

So, technology is at the underpinning of all of that. And so what we’re trying to do is to work collaboratively with faculty and capitalize on their interest and together try to stimulate interest on the part of students.

Now, recently, we just conducted a poll, in November. We asked the Marist Institute for Public Opinion to do a poll of students in November. And more than 1,000 students responded. They affirmed what we kind of know, but they are a wired generation, more than 99 percent of these four-year college students have a cell phone, they own a laptop, they have a profile on a social networking site. They’re a highly interconnected ecosystem of people.

And while they think that IT is important and it’s useful for innovative purposes, 73 percent of them, I think, said that computers inspire them but those fields are best left to other people. And they may think that for a variety of reasons. They don’t realize that employers are looking for a balanced set of skills. Like I explained before, employers of today are looking for people who are skilled in that vertical area, whatever it might be, but they also want students who come out and are comfortable with and are capable of using and interacting with information technology.

And so, what we’re trying to do is to help students learn that all the jobs will require IT. It truly is a horizontal tool set. It truly is the liberal arts of the 21st century. And oh, by the way, it pays pretty well.

CI: [laughs]

KF: And oh, by the way, not all jobs have been outsourced to some foreign country, as many students felt. A small percentage of them have. But for us as a nation to compete, you have to have a level of IT skills and acumen. And it’s a misperception that you think all of the jobs are overseas. Today, businesses have a need for skills in a variety of areas—large [systems] skills, mainframe skills. Twenty five of the top banks, 25 of the top insurance and retailers, they all have large systems that run their ecosystem, and they have a need for skills to replace the people who are retiring. They continue to build applications on those systems. And yet there’s a shortage of those skills.

If you have mainframe skills, you can go out and … Many times, we’re seeing entry-level jobs starting at $70,000 for some of these students graduating from different schools, whether it’s San José State or University of Arkansas. And they’re working for reputable companies.

So we’re trying to convey that to this generation of students, because, over the past several years, there has been a decline in students coming into IT—in fact, the STEM fields: science, technology, engineering and math. We’re beginning to see a flattening out of that, but it hasn’t turned around, Catherine, to the point where more and more students are coming into those disciplines. We need more of those students. And if they don’t come directly in, we’d like them at least to be exposed to technology-related topics in whatever field of endeavor they choose to pursue.

Let me stop for a moment and come up for air and ask you if you have any other questions, or if that makes sense to you.

CI: [laughs] No. That sounds great. That sounds like a very worthwhile cause.

I do have a question on the practical note. Does the Academic Initiative help students pursue certification?

KF: Yes, it does. Although, what we don’t drive, Catherine, is “We want you to be certified on IBM products.” While that would be helpful to IBM as an individual company, that is not a prerequisite, and when we talk with faculty members, we don’t compel them to pursue that necessarily. However, should students become interested in a particular field within IT—database or software engineering—and they’re looking to be, say, certified in DB2 [a database management system] or Rational [software development tools], we make that available to students, and we provide discounts for certification testing around the world.

And so there is a subset of the students, thankfully, who have pursued that. But we try not to be heavy-handed at all with that.

What we’re interested in is attracting more and more students to technology, and we’re interested in making sure that they feel comfortable with the application of technology to whatever field and endeavor that they want to pursue. And those people that want to go deep into computer science, or want to become expert in a deeper level, certainly we have the capability to work with the faculty or students in that area, and we do make certification available to those students.

CI: Great! Have you ever had any concerns from campuses about using open source technology?

KF: No, just the opposite. They’d like to know, is IBM a supporter of open source? Is this something that the corporation as a business is interested in pursuing? And if so, why? Why is IBM interested in open source because it doesn’t drive revenue for IBM? When, in fact, it really does because a lot of the solutions that are built in different industries rely on open source technology to be built. Linux is a very viable operating system. We’ve embraced it. All of our platforms run on Linux, hardware as well as software. So when businesses embrace Linux and they install systems, more often than not IBM is there to help, and we have got services for that. Our branded products run on open source platforms like Linux. So, I haven’t had any push back, that I can recall, Catherine, on open source from universities.

Where we’re focused with Academic Initiative is on the academic side of the institution, the teaching side of the institution, the learning, what students are taking in courses. There is an administrative side of institutions, whether they be K-12 or higher ed, and that’s the part of the entity that is running it as a business—the registrar’s office, the billing, and the accounts payable and so forth. A university, or a K-12 institution, who’s running their business, there may be a reluctance on the part of the IT management teams there with regard to open source because they’re running their institution and they have to make sure that it doesn’t break, if you know what I mean.

On the teaching side, there’s less of a concern there. They want to learn the technology without having to pay a lot of money to learn it, and open source is so prevalent. Now, on the administrative side, part of the reason they’re concerned about it is because with open source software, it doesn’t typically come with support; so if it breaks, you’re on your own to fix it. So that may be part of the reluctance to open source. But most organizations who embrace open source have either acquired a service contract to support the software they’re using or have the in-house skill to support it. Those institutions that don’t have the money to buy a service contract or the skills to do it, they may shy away for the reasons I’ve outlined.

CI: Well, thank you so much for speaking with me today, Kevin.

KF: OK. I hope this is something that we can, together, get the message out, because we do have a supply-demand imbalance. There is a need for skills in the marketplace. We as a company and as an entity within our ecosystem are helping to build those skills. We’ve reached more than two million students with this technology over the past couple of years. We’re focused in a number of areas, whether it’s the serious games area or mainframes or software engineering and so forth. And we’re working with more than 3,000 ISVs as well to make sure that these independent software vendors are partnering to deliver applications on the platforms that we are driving into the higher education institutions.

So, while we feel we are meeting with success, we welcome any constructive recommendations from somebody like yourself, Catherine, to help us with more effective delivery of these resources.

CI: Great! Thank you so much.

KF:  You’re quite welcome. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me.

CI: You can learn more about IBM’s Academic Initiative at www.ibm.com/academicinitiative.

January 2, 2009 - Interview with Mike Rowe

Catherine Imperatore: This is Catherine Imperatore with ACTE. Joining me today is Mike Rowe, host of the Discovery Channel series “Dirty Jobs.” Each week, Mike serves as an apprentice to hardworking men and women who do difficult, dangerous and dirty jobs. His experiences on the show led him to start mikeroweWORKS, a campaign to celebrate skilled labor and hard work. Thanks for speaking with me today, Mike.

Mike Rowe: Any time. You’re welcome.

Catherine: Tell us about mikeroweWORKS and the MRW Foundation.

Mike: Well, mikeroweWORKS is, basically, a PR campaign for skilled labor. In terms of a message, it’s really a call to arms designed to stimulate conversation and encourage a dialogue around what I believe to be a, kind of a dysfunctional relationship with hard work.

I think the country has redefined what a good job looks like, and declared a kind of cold war on the traditional notions of skilled labor, at least the way we’ve always understood them to exist. Consequently, today, we have a shortage of skilled tradesmen, along with rising unemployment, which is just a strange combination of facts to try and digest.

MikeroweWORKS is an attempt to point out the casualties that come from waging a war on work, namely, a declining interest in the trades and a crumbling national infrastructure. And both of those things, obviously, affect everyone. So, it’s sort of a broad-based initiative. The real goal is to wind up with some sort of resource that ultimately encourages people to rethink a career in the trades.

CI: Excellent. And is the MRW Foundation related to that?

MR: Yeah, it is. But to be honest, I just set it up because I had a suspicion it would come in handy at some point in the future. I didn’t really have a specific reason to set up a nonprofit, other than I wanted to have it there.

What happened was, not long after I arranged it, I started looking into some other nonprofits that were out there, and realized that there were many. A big part of what I want to focus on first is just creating a resource of all the organizations and associations, the nonprofits, the opportunities that exist on a state-by-state basis for people who want to investigate a career in the trades. Get all of those in one place. And mikeroweWORKS, I hope, will be the place where that can happen. We’ve already started, and I’m really encouraged by what I’ve seen.

That’s just a long way of saying I don’t really know why I set up a nonprofit right away. [laughs] I just thought it seemed like the right thing to do, and I’d figure out something specific to do with it as we got further into it.

CI: It sounds like the thing to do, I agree. So I know mikeroweWORKS is just getting off the ground, but what specific resources do you hope to have? You mentioned a state-by-state list of resources that people could turn to?

MR: Mm-hmm. In a really general sense—you know, it’s hard to define what a call to arms really is going to wind up doing. But I do believe that the real business of mikeroweWORKS is the message itself and the real message is: we’ve got to think differently about the way we look at work.

To answer your question—I know you’re looking for specifics: what will people see when they come to the site, and what will that experience be like. Certainly, the first thing is just to heighten the awareness that if we don’t change the way we look at work, nothing is going to happen because all change starts with perception, I think. And we’ve got a fundamental disconnect in the way we look at these traditional notions of labor.

Certainly, a resource, what I call the “missionary position,” [laughs] needs to be the first element of this. Lots and lots of nonprofit resources currently exist and just getting them all into one place is a huge undertaking, but part of how I want to address it is in the same way that Wikipedia worked.

You know, there are a lot of people who watch “Dirty Jobs,” and a lot of people who are coming to the site who share the basic idea that we ought to do something. And I’m encouraging them to start with the state that they’re in, look around, find some of these resources that exist, bring them into the forum on the site, and we’ll start organizing them. That’s an obvious and somewhat straightforward thing we can do on the missionary side.

On the mercenary side—you know, there’s also a mercenary position to this as well. And I have every intention of engaging a lot of big companies, the military as well—really, people who have some skin in the game, who would benefit from hiring skilled tradesmen.

It’s not so much a job search site. At least, I don’t think it will be. I don’t have the first clue how to really put that together. But I do know that fundamentally, we’re talking about work and jobs, which is money, so it just can’t be all warm and fuzzy. You know, ultimately, there needs to be a real benefit from going down this road. And that benefit should be: getting a job.

CI: To go back to that mercenary issue, does your collaboration with, I believe, Ford and now Grainger Industrial Supply, does that fit in with mikeroweWORKS?

MR: Well, it might. I can tell you that Grainger had a role in this, whether they knew it or not, about a year ago. Ford, I had been in business with for a few years. I haven’t brought it to them, specifically, yet, but I’m hopeful that we might be able to work something out.

Really, there are so many companies that have a vested interest in being heard on this. And I’ve been contacted by a lot of them.

But since you mentioned Grainger, I can tell you that they’ve been great. About a year ago, I was giving a talk to their company. This is something I’d been doing for a long time. I’d go around the country and I’d talk to Fortune 500 companies. After 200 different jobs, you know, on the show, there are a lot of patterns that begin to emerge from people that I worked with and spoke with. And their collective attitude about work got me thinking about the country’s attitude and the difference between the two became pretty glaring, so I started giving these talks a couple of years ago about things people with dirty jobs know that the rest of us don’t. And I started sharing my experiences from the show, and my belief that we’d waged this war against the Puritan work ethic. The response to those talks was always amazing.

So I started to get booked more and more frequently, and last year, I was speaking to the employees at Grainger. Afterwards, the president, a guy named Jim Ryan, approached me about his concern that the very trades that his company served were starting to diminish. And he expressed a desire to take a leadership position in reinvigorating the trades, but he wasn’t sure how to do it without seeming self-serving.

And that’s really how the idea first occurred to me. You know, here I am talking to the president of this billion-dollar, Fortune 500 company, who, in effect, is saying, “It’s such a crazy time we’re in. No longer am I primarily worried about my competitors, I’m worried about the fact that our whole marketplace is contracting. And how can that be when we’ve got this huge infrastructure problem in the country, how can there be fewer and fewer tradesmen each year?”

It was a big question, and it was the start of a dialogue that we kept going for the better part of a year. And it’s really when I first started to think, you know, what would happen if we could create this third-party place in cyberspace, where companies like Grainger, and trade schools, and unions could all support, without being directly tied to, an entity that shared their agenda, but was separate from them, where we could encourage the trades, and celebrate work, and all of that.

So it was Grainger that really first got me thinking about the mercenary element of this. And, of course, it’s from doing “Dirty Jobs,” and meeting people day in and day out, where the missionary element, or “missionary position,” if you will, became pretty obvious.

There’re so many people right now who need work but aren’t trained to do it, but are perfectly willing and capable to do it. That’s where the big disconnect was. And that’s really just a long way of saying that the site, if it plays out the way I hope it will, is going to be all encompassing.

CI: So do you imagine it benefiting students, as well as people who are currently in the workforce, or who may be adults who are looking to retune their skills to a new field? Maybe all those groups?

MR: Yeah. I think that work is one of the things … It brings us together. Everybody’s got to work for a living. I think one element of the site that’s important is a place where like-minded people can gather and chat. You know, it’s a social community in that way. I look at LinkedIn, and I look at Facebook, and I look at MySpace. And I look at all these organizations. I’m not really sure what the fundamental thing is about those social networks. I don’t see one where skilled tradesmen can gather, and you know, stonemasons can pick the brains of steamfitters, and welders can talk with electricians, and electricians can talk with carpenters.

I think, it would be interesting, on the one hand, just to have a place where those people can come and talk with other like-minded tradesmen. But I also think it is really important to have a place where just the notion of that career is celebrated, so parents can come, maybe with kids who are trying to figure out what to do with their lives in the way of education.

There’s still this belief in the country that I see all the time, that the only real recipe to success involves some kind of college degree. And I’m the last guy in the world who’s going to disparage a college degree. I think it’s great, but I also think that the training and education ought to go hand in hand, and they’re not.

There are way too many people in college [laughs], that I’ve seen, that are going way into debt and winding up with degrees that they’re really not passionate about. And they’re starting these careers that they’re really not fully engaged in, and I just don’t know if we need any more venture capitalists and MBAs.

I’m not sure of that, but I’m positive that there are fewer welders this year than there were last year, and a whole lot fewer than there were five years ago. That means there’s an opportunity for people. They just need a place where a welder is shown to be a successful, intelligent, articulate person, who’s really good at what he or she does.

You know, it’s like the plumber on TV. When you see a plumber on TV, you know he’s going to be 300 pounds and have a giant butt crack. [laughs] That’s how we portray plumbers. I want mikeroweWORKS to be a place where those vocations can be celebrated and seen in their true light as an opportunity to actually make a really good living, live a balanced life, and not spend the first 10 years of your career paying off a college debt.

CI: I’m sure a lot of people could use that. [laughs] I was thinking that, with the recent news, could actually be quite an opportunity for promoting skilled labor, sort of, “stockbrokers are out; Joe the plumber is in.”

MR: [laughs] Sure.

CI: You could definitely follow up with that.

MR: Well, yeah. In an election year, it’s amazing how the candidates will scramble to try and associate themselves with the middle class, the working class, whatever it is they call it. And it’s been a real challenge this year because … Well, every year, the definition changes a little bit.

You know, when you see Hillary Clinton doing shots of rye in a bar in Pennsylvania with a bunch of steel workers, it’s kind of funny. These guys see right through that, but that’s how eager the candidates are to align themselves with these issues.

I don’t know if you saw the cover of TIME magazine three weeks ago, but both McCain and Obama are on it, and they are portrayed as construction workers. They’re dressed in steel-toed boots, and had the hard hats and they’re smiling, and they’re ready to go to work. And they’re making a case for national service, which is an interesting case to make, I think. But, again, it’s like, “Where do you really stand on the trades? Where do you really stand on the infrastructure?”

You know, the business with Joe the plumber is just another great example. My best friend from high school is actually a plumber. His name’s not Joe, it’s Jeff. He’s a shining example of what these guys were trying to articulate, I think, through Joe.

Jeff makes a very comfortable living, six figures or so a year; has four kids; has enough time to coach the softball team. He’s active in his community. And he’s got this great, balanced life. He’s just a regular guy, but if your toilet’s backed up, he’s a superhero. People love him, and he loves his life and his career.

We just don’t see those kinds of jobs portrayed like that. You know, if it’s a handyman, it’s Schneider from “One Day at a Time.” There’s a long list of examples, but we don’t spend a lot of time showing off successful, skilled tradesmen in pop culture. It’s just not what we do.

CI: Definitely. To switch to the education angle, I’ve read that your parents were both Baltimore County teachers. How did that affect your perception of education?

MR: Well, an interesting question. It was kind of a mixed message to tell you the truth. My dad was a very good teacher, but he didn’t love it. He came home from school every afternoon and he worked for hours preparing the next day’s lesson. He took it very seriously, but he wasn’t one of those … You know, it wasn’t “Mr. Holland’s Opus.” He was a good teacher that took what he did really, really seriously, so, my earliest impression of education was, “Look, this is a very serious business. You have got to go get smart, and it’s going to be really hard, and you’d better be good at it.” So I kind of went into high school with this feeling of “Gee whiz. I hope it all works out.”

It did work out. I have, like I said before, a lot of respect for education and I certainly see the importance of it. But, by the same token, my next-door neighbor growing up was my grandfather, and my grandfather was as dominant an influence in my life as my dad, and he had a seventh-grade education. He dropped out of school in the late 20s I guess; maybe even before that. Right after the First World War, I think. He had to go to work to help the family. And over the next 10 or 15 years, he became a master electrician, a plumber, a bricklayer, architect, mechanic; he was one of those guys, it turns out, that was just hard wired to be brilliant at all of the technical trades. He just seemed to be born with it.

My real childhood memories are of my grandfather fixing anything that broke ever. He didn’t need the instruction manual; he was just that guy. He had a stroke when he was in his 60s and my dad sort of became his apprentice.

We had a little farm and a relatively small community where I grew up, but those two were the guys who could fix it. They would start their day clean and they’d come home dirty, and the problem would always be solved.

So, yeah, both of my folks were teachers, but my real experience growing up was being in this front row seat where I could watch both my dad and my grandfather go out, get dirty and get things fixed. So, what I was really left with was an appreciation not so much for a degree, but for knowledge and understanding.

CI: Yeah, and people don’t always realize that knowledge doesn’t just come in the four-year degree package. You know, knowledge can come through apprenticeships, or two-year community college, or a training course.

MR: Yeah. Knowledge just comes from keeping your ears open [audio distortion] and you learn. There are plenty of places to do it. You just have to start with the general desire to want it.

CI: So did you ever become the apprentice for your dad and grandfather?

MR: I tried. My own story is more ironic than inspiring, I’m afraid. I didn’t get the gene the way my dad did and the way my grandfather did. I got a healthy respect for it, and I certainly grew up around it, but by the time I was 17 or 18 years old, I realized that, you know, I could hang drywall, but it just wasn’t perfect. And I could pour concrete, but it just took me a while to get it right. I could do the things they did, it just didn’t come easy and I wasn’t naturally good at it.

So I went another way. You know, I got into the entertainment business, which is about as far from carpentry as you can go. I got in the opera, of all things, and then I started acting and then I started performing and then I started hosting TV shows.

And that was a long, strange, crooked road. And 20-some years later, it’s funny, but the first real hit that I was ever associated with was “Dirty Jobs,” and it was a show that I pitched based on my grandfather’s earlier jobs. And it wasn’t supposed to be a series or really even a hit, it was just supposed to be three one-hour specials about these odd, difficult, dirty jobs.

And go figure, you know, that’s what people watched. And now it’s been on for four years and I don’t know how to make it stop. So, for me, success came when I went back to do the thing that I essentially spent my life running from.

CI: Well I’ve noticed that mikeroweWORKS so far seems very collaborative. You have a message on the site asking people for input, and I’ve read a lot of thoughtful ideas on the “Dirty Jobs” online forum. People there are really into it and have been providing a lot of facts and data. So, what could our members and the people listening, who are mostly career and technical education teachers and administrators, is there anything they could do to help with mikeroweWORKS?

MR: Yeah. You can make it happen! “Dirty Jobs” is a hit because the viewers won’t leave it alone. And they send me thousands of letters every week suggesting jobs that I can try. And I love that and I’m grateful for it. But it really taught me that, in terms of making TV, and I think in terms of launching a site, it doesn’t make sense to go out there with this big, giant vision and this huge agenda based on what you think the country wants.

I don’t really know. I only know what I’ve heard and learned from the people I’ve met and worked with. It’s not a device that I’m using, I’m genuinely saying to anyone who hears this, “If it makes sense to you, come to the site and make a suggestion.”

And in the same way that it worked for “Dirty Jobs,” I think it’s going to work here because I’m going to run with it if enough people want me to. I really do think it’s time for a meaningful resource online, a single destination where people can go and get a top-down look at all of the options in the technical trades available to them in the state where they live.

That information already exists. Just getting it together is something that anybody listening right now could absolutely help with, no doubt about it. But, there might be other suggestions as well. There might be other utilities that I’m not even thinking of that the site could ultimately serve. And I’d love to hear about those, too. Apprenticeships, scholarships, whatever the opportunities are in your particular zip code, it’d be good to know about them. Because once we get them together, we will actually have something to brag about, I think.

CI: Excellent. Well, thank you so much for talking to me today, Mike.

MR: Any time! My pleasure.

CI: Learn more about Mike’s campaign for skilled labor at www.mikeroweWORKS.com.

November 21, 2008 - Interview with Chef Rock Harper

Catherine Imperatore: This is Catherine Imperatore with ACTE. Today I’m talking to Chef Rock Harper, winner of season 3 of the reality show Hell’s Kitchen. Thanks for speaking with me today, Rock.

Rock Harper: Thank you for having me, I appreciate it.

CI: So, tell me how did you discover the culinary arts?

RH: The discovery the culinary arts, wow … I guess I discovered it by just eating in my mother’s kitchen and my grandmother’s kitchen. You know, formally I took a class in middle school, home ec class, and I loved the cooking part but didn’t like the other part. So, when I went to high school, that’s where I got I guess my formal introduction, at T.C. they had a culinary arts class and that’s where I got my feet wet for the first time.

CI: And just to tell our listeners, you went to T.C. Williams High School, which is just down the road from the ACTE headquarters here in Alexandria, Virginia.

RH: Absolutely, remember the Titans!

CI: So tell us more about your high school experience.

RH: High school was a very fun place for me, a little too fun sometimes, but I loved T.C. Williams. I think that—you know, I recognized it then, but I definitely appreciate it more now, it was a very diverse community. We had all the representations of the flags of the different nationalities that we had there. So, it gave me a different exposure into different cultures. So I appreciated that and a lot of my friends were that way.

But T.C. was a great school. We used to have the open campus lunch. They don’t have it anymore of course since the new campus, the cafeteria can provide for all the kids there but … It was a great time. I had a lot of friends. I liked to laugh a little bit too much. I liked to, you know, make jokes and stuff, but it was really, really a good time. I had a great time at high school.

You know, part of that was the culinary arts, to be honest with you. I don’t mean to sound clichéd or corny, but I really enjoyed going to my culinary class. It was like an escape from all the other madness that was going on for me.

CI: Did you have a particular teacher or a guidance counselor or administrator who had a positive influence on you?

RH: Wow, I had a few. Carolyn Lewis, Ms. Lewis. I’m not sure what she was at the time I was there, I know she’s bounced around a bit. I think she was like assistant principal when I was at T.C. John Dorning, who was my culinary—who was my chef, he was very influential in my whole … really, in my life. But I loved him and he loved me. That’s all I can think of.

CI: What was it about your chef, your culinary arts teacher that made him a good instructor?

RH: Well, I didn’t find out, I didn’t appreciate him until later in life, but he was just real with me and he was honest. You know, we bumped heads a couple of times, actually we weren’t the best of friends. But he was honest with me and he cared about me because he knew I cared about what I did and I was passionate about what I wanted to do. He was just honest with me.

He didn’t babysit me, but he didn’t let me just go by the wayside, which a lot of teachers and, you know, lot of administrators do. They just let you go. And I think he had that care, not just with me, he had it with all the students, but I embraced it as opposed to some students don’t, they just fall between the cracks. So, he really put it out there, he put the effort, he put the energy out there. I was attracted to that as a student. We got along and we had that personal accord, so it worked. And some other teachers did too, but being as those I wanted to be a chef, it was special to me coming from him.

CI: Now when you’re in the kitchen and you have people working under you, do you consider yourself a teacher in that situation?

RH: Definitely, definitely. I’m always a teacher whether on purpose or by accident. In the same regard I am a student, too, I’m a student everyday. I definitely teach, sometimes like I said with the intent to teach and sometimes people learn from me and I’m not necessarily trying. So, we are all teachers and students in everything that we do everyday, I believe.

CI: What happened after high school, what was the next step in your training?

RH: Well, I graduated in June and went straight to culinary school, Johnson & Wales University, to Norfolk and it all started from there. Had a bit of a rough start, if you will, just didn’t know what to expect and … but then from then on out, it was smooth sailing.

CI: Excellent. Was it a big difference suddenly being in this environment where everyone is really focused on what you are passionate about: the food service, the hospitality industry?

RH: Well, I have to say that unfortunately, especially at a school like Johnson & Wales where it cost an arm and a leg and, you know, another leg, everyone wasn’t as passionate as I thought they would be. You do have the passionate people, you do have the not-so-passionate people. And that’s part of, you know, staying focused.

It was very different; it was a completely different environment, I know what you mean. I was immersed solely in culinary arts and people that wanted to be about or said they wanted to be above food service. The teachers did at least.

So it was different because I thought that … Everyone didn’t have my background in having a culinary arts training for three years. So there were people that just picked up a knife on their first day of class. People that didn’t know certain things: how to sauté, how to braise, you know, sanitation. And the teacher has to teach everyone. So, being in that environment where you have some that have been in the culinary arts for—you had some people that had worked longer than I had, that had jobs, that were 30 and 40 and 50 years old and they were just there to get the education.

So it was a very diverse mix. It was a bit touchy at times, because you feel like you want to move faster, but it just lets you know that you’re only as good as your team. So, it was very different from being in high school, but I enjoyed it, you know. I definitely enjoyed being in the culture of food.

CI: Now, did you have to mortgage off an arm and a leg to attend Johnson & Wales?

RH: Well, I’m still paying for it. I didn’t know at that time, you know, all the loans that I took out and my mother took out on behalf of me. It’s expensive, but I think it’s worth it. I think it’s made me more money than if I hadn’t gone and … It’s worth it. It’s a sacrifice, but, you know, you have to do it, you have to take a few steps back. I wouldn’t even classify it as taking few steps back, you just have to do it.

CI: So do you think that the culinary arts can maybe motivate young people who aren’t so excited about education to stick with it?

RH: Absolutely. I mean, if you’ve ever had a passion for, or an inkling, maybe it can evoke some passion. If you’ve ever had a desire or you like serving people or you just like entertaining, and, you know, people come over your house and you have a good time, throwing parties, that’s what this industry is about. So, it can, I definitely think it’s worth a try. It’s not one of those industries that—the better skilled you are, the better you are at, you know, math and reading comprehension and problem solving, you’ll be better at your craft, but the good thing about culinary training is that it won’t teach you necessarily physics but math as it relates to what you’re doing on a day-to-day basis.

I think that it’s worth a shot for anyone. It’s a great career and it’s not like you only have to be a restaurant chef or fine dining chef to come into this industry. You know, that’s what most people think, “Hey, I want white tablecloth, fine dining.” You don’t have to; there are so many different facets of this industry. It can definitely inspire many kids to get into the industry.

CI: So, tell us what you are doing now and what are your plans for the future?

RH: Well, right now I’m president and chef of my own company, Chef Rock Inc. And right now I’m consulting some young chefs—or older chefs, chefs of all ages—on their career path, on their image, you know, how to deal with the media, and I’m doing some restaurant consulting, too. if your place is in a bit of a pickle, which a lot of places are right now, I can come in and share my expertise and try to, you know, get the business in the black.

So, that’s what I’m doing right now. I’m working on a book, working on a couple of books as a matter of fact. We’re working on a few new products and I just hope to—you know, my motto for the company is “we’re changing the world, one chive at a time.” And if we look at anything that we do, it all starts with one step. You know, the fact that I’m a graduate or I was on the dean’s list at Johnson & Wales or, you know, the fact that I went on Hell’s Kitchen, it all starts with one step and you build on each step.And that can be as small as a chive, even a chopped up chive, which is very small. That’s the mantra of my company. We start with one step and by the time you know it, you’ve taken 58,000 steps and, you know, look how far we’ve come.

So, that’s what I’m doing right now. And I’m heavily involved in charities, March of Dimes, I was the—I still am the national celebrity chef for the Signature Chef Auctions, trying to raise money to help save babies. And, you know, a few others. I do what I can locally and I think that’s a big part of what we do and what we will do in the future. We give to others who might not have the opportunity to get. That’s where we are, and hopefully we’re going bigger, tenfold or a hundredfold.

CI: Well, it’s been great talking to you today. Thank you so much!

RH: Thank you, I appreciate it.

CI: Learn more about Chef Rock at http://chefrockinc.com. That’s c-h-e-f-r-o-c-k-i-n-c dot com.

October 24, 2008 - Interview with Daniel Pink

Catherine Imperatore: Today I’m joined by Daniel Pink, an expert on business and technology innovation and author of A Whole New Mind, available in the ACTE book store, as well as The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need and Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working For Yourself. Pink will be a speaker at this December’s ACTE Annual Convention and Career Tech Expo in Charlotte, North Carolina. This 3-day event will feature enlightening keynote speakers, relevant sessions, networking opportunities and a packed expo floor. Attendee Dave Keaton shares what he gets out of the ACTE Convention:

Dave Keaton: Well, one of the parts that I always value very much is just the collaboration, being able to get together with other people from other states and other schools. Last year I brought two of my instructors that were developing some new technology within my center, and I knew that the exhibition floor would have just a wealth of vendors and they could have very lengthy conversations about what we were envisioning, what we wanted to do. Now I’ve got everyone back home, when I come back from these conferences, you know, “When are you going take me, when is it my turn, when can we do this?”

Learn more about ACTE’s Convention at www.acteonline.org/Convention. Now on to the interview.

Daniel Pink: Happily! It’s good to be here.

CI: Please briefly describe the focus of your book, A Whole New Mind.

DP: Well, this book makes an argument about how one set of abilities—that is, what we might think of as left-brain abilities: the logical, linear, SAT, spreadsheet kind of abilities—still matter in the economy, but they matter relatively less. And the abilities that matter most are the right-brain abilities: the artistry, empathy, big-picture thinking. Those are the abilities that are increasingly the ones that are most valuable in business.

And this is happening because of three key reasons. The world is getting richer, and so there is a premium on either infusing existing products with something more transcendent or creating something people didn’t know they were missing. All kinds of routine, white-collar work is going overseas, forcing us more and more to do non-routine work. And also, automation; software is doing to our brains what machines did to our backs. It can do certain kinds of work better, faster and cheaper than we can.

So, to make it today, you have to do work that’s hard to outsource, hard to automate and that delivers on some of the new strategies that are necessary in an ever-prosperous world. And that means, again, as I said, that the left-brain abilities are still essential, they’re just not enough, and the right-brain abilities are the ones that really matter most.

CI: What kind of employee is going to be needed in the Conceptual Age that you discuss in the book?

DP: Well, again, it’s somebody who can do the sorts of things that are hard to outsource and hard to automate, the sorts of work that you can’t just put on a spec sheet, send overseas, and say, “Give me the right answer.” The sorts of work that you can’t reduce to lines of code in a computer program. And that requires people who are multidisciplinary, people who are boundary-crossers, people who are good at iterating new things, people who can deploy the sorts of abilities that are hard to outsource and automate—things like empathy, big-picture thinking, some amount of artistry, narrative, and those sorts of things.

So, we’re really talking about people who have a foundation of left-brain abilities, but they’re the sweet spot of, really, these right-brain abilities, and people who are really multi-faceted, creative, big-picture thinkers.

CI: So, to bring that to focus on what our Association is about, the career and technical education, which is a lot of hands-on application of skills, and includes many different career fields.

DP: Sure.

CI: So, it’s easy to see how this right-brain thinking fits in with a CTE field such as graphic design, but what about something like auto technician or medical technician? What you’re saying makes me a little nervous for them.

DP: Well, it depends. It depends on what kind of auto technician and what kind of medical technician. But let’s take a medical technician. If it’s simply looking at charts and processing those charts in an algorithmic way and coming up with the right answer, then I think that that particular skill set is actually in peril, that that particular skill set is less valuable.

However, you know, the best medical technicians, like the best medical diagnosticians, are people who actually can think about the problem and analyze the situation both ways, who can essentially toggle, who can look at that set of data in an algorithmic way, but who can also toggle over and look at it in a big-picture, conceptual way. Who can look at something and say, “Wait a second, here’s what’s missing,” or you know, “We’re missing a piece of data here that would fill out the whole profile,” or “There’s something about this that isn’t quite right, even though the algorithm is telling me that this is the correct answer.”

I don’t know with medical technicians, but it’s one reason why a lot of medical schools now are taking physicians to art museums—to make them better observers—because the best diagnosticians are people, again, who can toggle, who can reason algorithmically and then can toggle over and reason aesthetically. Those are the folks that are most in demand.

And, you know, auto technicians, again, it really depends. I guess, there is some amount of information about auto technicians that is digitizable, and therefore, you can send it overseas. On the other hand, you can think about the best auto technicians, the best people who are doing that, you need some measure of customer service, you need some ability to diagnose non-routine auto problems and so forth.

So, what it really is, in some ways, a race to the top in those professions, that those sorts of things, some portion of the skill sets are being commoditized. But, what that does is that underscores the urgency of racing up the skill ladder and being able to do more of these big-picture, conceptual, empathic and artistic things.

CI: I’m not sure how to phrase this, but it sounds like a lot of the skills that you’re talking about are things that come with experience and that it will be very difficult to differentiate yourself as just starting out as a medical technician and selling yourself, saying that you have this toggle ability to go between ….

DP: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that’s a really good point. I think that, in some ways, the first entrance in the labor market, there is a demand for some of the routine abilities. This is one reason why you see, you know, sort of early hires, you have these more kind of left-brain abilities being rewarded. The data shows that that disappears pretty quickly.

And so what it means is that you want to get some of that experience under your belt, but you also want, I think, in terms of one’s training—which is one of the things that you guys are focused on—you want to have beyond simply the raw technical skills, you want to have the capacity to ask good questions, to be curious. I think that good communication and interpersonal skills are essential because those are very hard to outsource and automate. Those are not a kind of a technical know-how that goes out of style.

So, I think that, in terms of a young person navigating his or her career, getting those technical abilities and those routine abilities is important, and I think that there’s actually going to be some demand for them very early. I think that, after a few years—and things move so quickly that it really is just a few years that mastery of those sorts of technical abilities, while they matter, increasingly will matter less, and it’s the other sorts of abilities that matter more.

And the more somebody begins his or her preparation for a career with that mind, the better off they’ll be. The people who often run into trouble are people who have a kind of Thanksgiving-turkey model of education and training, where you go and you get your skills, and you’re essentially cooked and then delivered to an employer on a platter. And that’s not how it works anymore, especially in these technical fields, where any kind of specialized knowledge becomes less meaningful, or even obsolete, in a couple of years.

CI: So, a big push right now in CTE is integrating core academics such as English and math with CTE courses. And it sounds like that jives with what you’re saying about synthesis of different perspectives of the left and right brain. Would you agree?

DP: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think, it goes both ways, too. I guess my answer is, “Amen. Yes, absolutely. You’re right.” Some of those academic subjects are very important because the pure technical know-how has a limited shelf life, and some of the academic abilities actually have a longer shelf life. You’re basically building a set of muscles that you can deploy in different kinds of circumstances.

But, as I was saying, I actually think it works the other way as well. That is, one of the things that you’re beginning to see, ever so slightly is—let’s take physics, okay? Physics in high school, you see now a move, very slow, toward having physics be not only kind of studying physics in the classroom but integrating that with, say, building robots or robotics, so that you have, I think, this kind of one plus one equals three, where if you combine the technical stuff with the academic stuff it actually enhances both.

And we tend to think that “Oh, it detracts from time,” or so forth, but actually, it’s multiplication not subtraction. That is, they really do reinforce each other. And I think they really build the cognitive muscles of young people.

And that’s the both worlds. Someone with purely academic knowledge isn’t going to be able to solve a real-world problem. Someone with only technical knowledge might be able to solve a real-world problem today, but who knows next week from now, let alone 10 years from now. So what you really want is that kind of combination.

I’m essentially saying, again, you’re right, that kind of combination is what really makes sense. That kind of combination is really doing right by the people who are in the education system.

CI: I’m curious if you have ever taken any CTE courses—if so, what your experience was; if not, if you think that would have been a positive impact on your education.

DP: Well, when I was in school, no. I’m not sure whether it would qualify—I mean I took what back in the dark ages was called industrial arts, which is basically shop, and I actually enjoyed that quite a bit. Later on, as a grown up, and I don’t know whether this would qualify, but I took some programming courses …

CI: Definitely.

DP: Just because I was so utterly ignorant about that sort of stuff. For instance, I remember taking an HTML course about 10 years ago, in the early days of the Web before you had some of this multitasking kind of software that could do this stuff on your own. And so I actually still do [laughs] some of my Web sites using those kinds of abilities.

In a weird way, the ability to code in HTML—which is not that sophisticated of a skill—was useful, technically, for a short time. But, what it also did is that it gave me kind of a conceptual knowledge about how these Web pages are configured, so now that the software has advanced, I can actually use that a little bit better and can complete things a little bit better. But not much. Unfortunately for me, I have a law degree.

CI: [laughs] Is right-brain thinking a skill that needs to be taught in schools, or is it a part of the makeup of this Millennial, Gen Y, digital native generation?

DP: That’s an interesting question. I think it’s slightly both. I think that there probably is some generational difference amongst the Millennials, in part because they’re so saturated in a world that is nonlinear, that is horizontal, that is hyperlinked—Okay, so it’s a little bit less routine in that way—a world that is stunningly visual in a way that…

I should say, I’m 44 years old, so I grew up with television. And even when I was growing up, it was, “Oh, the demise of print, the rise of television.” Young people today are steeped in an even more visual kind of culture.

The other thing that I think is interesting is that it’s also such an information-saturated culture. That is, one of the things that I’m trying to figure out what it all means is this ability to find out any kind of fact instantly. I mean, I think about today, okay? It’s a Sunday afternoon at one o’clock here. And I’m here in my office in my home, and I’m doing some work. But even 10 years ago, 15 years ago, let alone 20 years ago, if I had some question that I wanted to find out…

Okay, I’ll tell you something totally weird. I wanted to know the population of Jamaica. And so, imagine a Sunday afternoon, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, and I wanted to know the population of Jamaica. And I’m here in my office in Washington, D.C., at one o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. Maybe I have an almanac in my office. Maybe I don’t. But, chances are that almanac is out of date. Maybe there’s a library open, but I’d have to walk over to the library or run my bike over to the library or drive my car over to the library.

Now, I can literally find out that fact in five seconds. I mean, I Google it and I know that Jamaica has a population of 2.7 million people. I mean, that’s just a remarkable thing.

And so what it means is that the ability to find that fact is no longer all that valuable. The ability to know how to navigate one’s way through a library or to know the library opening hours or to have access to it, it doesn’t matter. And so, what really matters, I think, with this digital generation, where that is essentially baked into their lives. I still look at that with a measure of wonder, saying, “Oh my God, I can’t believe I just found out the population of Jamaica, and it took me five seconds.”

CI: [laughs]

DP: I think that for younger people, and I see it with my kids, that’s essentially baked in. That’s just how the world works.

And so I think that what that does is that forces them into a less kind of linear, more contextual, more right-brain way of thinking about that thing. What they have to do, really, more important, is look at that piece of data and then sort of integrate it into what they’re doing, figure out what it means. To some extent, if they’re finding it on the Web, they have to triangulate with other sources and find out whether that’s a valid source, which I think is a very important skill.

So I actually found that on the CIA Factbook, which was a pretty good source. If I’d seen it on Wikipedia, I might not have taken it perfectly; I might have, you know, matched it with another source.

So I think there is this sort of generational push to the right, that the circumstances of their lives, the media that they’re exposed to, the hyper-visual culture that they’re in, the instant accessibility of data, in some ways sort of pushes them into more a right-brain mode of thinking than a left-brain, linear old man like me.

CI: [laughs] Does right-brain thinking fit in with the current emphasis on testing in schools?

DP: No. In fact, in many ways, it’s antithetical to it. I’m not maniacally opposed to testing. I think that there’s some things that are testable and worth testing. And again, as I said before, these left-brain abilities are essential. I mean, if you don’t know that nine times seven is 63, then I don’t care how good your conceptual abilities are, you’re going to have a hard time, whether you’re an auto technician, whether you are a medical technician - whatever you do.

And so the left-brain abilities still matter, and I think that they’re measurable in some ways, and I think that it’s worth measuring them. I don’t think that should be the be-all and end-all of education.

And we also are falling prey, I think, to this sort of fallacy of reasoning in that we somehow confuse the idea that what is measurable is what should be measured. Just because something is capable of being measured doesn’t mean it’s the most important thing to measure. And what we have with these right-brain abilities is very primitive metrics for measuring them.

Now, there’s an open question about whether these things—let’s say artistry or big-picture thinking or empathy—somehow defy measurement. And I’m not sure about that. I think they are measurable, in a way.

But what you see in some other realms, for instance, medical schools: medical schools have now a pencil-and-paper instrument to measure physician empathy. And what they’ve found from that is that scores on the empathy index correlate very well with patient outcomes, in a way that, say, these left-brain measurements don’t. And as a result of this new metric, you have essentially every medical school in North America teaching clinical empathy, because it works. And the ability to measure it actually helped trigger that kind of reform.

The current testing regimes now are almost exclusively left-brain. I’m not saying that we should get rid of those. I’m saying that there are other things that are worth measuring, and those are what we should be measuring, too, even though the metrics that we have for them, as I’ve said before, are still a little bit primitive.

CI: Very interesting. Well, thank you again for speaking with me today, and I look forward to hearing more from you at the Convention’s Opening General Session on Thursday morning.

DP: Okay. That sounds great.

CI: Thank you. For more information on the Convention, visit ACTE’s Web site. Register before November 3 for advance rates!

October 3, 2008 - Interview with Neil Howe

Catherine Imperatore: Today I’m talking to Neil Howe, an authority on generations in America, a founding partner of LifeCourse Associates, and author of several books, including Millennials Go to College, the newly released Millennials and K-12 Schools and the upcoming release Millennials in the Workplace. He is also a keynote speaker at the upcoming ACTE Annual Convention and Career Tech Expo, December 4-6, in Charlotte, North Carolina. This is the premier professional development and networking event for CTE professionals. Long-time attendee Melba Kennedy explains some of the strengths of the ACTE Convention:

Melba Kennedy: ACTE Convention is a must have. And I’ve been attending ACTE conferences for a number of years and I’ve seen them adjust and answer to the call of what’s needed in the career and technical education community.

You can learn more about ACTE’s Convention at www.acteonline.org/Convention. Now on to the interview. Hi, Neil. Thanks for speaking with me today.

Neil Howe: Oh, It’s great to be here.

CI: So tell us briefly what defines a Millennial.

NH: Well, the Millennial generation are Americans born 1982 and after. The oldest Millennials are mainly the children of boomers. They’re in college, they’re exiting college, and they’re the new employees for a lot of firms. They’re now even just about to graduate from professional schools: business schools and law schools and so on. This is the rising generation of employees in America.

The Millennials also, those who were born in the 1990s, the younger Millennials, these are mainly children of Generation X. And one fascinating thing we see when we look at public schools and K-12 schools and increasingly, colleges, is the interesting transition from boomer parents to Gen X parents. A lot of teachers are meeting the Gen X parents, and it’s a little bit of a cold wind blowing through those institutions with these new Gen Xers.

CI: Well, that’s interesting. Myself, as a Gen Xer from 1980, I find that very interesting.

NH: Well, you will have kids in there soon. Now, your kids will probably be–I can’t speak to you personally—but probably most people born at the very end of Generation X will have kids who are in the generation coming after the Millennials. We don’t know yet what they’re called. We did a contest on our Web site, and the winning entry was “homeland generation”—probably the little toddlers—we don’t know exactly when the birth year dividing line is—the little infants and little toddlers today just about to enter K-12 school systems.

CI: Do you have any idea what characteristics that generation will have?

NH: They will probably be very much the end product of many of the transitions we’ve seen for Millennials. In other words, we’ve seen with Millennials a new sense of specialness, a new sense of drive for protection, teamwork, a much more highly structured life. And we see this new generation of homelanders very much in that mold, that they’re going to be extremely protected, their lives are going to be very structured, and we see already with these Gen X moms and dads being hyper-protective and very behavioralist in their upbringing, making sure that nothing, absolutely nothing dangerous happens to them, and otherwise even protecting them from too much pressure so they can just have fun together.

But this is going to be, I don’t know if you’ve seen now, they have bathing wear that actually goes down to your ankles and your wrists to prevent any UV from hitting their skin. They’ve got special toys, which have been rid of all impure chemicals. We have all kinds of special diets now for pregnant mothers, and child care books, which are filled with long lists of dos and don’ts to make sure that nothing will harm these precious kids.

So, they too, are going to have their own generational persona when they come of age. And like every other generation, they will represent an abrupt turn in what it means to be young.

CI: Interesting. I’ve heard that you have some new books coming out soon, so can you tell us a little about those?

NH: Yes, we have three books. We have the second edition of our Millennials Go to College, which has been out for about a year and a half; it’s been selling very well to colleges. Our first edition came out in 2003, this one’s now out, and it does have an extended discussion of the differences in generation, not just about Millennials, which, of course, is what most of the book is on, but also discussions of the generational transition in parents from boomers to X, and also some of the tensions between boomer and Xer teachers and faculty.

We have another book which is coming out this month, in October of 2008: Millennials and K-12 Schools. I lecture a lot to K-12 school districts, to principals, superintendents, teachers, particularly in in-service programs, and after years of doing this and being asked why don’t you put all what you know about K-12 in a book, we decided to do that as well.

And then, at the very end of the year, we are coming out with Millennials in the Workplace. All of these books have been under production for a while, they just happen to be coming out all on top of each other like this.

CI: So, what issues do Millennials uniquely face in education that children of other generations maybe haven’t faced?

NH: Well, you have to remember a little bit, this is a generation that came along after the consciousness revolution was all over. I mean, it came along as the “babies on board” of the early 1980s: increasingly protected, increasingly special. We started passing all kinds of legislation to favor kids again.

As they began to redefine high schools, for example, in the late 1990s and over the last decade, they’re bringing a new confidence, a new sense of trust, they want the system to work, that Xers never had. They’re bringing a new closeness in family life, which is very interesting for us to monitor. Millennials get along better with their parents than any other teenage generation we’ve measured since, you know, shortly after World War II. There’s no culture gap anymore. They listen to the same music, they watch the same movies, they even have the same songs on their iPod, at least a fair share of them—something that a boomer like myself, you know, we never would have had that with our parents back in the day.

But, they get along very well. And we noticed that in every institution that Millennials have passed through, parents have become a bigger presence. Over the last six years, according to MetLife’s surveys of teachers, parents are the number one professional problem of school teachers, particularly, you know, the “helicopter mom,” right, which is always there, always intervening, and the teachers have to find some way of making the parent the partner. You can’t get the parent out, you’ve got to make them a partner.

Colleges, the same thing has happened, and increasingly in the workplace, this is happening. The new phenomenon that all employers are talking about is the mom who finds out about the company to advise the kid, or who sends in the resume, or in some cases, actually come in with the grown child to attend the job interview.

And dealing with parents is interesting because so many of these young adults are calling their parents on their cell phones every day anyway. So I often tell employers, you might as well have a “bring your parent to work” week and meet them because your employees are talking to them all the time anyway, you might as well just have them there in the same room, instead of having them talk behind your back.

So, this is part of a broader transformation of dealing with young employees, which represents a real break from Generation X. You remember the Generation X persona, which is, take a lot of risks, you need a lot of risks to succeed; embrace the marketplace—buy low, sell high; be very mobile; and whatever you face, you’re going to face it on your own, right? Be very savvy, be very savvy in this sort of global marketplace that you’re going to be working in. And be ready to make very quick and rapid decisions.

Millennials are very different. They expect to be protected. They have longer time horizons. We notice this very strongly among new employees now, they’re saying, not “how much money am I going to make this year?” “how much will I make five years from now if I stay on, you know, a career advancement path with your institution?”

Xers always wanted to rapidly change course in order to seize the right opportunity now. Millennials want the perfect career where they won’t have to make changes.

An interesting indicator of this is the rising share of college students who are graduating, get their first full-time job with the same company they interned with. About 15 years ago, this was barely more than 10 percent. Today, it’s nearly 30 percent. In other words, Millennials want to purge risk from their lives. You know, you can now never have any encounter with the marketplace. You get a good internship in college and then you’re hired by that same company, you basically avoid ever putting yourself on the block.

CI: Going back to the helicopter parents, I kind of thought that that was, if not a myth, something that’s been inflated by the media, but you would say that the helicopter parents are pretty prevalent?

NH: We see it everywhere. In fact—kind of an interesting sidelight on this—we’ve consulted for almost all of the branches of the military, starting with the U.S. Marines back in 1998. All of the branches of the military have completely reformed their recruiting techniques because of the increasing parental presence.

There was a time not many years ago when the Marine Corps would actually look for teenagers who didn’t like their parents very much, and interview them and sign them up [laughter] sort of without their parents knowing. That absolutely does not happen anymore. The Marines now have been repeatedly burned by parents that come in at them with a ton of bricks. The new rule is you do not even have a second encounter with any teenager without the parents actually present.

And all of the armed services are actually creating promotion materials explicitly for the parents and bringing the parents in on the conversation very early, and in delayed entry programs, actually having the parents part of the preparation programs for the military. I’m sure you’ve seen the U.S. Army ads with the parents and the kids together talking about their future. And then, the new motto that the Army uses, “You made them strong, we’ll make them Army strong,” right? That’s the partnership. You never saw that 10 or 20 years ago. But you see that all the time now.

This is not an aberration. This is something very important, it reflects a very important shift that’s taken place.

CI: Now are there any particular tensions between boomers and Gen X?

NH: There’s always been tensions between boomers and Gen Xers. In fact, when I first started talking about generations in the workplace back in the mid-1990s, that was what the entire conversation was about. And frankly, up until a few years ago, that’s still what it was about, boomers and Gen Xers, how different they were.

There are a lot of differences. I mean, boomers are into the work ethic, right? Xers are into the market ethic. You know, boomers talk about their career and their vocation, and Xers talk about their job and their assignment. Boomers want to do everything better. Xers want to do more for less. Xers are actually interested in getting home after work. [laughs] For Xers, work isn’t the point. It’s earning some money and getting home and actually having a life that’s the point. So, very, almost at a philosophical level, some very different attitudes toward what work means and what its relationship to your life is.

The Xer doesn’t like to be judged. They like to be just evaluated in terms of their performance, right? “If I do well, give me a raise, if I do badly, fire me, but don’t judge me, don’t evaluate who I am as a person.” I’m just someone delivering a service to you. And this is very difficult for boomers who have always been a very moralistic and values-oriented generation, you see? And these are big differences. And I’ve dealt with employers relating to me every permutation of this difference.

Now, of course, we have a third generation—the silent generation, pre-boomer generation, is kind of departing—and we have this third generation now, this new Millennial generation, becoming the third member of the active workplace generations.

And very different, precisely because of this new need for structure and these longer time horizons, and this new sense of specialness with this generation that almost everyone talks about, right? This is the “entitled” generation, the generation that thinks that the whole world revolves around it. Well, how do you deal with it? How do you deal with a generation that believes it’s special, right? Do you tell it it’s not special? Does that work for you? Well, it probably won’t, so you need to find ways of leveraging specialness with these Millennials. And that’s the challenge, that’s what I often talk to employers about.

CI: So, with career and technical education, is there any indication that Millennials who are still in school are more or less likely to pursue CTE versus traditional academics?

NH: Well, I think what’s happening in CTE is, it has a real Millennial flavor. CTE is becoming, you know, first of all, it’s fusing itself with sort of academic rigor in an interesting way, and I think it had to make that adaptation, which appeals to Millennials because every Millennial thinks that, you know, eventually it will want to or have to do postsecondary work and get a postsecondary degree. The surveys show overwhelmingly that sooner or later, they all feel they’re going to have to do that.

The idea of education with a clearly defined pathway into a career very much appeals to the Millennials because it appeals to their sense of preparation and trajectory and achievement over time toward a specified goal. And I think the result of this will make CTE more popular with Millennials than it was with Generation X.

Generation X, I should say, and we actually looked at this, really marked a nadir for CTE. The lowest participation rate in vocational educational programs of any generation was really the gradual decline for boomers in CTE reaching a low point in the late 80s, early 90s, and I think that we can see, have been seeing, and certainly will continue to see a real rebound of interest with Millennials.

CI: Well, that’s good news. Do Millennials need extra soft skills training?

NH: Well, they certainly do. Just remember, all these issues about what fork to use at lunch and how to shake hands and how to answer a phone, these are the soft skills, and yes, they need training. What do you expect? They had boomers and Xers for parents. Who would’ve taught them these soft skills, right? [laughs] It’s funny, you think about it, their parents never taught them these things.

One advantage—people complain about the lack of soft skills, but what they don’t realize is that one big advantage with having Millennials is Millennials are so teachable. They don’t mind learning these soft skills. You give them a course, you give them a trophy or a gold star at the end of it, and they can put it on their resume, they’ll be delighted to learn those things. You could have the most structured, contential course on soft skills, and they will learn it to a T. And they will be pleased that they are learning something that their own parents might not know very well. So, yes, they don’t have it, that’s, I guess, the challenge, but the good news is, they’re delighted to learn it, and they’re very teachable in soft skills.

CI: Well, do you have anything else to add?

NH: I think that covers a fair amount, what do you think?

CI: I think that does. It was great talking to you today, Neil, and I can’t wait to hear more at Friday’s General Session.

NH: Great. Well, thank you so much for having me here.

CI: For more information on the Convention, visit ACTE’s Web site. And remember to register before November 3 for advance rates!

September 19, 2008 - Interview with Willard Daggett

Catherine Imperatore: ACTE’s Annual Convention and Career Tech Expo is fast approaching. This professional development and networking event will be held December 4-6 in Charlotte, North Carolina. One of the presenters ACTE will be bringing to you is Dr. Willard Daggett, president of the International Center for Leadership in Education. Dr. Daggett has assisted a number of states and hundreds of school districts with their school improvement initiatives, served as a teacher and administrator at the secondary and postsecondary levels and as a director with the New York State Education Department, and co-authored several books, including Education as a Business Investment and Achieving Civility at School, which can be found in the ACTE book store. Dr. Daggett, thank you so much for talking to me today.

Dr. Willard Daggett: Thank you.

CI: So what are the latest education and workforce trends that your projects and studies have uncovered?

WD: The most overriding finding is that the academic skills in the workplace today, even for entry-level jobs, have actually surpassed the academic skills of higher education. And that’s an issue that is very hard for academic educators to understand and, candidly, it’s also hard for career and tech ed teachers to understand.

What has happened is the technology is pushing us to higher and higher skills and we understand that in the STEM occupations, but let’s just go to all occupations. You know, the reading level for entry-level workers today—because they have to read a manual—is substantively higher than the reading requirements in virtually any academic course you’ll take in high school or in college.

And not only are the reading skills higher, but if the worker cannot read the materials, the consequences are huge. I mean, you want an auto technician who’s going to put brakes on your car who can’t read the manual? You want an electrician wiring your house who can’t read the manual? You want a home health aide—as happened in my family—administering drugs to your disabled daughter who can’t read the prescription drug manual and gets it substantively wrong? The human consequences are gigantic.

And, therefore, I think we all in education have to step back and say, “wait a minute, who needs to be in career and tech ed?” It is not just the students who historically were interested in a career or might have not been doing well academically. We need young people who have strong academic skills and are career bound, which, interestingly enough, should be all students.

CI: Wow, that sounds like the opposite of the reputation that postsecondary education versus career and technical education have.

WD: It absolutely is. It’s probably the most substantive change educationally that has happened in my professional career. Who should be coming into the program and what the program should be teaching is substantively different now in the 21st century.

You know, we hear a lot of this discussion about 21st-century skills. And sometimes I think we think that means simply problem solving, decision making, collaboration, communication skills. And, indeed, it means all of that. But 21st-century skills for the workplace are actually a higher and different set of math, science and language arts standards than we ever had to teach when I began my career in the ‘70s teaching. It’s fundamentally different.

CI: So what should education look like that will actually support these 21st-century skills?

WD: Well, what we have to come up with is a way to address simultaneously academic rigor and relevance. Back in the early ‘90s, I created this framework called the Rigor and Relevance Framework, which a lot of groups across the country have picked up. But it’s a term often discussed but seldom understood. And I think what we’ve got to do is somehow get people to really comprehend it.

And if we simply think of rigor, academic rigor, from low level to very high levels, and we think of application from no application to applying knowledge within our courses, which are often word problems, to applying knowledge across courses—kind of the middle school movement in the country was built on that, you know, “what I learn in math I use in science, what I learn in science I use in CTE”—up to the high level of application, which is applying knowledge to real-world, both predictable and unpredictable, situations.

What we need to do is increasingly drive academics higher and higher. But, more importantly, make sure that every academic that we teach is anchored in real-world applications. Real-world applications that students will use beyond school. As we watch the highest performing schools in the country—and I head up a couple national studies, one of which is identifying the nation’s highest performing schools and the second one is identifying the schools that are most rapidly improving. And in some ways that second study is more important than the first because not every school can be the nation’s highest performing, but every school can be rapidly improving.

What we find in those schools, both sets of schools, is that application is much more prevalent in the delivery of instruction and that departments are organized to be much more integrated.

And so you begin to see in schools the elimination of department chairpeople and the creation of chairpeople of interdisciplinary departments.

CI: Now earlier you mentioned STEM—science, technology, engineering and math education. Is that going to be the most important focus of education in the future?

WD: No, I think it’s going to be one of the important focuses. I think it’s first out of the box here, but I think as you move down track and look into the 21st century and where technology is moving us, the skills that are going to separate Americans in terms of a global competition from other nations are areas like design, creativity, innovation. And that is not just STEM, that includes the arts, that includes virtually all application.

When you really strip STEM down to its most basic level, what it is is the application of academics to science and technology examples that kids will experience in post-school experiences. The reality of it is it’s not only going to be in the workplace that we have STEM—we’re going to have technology, math, science integrated in all walks of life. But we’re also going to have the arts integrated in all walks of life. We’re going to have our understanding of culture more integrated. Technology drives us that way. It’s just math and science is kind of leading the way. So I see STEM as very important, but I only see it as kind of the first wave of what I think will be an increasing number of higher and higher and more strong waves that integrate all disciplines together.

I think we’re going to find over the next 10 years, as we look back, that the compartmentalization that we have in our schools was simply a way, in the 20th century, to break up disciplines into little bites that were more teachable, which later became regulated, certified, tenured and contracted to the point that we really think that’s how learning occurs.

I think what STEM is going to show us is that real learning and real use of knowledge never exists within a discipline; it is totally integrated. And we’re going to have to look at much more integrated models for delivering education.

I also think that will give career and tech ed a new opportunity to prove itself. Because career and tech ed, when done correctly, is totally integrated between academics and real-world applications. It includes in a classroom math, science and language arts as well as the career area. That’s what STEM is about, that’s what career-tech ed is about, and I think in the 21st century, that’s what learning will be about, especially for our kids who have grown up in the digital age, where everything is integrated.

CI: You used to teach business education and administration, is that correct?

WD: Yes, I did.

CI: How have those experiences influenced your ideas about education?

WD: I have a background in business ed, but I taught accounting courses, I taught marketing courses, I taught general business administration courses. And you know what they are? They are the integration of academics and CTE.

They were not the classic hands-on career and tech ed programs as we would have found much more in the T&I [trade & industrial] field and in the ag field, they were more the intellectual hands-on, if you will. And I think that’s what the 21st century is all about, it’s that integration of high-level applications of various rigorous academic disciplines. If you take accounting, it’s very rigorous academic, but it’s also very hands-on, although you never touch it. You do it with your head. And that’s where I see the 21st century going.

So I think, just by pure luck, my early years in business ed and business administration led me to this high-level integration of academics and CTE or rigor and relevance.

CI: We seem to be pretty late realizing that change is needed, at least in U.S. education, to prepare students for this 21st-century workforce. How can we be more flexible so that we’re not behind the curve at the turn of the next century?

WD: That’s a great question. In some ways, we’re very late to the game, but you know what? We’re very late to the game in the solution, but we’re not very late in the game in terms of identification of the problem.

If we go back to 1983, we had a national report out entitled “A Nation at Risk.” And when we had “A Nation at Risk,” everybody was so frightened because we had fallen behind technologically, and the nation we had fallen behind to was Japan.

But I bet you if the listener thinks about—who can remember the 1960s? “Made in Japan” meant junk, shoddy workmanship. By 1983, it meant world class. How did they do it in two decades? 1983, nobody was talking about China. Nobody was talking about India: today, our fiercest economic competitors. How did they do it in two decades, again?

I use that as a backdrop to answering your question because, see, I don’t think we can wait until the turn of the next century. If we wait until the turn of the next century to get on with this, we’re out of business. We’re going to be like the old Roman Empire. I travel quite a bit internationally, and as an American, I had studied the Roman Empire, and then the British Empire. What is really interesting is I travel internationally, people talk about the American Empire kind of like we do the Roman Empire and the British Empire. But what’s happening as I travel internationally to places like Asia or Slovakia or Romania or Hungary or Bulgaria or Russia, they say we never learned, in America, from the Roman Empire or the British Empire, that the world is changing so quickly that we’re going to become like the Roman Empire, or more recently the British Empire, if we don’t get on with fundamental change.

What does that mean? It means that we have to find a way to be competitive against other nations who have higher educational standards, but don’t play by our rules. What does that mean? They don’t necessarily educate everybody. They pick and choose who they’re going to educate at a much earlier age than we would ever consider appropriate. But they have higher educational standards. They have longer school years. They walk out of school really good at academic rigor.

But what they don’t have is the ability to be, in some of these other nations, innovative, creative, like the American students are. I suggest to you that innovation and creativity, however, is not coming out of our classrooms. It’s coming out of the very society in which they live, a free society.

It’s got some downsides, but the kids interacting in the digital age, interacting and communicating with each other in a way in other nations that is not permitted and clearly never encouraged enables our kids to have these innovation, creativities, enables our kids to have the relevant skills. What we’ve got to do in schools is stop trying to beat that out of them.

Let me give you a specific example. I bet you many of the listeners have a Blackberry or a PDA. And with that Blackberry or PDA, we can e-mail. We can get Internet access. But you know what? We would never let the kids use those when they take the test because they might cheat. How would they cheat? They could go online, get the answer, or they could text message each other. In other words, they might communicate or use resources.

[CI laughs] Isn’t that exactly what we want the kids to do to be competitive in this 21st century? Isn’t that exactly the cutting-edge skills American kids will need as adults to be able to outperform their counterparts?

See, what has happened is our old rules and regulations have created an environment where our schools are almost like museums—keep the technology out. And we as educators have become curators, maintaining the rules.

If we’re going to prepare our kids for the 21st century, if we’re going to enable America to compete in the 21st century, what we’ve got to do is get on with both rigor and relevance, and relevance means innovation, creativity, design. We are late to the game in doing that.

However, we can not wait much longer, because the other nations are passing us like we’re standing still. And I would like for my grandchildren, not to have them, as an adult, look back and say, “oh, we’re going to study the old Roman Empire, the old British Empire, and oh yes, the old American Empire that my grandparents grew up in.”

I want America to continue to be fresh, on the cutting edge, and I think we can, but it’s going to take some innovation of how we look at our schools, we’re going to have to focus on the 21st-century skills that students need, and also on the 21st-century learner and how they learn. I think these two national projects I head up, identifying the highest performing schools in the country and the most rapidly improving schools in the country, are showing us marvelous ways of how schools can do that and are indeed doing it.

CI: Great! Well, thank you again for speaking with me today, and I’m really looking forward to hearing your remarks at the Convention’s Closing General Session on Saturday morning.

WD: I’m looking forward to being with all your delegates. Thanks a lot.

CI: Thank you. For more information on ACTE’s Convention, visit www.acteonline.org/Convention. And remember to register before November 3 for advance rates!

September 5, 2008 - Interview with Judy Brown

Catherine Imperatore: This is Catherine Imperatore with ACTE. I’m speaking with Judy Brown, the ACTE 2008 national Teacher of the Year. Judy is an education specialist in Family and Consumer Sciences for the Alabama Department of Education and she is also a culinary arts and hospitality instructor and CTE department chair for Madison City Schools. Thanks for speaking with me today, Judy.

Judy Brown: Hi! How are you?

CI: I’m pretty good, how are you?

JB: I’m good, thank you.

CI: So what does it feel like being ACTE Teacher of the Year?

JB: Wow, I feel very honored and privileged to represent career and technical education teachers as the 2008 national ACTE Teacher of the Year. I take this position very seriously, it’s a chance for me to speak out about my passion for career and tech education. It’s also a chance to use this platform to share information about career-tech education to people who really do not know what we are about or what we stand for.

CI: So what was the nomination and application process that led you to the Teacher of the Year award?

JB: It was actually a longer process than what I thought it was going to be. You start out at your local system and the career-tech director nominated me. It was sent in and as I understand it, I had to compete against other Family and Consumer Science teachers that were submitted. And once that was evaluated and they chose a winner, I was known as the family and consumer science teacher of the year for the state of Alabama. At that point I went on to compete at our summer conference for the Outstanding Career-Tech Teacher of the Year and I competed against the other sections in the state, like technical education, business education, agriscience education, health science. And I won as the Outstanding Career-Tech Teacher of the Year for the state of Alabama. And then it was almost nine, 10 months later that I competed at Region II with most of the Southern states. And we got to attend the Region [conference] in the Bahamas, which was very exciting. And I was chosen as the Region II Teacher of the Year. And then a few months later was sent to the national level, which was in Las Vegas. And there were three of us at the national level. And at that point there is an intense interview process that you sit down and go through. And after that interview, they tally and then the winner is announced on almost the last day of the conference as who the national Teacher of the Year would be. And I was fortunate enough to win that.

CI: And if you remember, were there any application materials that you had to fill out?

JB: There’s some paperwork that you’ll need to fill out, and your career-tech administrator is the person who signed off on mine because she was the one who nominated me. And there’s several questions that you answer, mainly issues and concerns, your philosophy, general information about what you do and ACTE at the local, state and national level: How involved are you? Other organizations that you’re involved in. And then once you submit this application it goes through all of these stages with you, as you compete. At the Region level, we also submitted a small video of answering questions and then of course at the national level for the Teacher of the Year, everything is done with a live interview process.

CI: Well, that’s great. At least you don’t have to fill out the same forms over and over again.

JB: Right, right.

CI: So have you participated in any special activities as Teacher of the Year?

JB: Yes, it’s been very exciting thus far this year. I have attended the National Policy Seminar in Washington, D.C., and was able to address the conference and meet with legislators—Congressmen, Senators—and really promote career and technical education funding and our concerns, to let them know what we’re all about at the local, state and national levels and what happens with our students and the great things that are going on in career and technical education. That was one of my highlights of the year. I was very honored and privileged to get to serve in that capacity, to be the spokesperson for ACTE.

I also came back then from that and attended the Alabama policy conference and got to address the committees and the Alabama ACTE membership and meet with politicians and address our concerns. And of course all this was happening with all of the budget cuts about to happen so that it was very important that we had a voice to speak about our concerns and how we need the funding.

I was very privileged this year to be graduation speaker at my high school that I graduated from, and that was very exciting to go back and address that class about what we’re doing in career and technical education and to encourage them to become teachers in this field. I was able to attend a lot of things in Alabama—the career-tech administrators conference, the Superintendents Association conference—and address career-tech to those conferences. I’ve been going to different school systems across the state and addressing issues in career and technical education and at our summer conference I was one of the speakers and presenters. And of course the local, state and national news articles have been unreal. It’s just been really exciting to have career-tech in the headlines and to show what great things we’re doing across the nation. That was really nice to be able to see articles across the nation about what we’re doing in career-technical education.

CI: Wow, that’s a lot.

JB: (laughs) It’s been a lot of fun and it’s not over. I’m going to address a school system in Alabama about what we’re doing with Alabama ACTE and the national ACTE. So it’s exciting and I look forward to the months to come to finish up my term and to really promote career-tech.

CI: So what have you gained professionally or personally from being Teacher of the Year, or what gains do you think you’ll reap in the future?

JB: I really have gained a lot of friendships; a lot of partnerships across the nation; a chance to meet career-tech educators from all over, from different states; to hear the stories of what these educators are doing to promote and retain their teachers; to hear the latest trends and concerns; and not only to listen to other people but to come together as a community and to help support our issues and concerns. The knowledge gained from what other states are doing is really great to bring back to Alabama and to share. And also as I said in the beginning, I’ve met so many new friends and partnerships that we can use to help promote career-tech education.

CI: How has ACTE helped you progress in your career?

JB: Well, it definitely gives me a platform, opens a lot of doors for me to get to go out and speak about my passion of career and technical education. It also provides resources for me to bring back of all the partnerships and the people that I have met that we can use in Alabama. And vice versa, I’m able to give them resources and information in other states that they can use. And just developing that partnership between the communities and the businesses out there, to come into the school systems, whether it’s on our local state or out in the nation, to come in and help train our students and to see what we’re doing and to provide resources, that’s wonderful to have those contacts. I don’t think I would have had all of this if I hadn’t have been the national Teacher of the Year so that it exposed me to more of these opportunities.

CI: What education, experience, service with ACTE, et cetera, would help others attain this distinction?

JB: Well, I believe that, with an educator, you need to get involved and get on some of the boards at the local, state and national levels. Get on some of the committees. Get involved with your state ACTE and the national so that you can learn what we’re about, learn where we need to be going in career-tech, to help you to become a better teacher. And then when you have the experience and the years needed to compete for these awards, you will be well prepared to do just that. And it gives back to our students, too, when we learn about what’s available out there and what can help us and how we fight for our funding and why we fight for it. And just to share this wealth of resources will help you as you go to apply for some of these awards.

CI: Now, you’ve served as a Master Mentor, is that correct?

JB: Yes.

CI: How important is mentorship for younger or less experienced CTE educators?

JB: Oh, it’s so important. A Master Mentor needs to be able to share the knowledge, to challenge the new teachers coming in, to stress the work ethics that are needed, to set high standards. You would find a quote in my room up on the wall for the students to see and it says “help each student reach their next level.” Well, we need to train these new teachers coming in that they need to reach all students and that we shouldn’t cheat these students out of one day of education. We need to prepare them for what the education world is about. You know, the new teachers coming in today are your Generation Y and they are already tech savvy: they’re 97 percent on a computer, 94 percent on a cell phone, 60 percent on an iPod. They know how to run the technology and they’re very good at it, and that’s what we need in the classrooms today to keep us current. I think what we need to work with our new teachers about is to share the academic excellence, to make sure that they are also teaching the core values and the science and the math and the reading and the writing. But we should also strive to teach them how to develop the total individual. We need to instill respect for others, develop a sense of responsibility, and inspire self-confidence and pride. Today’s students and tomorrow’s employees must cope with diverse and huge quantities of information and perform effectively in working groups and solve large and complex problems and exercise leadership and establish goals. The workplace is changing so fast today and we have to prepare these new teachers to be able to accomplish this with their students. And it takes a strong mentor to work with them to help them accomplish this and to be very positive about it, and to show them the rewards that they will benefit from when their students achieve.

CI: So what’s the one, single piece of advice you would give to that less experienced CTE educator or professional?

JB: Seek out the experienced teachers that are very positive; listen to them, learn from them. Also research, find out about your school, find out about your system, find out about the organizations that can support you. Get involved: jump in, get your kids involved in your CTSOs. Learn everything you can and stay on top of technology, and I believe our Generation Y teachers coming in will have an advantage, whereas the seasoned teachers have to go back and learn the technology. But to get involved and to listen to your Master Mentors.

CI: Now, to switch gears to your particular specialization, you belong to the Family and Consumer Sciences Division. Are there people who find some of the Family Consumer Sciences curricula outdated, and if so, what would you say in response to them?

JB: And I can see where a lot of people would say that. A lot of people think we just cook and sew. Times are changing and I do have a message about that, and one thing is about change. To me the true educator starts in the classroom, no matter if it’s Family and Consumer Science or any other area of education. The key to any instruction is the teacher, and I know that with all subjects we all have to learn to change and I believe you’re going to see that in Family and Consumer Sciences. And I’m going to give you an example. I’ve been in education for 16 years and I’ve taught in three states and at four different high schools. And I have gone through, as well as many other teachers in the nation, many events, and some of those events are the SCANS [Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills] reports, “A Nation at Risk,” one student at a time, block scheduling, seven-period scheduling, teacher and student testing in different states. We have changed our name from Home Economics to Family and Consumer Sciences to change with the times. We’ve had program and teacher cuts. We’ve had teacher shortages. We’re all living with No Child Left Behind. We’re going through Perkins mandates. A lot of us have attended Bill Gates’ philosophy schools, Bill Daggett’s model schools, Harry Wong’s training. We are all integrating the core academics and teaming with the core subjects. We’re learning new teaching strategies. We’ve gone through academies. We are reading books to keep us current in management: Who Moved My Cheese?, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, One Minute Manager. We’re all going through business-industry certifications. We’ve gone through High Schools That Work, Focus on Reading, new technology skills. It took me—because I moved so many times with my husband’s career with the Air Force—it took my 10 years to finally get tenure. And I’ve gone through seven principals and six career-tech directors and 11 coworkers in my 16 years. With that said, the FACS teachers and any classroom teacher must adapt to change and step up to become the educator. I believe we are changing. We used to know Family and Consumer Science was for a few students but now, today, it’s for all students. We used to just have it to learn life skills; now it’s all about careers. And we are now addressing the 16 career clusters. It used to be Family and Consumer Science was just for the average and the lower level teaching of students and today it’s aligned and supports academics and all children are included. And it used to be just high school focused in Family and Consumer Sciences; today, we’re postsecondary and college/universities and credentialing and certificates. We are changing; it’s taking time but you will see a difference in the Family and Consumer Sciences. WE are going now with the career clusters and you will see a change there. And I’m very excited in the way that we are moving with Family and Consumer Sciences for the future.

CI: Do you have a vision of what the Family and Consumer Sciences classroom of the future is going to look like?

JB: Yes, I see more technology. Our labs now are more career-minded, as culinary arts is one of the hottest clusters in Alabama right now. We’re seeing the lodging and the travel and tourism and the culinary, and the labs are going to be just like a restaurant or a hotel. When you walk into a Family and Consumer Science lab now it’s totally different from the old standard labs from the past. The latest technologies being used in all of the classroom—SMART boards, computer labs—are included in Family and Consumer Sciences. Some of our teachers are teaching online courses and so there’s a whole new feel about Family and Consumer Sciences. Teachers are going back to train, they’re learning more about the technology world so they can present this to the children. And we’re all about the career area and the family life as well, but we’re seeing more of the career side now.

CI: And you earlier mentioned career clusters. Are you working on aligning Family and Consumer Sciences with career clusters?

JB: We definitely are. Our new course of study in Alabama will start in the fall of ‘09 and Family and Consumer Sciences—the cluster is Human Services and we have three different clusters under it. We have Human Services, we have Education and Training, and we have Hospitality and Tourism. And under each one of those are several pathways that students can choose to go down. We will be seeing our teachers offering different clusters and different pathways, starting in ‘09. We are aligning these to be career so that when the children end our classes, they lead to postsecondary, right into the job, credentialing or into university and colleges. An example of the change in Family and Consumer Sciences: we just had our summer conference, our Alabama ACTE summer conference, and at the end of the summer conference we had a three-day workshop for all the hospitality teachers to become credentialed in ServSafe, which is food safety and sanitation. It was not mandatory; we encouraged 30 teachers to take it and we had a waiting list. So we were very excited about that new step and we hope to offer that again every summer and have every teacher that teaches a foods class, not just the culinary, to become certified in this field. Not only certified—when they score high enough, they can turn around and they can instruct the students to become credentialed and certified in ServSafe, will come right out of high school with that piece of credential. The restaurants, the food establishments will really appreciate that. As of January of 2009, every eating establishment in the state has to have an employee on every shift certified in ServSafe. Our kids will be walking out with that credential and I think that the businesses will greatly appreciate that so they don’t have to spend the time and money to train these students. So that’s just one example of the way we are changing. Another example in the state, we’re pushing national board certification for all teachers. And we recognized all 54 of our teachers this summer in career and technical education that have become certified. We hope that we’ll be adding more and more names to that every year. It’s just a credential that establishes that this teacher is highly qualified. So we want to definitely push that more in our state.

CI: Now that the term of your Teacher is Year is about to come to an end, what do you see as your next step with ACTE?

JB: Wow. I would love to become more involved in the state and national level. I’d like to be put in some leadership positions so I can encourage and motivate others to become involved in ACTE. And I think that this would be a golden opportunity to keep pushing forward and getting the information out to our teachers across the nation that ACTE provides a lot for us in career and technical education. They really fight hard for our funding. They support us with curriculum and they have just tons of resources that are available when you go online to help you with any area in career and technical education. So, at some point, [I] would love to have a leadership [role] more involved in the state and national level and I’m willing and able to do anything that is put before me at this time, I’ll be glad to do that.

CI: Well, it’s great to have you come on the air, and thanks for all that you’ve done for ACTE.

JB: Well, thank you. I have enjoyed it and again it was an honor and a privilege to serve as the spokesperson for this year. Thank you.

CI: Thank you. To learn more about the ACTE awards process and award winners, go to www.acteonline.org/about/awards.

August 22, 2008 - Interview with Barbara Morgan

Catherine Imperatore: This is Catherine Imperatore with ACTE. Joining me today is Barbara Morgan, an astronaut and educator who served on the 2007 Endeavour mission to the International Space Station. Having taught reading, English, math and science to elementary school students, Barbara became Teacher in Space Designee in the 1980s. Her duties have included public speaking, educational consulting, curriculum design and serving on the National Science Foundation’s Federal Task Force for Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering. Barbara, thank you so much for coming on the air today.

Barbara Morgan: Thank you, Catherine. It’s my pleasure.

CI: What were your responsibilities on last summer’s Endeavour mission to the space station?

BM: Well, our flight was an assembly mission to the International Space Station. So our job was to help finish its construction. By the time our flight was over, we had about 65 percent of the station finished. We took up a large truss piece that goes along the top of the station. This whole truss holds the solar arrays for collecting the solar energy and, also, a bunch of communication equipment and outside computers, things like that.

And we also attached a big stowage platform for spare parts for the space station, and again, things like outside computers, tanks for different fluids, spare joints for the robotic arm, things like that.

And then we also had a very large closet full of about 5,000 pounds worth of stuff for the inside of the station. And that’s living and working materials for our crew members who live on board the space station. And also things like spare parts for the inside.

So my particular responsibilities as part of that mission, I was one of the robotic arm operators for the space shuttle robotic arm and the space station robotic arm to help move these big pieces of equipment. And also the loadmaster for moving all that 5,000 pounds worth of stuff back and forth. So, we all moved it; one of my crewmates and I were responsible for getting it all organized and making sure it was all going well.

And then for entry, I was on the flight deck, so part of the entry flight crew, bringing our orbiter home. And then of course my favorite part of the mission—I loved all the mission, but a part that I also took very seriously because I feel it’s really important—was connecting with students and teachers and providing some education opportunities.

CI: How did you communicate with the students and teachers from the spacecraft?

BM: We had, we call it a downlink, but it’s actually an uplink/downlink. So the kids … we were not able to see them, but they were able to see us. We had groups of students from across the country, at a couple different locations. And they asked us questions and then we answered them, demonstrating our answers using things that we have on board the station and the shuttle.

And it was pretty interesting because … it was quite challenging because we didn’t have an extra person to be behind the camera, so we had to do it all kind of with this remote camera that made it much more challenging. And plus being 250 miles above the Earth, it’s much more challenging than being right in the classroom with your kids.

The other thing for education and this is the one I’m most excited about … we took up 10 million basil seeds. And we took up two small growth chambers.

We transferred the small growth chambers and a few of the seeds over to the space station where, after we undocked from the station and came back home, Clay Anderson, and Oleg and Fyodor are two Russian cosmonauts on the station, got the seeds growing and took a lot of photographs of them and gave some commentary. And it’s online for kids to be able to do some comparisons with the seeds that we brought back for them. So out of that 10 million basil seeds, we brought almost all 10 million back home. They were packaged up, and now they’re being distributed to schools all across the country, into classrooms, and also student groups—scouts or science museums or whatever.

The idea behind it is our assembly mission to help build the International Space Station. The International Space Station is a stepping stone to going back to the moon and onto Mars. And NASA right now is working on the next-generation spacecraft that will take us there. But there are many, many, many questions that have to be answered for us to be able to explore long duration on the moon, and then eventually on to Mars.

So, the idea of our seeds was to get kids engaged now, and this is K-12, so high school seniors on down to our youngest students. But to get them engaged now and thinking about and really participating in and contributing to space exploration. Not waiting until they’ve graduated from graduate school, but something they can do now. And we wanted them to think about, you know, many, many questions, but one of the questions is, “how are you going to feed people for long-duration space exploration, you know, in a hostile environment like the moon?”

And so our challenge is to design a growth chamber for the moon, or for Mars, or even for your own back yard and then get these basil seeds, if they’d like more of something just interesting that we were able to fly for them in space. And, if they want, they can test out their growth chambers with the basil seeds.

CI: Are schools and educators doing a good job of engaging students with science, engineering and technology? And, if not, what could they do differently?

BM: We have excellent teachers who are working really, really hard, and we’ve got great kids. I think this is a challenge that we are going to have to keep working very, very hard on. From my own personal opinion, I think the thing that makes a difference for our students and our teachers is giving them the opportunities to experience real work for themselves. You know, rather than solely reading about science or math, but to really get their hands on it and be able to experience in as real a situation as possible—whether it’s outside the classroom or in the classroom—but to really experience the joy of actually doing science and math, and using technology to do that kind of very interesting, engaging work, if you can be involved in it. And also to experience the joy of working on very challenging projects that are much bigger than any one individual, and working in a team on it.

CI: How can we prepare students for the jobs that enable humans to go to the Moon and to Mars?

BM: Well, I think we just hit on that and to provide our students those experiences, it’s really important that we give our teachers those same opportunities because they’re the ones who will be able to translate that into what works best for their students whom they know better than anyone else. But to allow them to participate in real, hands-on kinds of learning where they can learn by doing.

CI: You’ve said that children see what adults do, what risks they take, their attitudes. What qualities should students see from their educators?

BM: Well, I think that’s a great question. And I think they do see wonderful qualities from our educators. Like I’ve mentioned, we’ve got great teachers out there. And, you know, students should see from their educators exactly what the educators would want to see from their students.

CI: I’ve also heard you say that when you were in school, most women went into teaching or nursing. Why is it important for women to be encouraged to go into scientific fields? And, who encouraged you?

BM: These are all wonderful questions, Catherine. And, you know, I think it’s important for women to be encouraged to go into scientific fields, but I would say it’s important for women to be encouraged to go into all fields, and I think the same thing for our young men, too. Because the world is an open, and should be an open place for everybody to be full participants and full contributors to the things that make our world go around, make our world a better place, and be fully engaged in the human experience.

I think who encouraged me in the science area were my parents, first and foremost, because I got to be around it and to see the excitement—this was mostly in the medical field—but to see the excitement of what goes on in medicine and science. But I also had great teachers, you know, all the way from elementary school, all the way on up through high school and college who made science fun and interesting and you couldn’t help but like it.

CI: Are you going back to the classroom?

BM: I would love to go back to the classroom, and I look forward to that day.

CI: You’ve given a lot of interviews. What is one question you wish you had been asked, and your answer?

BM: Well, that question actually makes me laugh because that’s the first time I’ve been asked that question. The last first question that I had never been asked before, and this happened just a couple of weeks ago, was what kind of car do I drive, which I thought was pretty funny.

I guess one question … that’s a really hard one to come up with, but I guess one question would be I get asked a lot about science and math and technology and its importance … and what do I think about literature and art and music, and things like that, as far as your subjects go, too. And so if I were asked that I would say that they are really, really important subjects as well.

CI: We really appreciate you taking the time to talk, Barbara.

BM: Thanks for what you do to really work with folks on the hands-on education. I hope I got that point across, but I truly think that’s what makes a difference for our kids. And I see that with my own students, and I see that with my own children at home, too.

CI: Well, thank you.

BM: Yeah, thanks so much, Catherine. And hello to all my colleagues in education out there.

CI: For more information on how educators can get involved with NASA, listen to the Career Tech Talk December 2007 episode with NASA astronaut candidate selection and training manager Duane Ross or visit http://education.nasa.gov/.

July 18, 2008 - Interview with Dr. Kathleen King

Catherine Imperatore: This is Catherine Imperatore with ACTE. I’m speaking with Dr. Kathleen P. King, a graduate professor of adult education and human resources development at Fordham University; president and CEO of Transformation Education, LLC; an author and a podcaster about education technology on the Teachers’ Podcast. Kathy, I’m so you glad you were available to talk today.

Dr. Kathleen King: Absolutely, it’s a pleasure.

CI: Please briefly give us your definition of a podcast.

KK: Well, I think there’s some vital things to consider when you’re defining podcasting, Catherine. That’s a very good question, actually. It’s not just—let me start there—it’s not just posting audio up on the Web. Because the very definition of podcasting is that you’re using an RSS feed. That sounds like a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo at first, doesn’t it?

CI: (laughs) Yeah.

KK: But the essence of podcasting is that audio is being delivered by the Web but it’s very convenient for listeners. So you have to do an audio recording, and it’s a digital audio recording that gets posted on the Web. But the difference is it gets tied together with an RSS script, a script that’s made in a certain programming language, and that can be automated, but it enables the podcast to be automatically delivered to somebody who’s interested in it. I’ll give an example. Somebody decides, “I want to listen to a podcast about using podcasting in a classroom. So they go through the directory at iTunes or Podcast Alley or wherever they’re looking for podcasts because there’s over 100 different podcast directories out there. And they pick out the ones that they like. They then for free click a little button that says “Subscribe.” And then what happens is, every time they go back to that directory, whether they open iTunes or they open up Podcast Alley or whichever one they’re using, automatically the most recent episodes show right up there for them. If it was just audio Web, somebody would have to go out and check every podcast they’re interested in, go the Web site and say, “is there a new episode, is there one today, is there one this week, is there one next week?” you know, and check all the 20 different ones you’re listening to. Instead it becomes one-stop shopping and automatic, the ones that you like, the ones you subscribe to, automatically get pushed right to your mailbox. And that’s the exciting part because that’s the Web 2.0 technology. Not just posting the audio on the Web but using the RSS feed. And that’s what happened Labor Day weekend of 2004 is that these guys got together and put together these technologies to create podcasting. CI: Wow. I didn’t know that was the birthday of podcasting (laughs).

KK: (laughs) Yes, it is. I’ve written quite a few articles and we actually have a book out on podcasting for teaching. So I do a lot of research on this and keep up with data on it as well. So we actually have a point in time to be able to look back to and see where that was. It’s pretty amazing when you look at the growth of podcasting, Catherine, I don’t know how familiar you are with that.

CI: A little. I just did some research just the numbers on iTunes as an example to give to our board. iTunes started in ‘05 and they had, I think, 8,000 at the end of their first year.

KK: That was the summer ‘05. That’s a very important date, because that was June ’05 when iTunes started to include podcasts in their directory. Before that iTunes only had music and then video in it, right? When they included podcasts in the directory, it really kind of spearheaded a wider social adoption. Before that it was really a lot of geeky people like us that were pursuing podcasting. And you had to know where to search around, how to Google to find them, and you had to use these other directories to get to any of the podcasts. Once iTunes opened up and included podcasts in that directory, it really opened up social adoption. Now if you go to a site called FeedBurner, a lot of people use that to track their stats of their podcasts. I checked it last week and there were 1.7 million podcasts listed in FeedBurner. So that’s from literally about six people in the fall of ’04 to—we’re in the summer of ’08—1.7 million people with podcasts. And recent stats, I think it was from iTunes, is saying that they’re having millions of podcasts downloaded each week. So in other words, people are picking up and downloading individual episodes at that rate.

So you’ve got the production of podcasts on one side, it’s 1.7 million series. Then you’ve got all the people loading … you know, like you have several episodes for your series, I have like 20 episodes in one series, 20 in another, 100 episodes in another series. So you have to take that 1.7 million and multiply it like anywhere from 3 episodes from 100 or 200, and that’s when you get how many individual episodes are actually out there. Then you look at the listening side to see the vast number of people listening to them.

CI: And what are the basics for creating a podcast?

KK: That’s the greatest thing, and that’s why I got all excited about it in the summer of ’05, is because before that point it was kind of complicated to record digital audio. Now all you need—you use free software, which is publicly available—Audacity works for Mac, Windows, even Linux, download it for free. You need an available computer, that’s how I describe it. You don’t even need to own one, you don’t have to have one dedicated in your classroom, just that it’s available to you to use. And a microphone. Now you know, Catherine, that nowadays a lot of computers are coming with an in-board mic, especially laptops, right? But we started our original podcast with a $10 microphone. And you can get good sound of that when you’ve got the person sitting next to you that you’re doing the podcast with or it’s just you individually. Now when you start recording out on the road, and you start doing phone interviews, it’s a little bit more complicated. But you can start with zero dollars. Even the hosting account where you post it on the Web—you spin it out, it gets created, there are all-in-one packages now that are literally zero dollars. As long as you don’t become as popular as the big-time podcasts out there, you know, a grand-slam hit … then when you become really popular it creates a lot of traffic and the costs start to incur. But that doesn’t happen for most people. Even with our podcast with as many people as we’ve had listen to it, I’ve sustained with an account that costs us $10 a month.

CI: So what would be the benefits of podcasting in the classroom?

KK: Oh, there are so many, Catherine. My co-host, Mark, and I do Teachers’ Podcast, we call it a new generation of ed tech professional development, and we’ve written that book that I mention. And we came up with kind of like a very simple taxonomy of looking at podcasts, and I think this kind of puts it in a nutshell. You can think about podcasting as teacher-created podcasts, those that teacher create for their classroom use or for use with other teachers. And then you can think about student-created podcasts. So podcasts can be student activities, and, oh man, I could go on for two hours with you, Catherine, on that. The possibilities are tremendous. Then you have fewer examples, but these are powerful: we’ve really gotten excited about professional development podcasts. And that’s what I’m really invested a lot in is creating podcasts as a way of delivering valuable, realistic, authentic professional development for educators. And they have it available 24/7, they can access it whenever they want and listen to it on the go or at their computer. It’s the same thing for learners of all ages, right? So teacher-created materials are the same way.

CI: Well, give us some more specific examples.

KK: Sure. Thinking about teachers creating podcasts for their classrooms, they might want to start [in] that place first. Some start with the students creating it. But let’s start with the teacher, if they wanted to create one. One might be, you know, you can think about differentiated learning. And, you know, you have your mainstream students, kind of like the middle of the bell of the curve, the large group of students in your classroom and their needs, and that tends to be where we teach to, right? And we have those great needs at the upper end of the curve and the lower end. How are we addressing those day after day and hour after hour in our classrooms? Podcasting can really help with that, as one example, because you can create or pull in already created materials that can address higher order thinking, advanced topics. So say you’re teaching, you know, a high school algebra class. And you have some students that are really running ahead. And you say, well, “let me go online and get dansmathcast”—he’s a friend of mine, Dan Bach—“get dansmathcast and I’m going to pull that down and make that available to the students on their computers or on a CD or on an mp3 player.” And they can listen to that and go through the exercises and assignments Dan has when they get through with their classwork or if they’re looking for extra credit assignments. Dan does a terrific job, he’s humorous but he’s also a community college professor in math and he just—you know, a great math teacher is just something rare to find. So any teacher around the world can bring Dan right into the classroom to help the advanced students. Now, in addition, if you want to meet the needs of students that are struggling, teacher can pull out a handy dandy little digital recorder, 30 bucks, right? And you can sit at your desk and you can say, “okay, now, class” and just do a private recording and say, “now this is how we go through the problem, let’s step through it again, pull out your worksheet and go through these steps, repeat it with me and then check your answers in this manner.” And go through that as a private tutorial. And it’s something that the students that are struggling can go on the Web and pull it down to be able to listen to while they’re doing their homework or if they need to listen to it in class, they can listen to it while the teacher is involved with another group of students. So it becomes a tool for independent learning. It becomes a resource for them to be able to go back to as many times as they need to. You know, unfortunately we as educators can’t stand there or sit there next to each student and go through the instruction several times with them because we have so many in our classroom. But through podcasting we can kind of replicate ourselves and it becomes just-in-time learning. Those are both very powerful.

Now another example—that’s the teacher’s side of it, right? And classroom materials. Another example is … oh, I’ve just gotten so excited about what you can do with student projects. And K-12 has really run ahead on this. And in career and technology education you just have so many possibilities. I used to teach engineering, I used to teach computer-aided designing, and one of the things that you really need to do with career and technical ed students is help them to see direct application, right? Because we’re not just teaching theory but we’re talking about concepts and we’re talking about principles that need to be applied and [they] need to understand how it fits into context. So you could create a situation, and one possibility for a student-created podcast could be that you have students in a certain scenario. Here’s the project, maybe they’re in an architectural design class in a high school, right? Or a community college. And so then you say, “here’s your project, you have a backyard deck you need to build, here’s the situation,” you show them a photograph of it, say, “now you have to develop your resources, and talk about how you’re going to design it and create a whole presentation that you would do for the client.” And you’re going to record the whole presentation as if you were doing it for the client, so it’s like role playing. But they have to do the research, they have to write the script, they submit it to you for rewriting, right, the editing. They have everything built in there. They’re applying what they know about measurement, they’re applying what they know about structures, they have to find the materials, then they have to put it together in a way that’s going to sound understandable to the client and create a good presentation for them in the podcast. So now they’re practicing their presentation skills. If they’re working in a group, what do you have on top of it? Collaborative skills, right? Which are so important for the workplace.

I teach graduate school, I teach teachers—I was so excited because this was such a difference. My students in this class, it wasn’t a tech class, it was a foundations class, you know what they did with their assignments, their podcasts they made? This was so wild. They started e-mailing out their assignments to everybody they knew, their families and friends. They were so excited about the work they had done, they had made podcasts as part of their class, that they started e-mailing them to all their friends and families. Now I don’t know how often that happens with other teachers, but it doesn’t happen too often to me that my students want to e-mail their papers out after the fact to all their friends, you know? And brag about, “hey, look at the paper I wrote.” Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen too often. But when it comes to creating new media, creating content of their own and expressing themselves, they get really excited. Because they’re front and center and they’re able to engage in this technology themselves.

CI: Wow, that sounds great.

KK: Yeah. It really brings learning into a different dimension for them. And with student-created podcasts, Catherine, that’s just one example is, you know, you give them a scenario that they have to solve. You can do oral histories, they can go out and interview people in the community. How terrific that would be for CTE, right? They go out and interview different people with different jobs in different places that they work to see what they’re actually doing and then use that as a basis for a class presentation. They can pull the audio right into a PowerPoint for their class. There’s also software, very inexpensive, SnapKast is an example of one, ProfCast is another, to be able to combine your PowerPoint and your audio and spin those out into a podcast. And it actually produces that script so that you have one episode after the other. It’s all one integrated product. Those are available, too. So that’s a great tool for students and classrooms to be able to use as well. And they sell those in education bundles. ProfCast is for the Mac and SnapKast is for the PC.

CI: Does the administration in many schools and districts support or encourage podcasting or is this mostly a grassroots where the teachers start podcasting rather than coming top down from their district administrators?

KK: It’s a combination at this point, in 2008. More and more administrators are beginning to see the power of this. They’re instituting programs in their districts and in their states, et cetera. We’ve been talking with the state of West Virginia, they’re very active, we’ve been talking with Missouri as well, we’ve been having meetings with state departments of ed, my colleague and I. And they’re very interested in seeing the power of this and doing pilots and getting it running and trying to find out how to bring more teachers into the adoption of it. So it’s coming from top down. But I’d say, by and large, up until this point, it’s mostly been grassroots, you’re right. It’s been teachers capturing the vision and then saying, “I want to try this out.” And the beauty of that is you can try it out individually as a teacher and kind of take your bumps with it, you know? Find out what works and what doesn’t for you and what you like before you start displaying it to the school and your supervisor, you know? Kind of like have your own private little lab to be able to do this like you do so many things in your classroom. You try out new strategies and you so you have that privacy of being able to try it out and everything. Or you might do it with a colleague and so you do a collaboration and figure it out and try different ways of doing it with your students.

But we have so many people that listen to Teachers’ Podcast write into us and tell us about the new series that they start that they’ve replicated what they do, what they’re doing with their classes, et cetera. It’s just so exciting to see the power of this new media for helping teachers to create their content, to better meet the needs of their students individually, to support learner-centered instruction, to support collaborative learning, and it fits in in so many ways. And it fits on top of what we already know is best practice for classrooms. A lot of people ask me like what’s best practice for podcasting, and I’m like, “well, it’s the same thing as we know is best practice for teaching and learning,” you know? It’s learner-centered instruction, collaboration, higher order thinking skills. Those are all the same areas. You can bring this into the content standards that you need.

It’s not about the technology, it’s not about the podcasting, it’s about making teaching and learning greater for those students. Giving them more ownership of what they do, giving them a vision of learning as something they want to be engaged in, and deepening their experience of teaching and learning. So it really grabs hold of them, you know? Retention is such a big issue once you start getting into middle school and beyond. We have to make teaching and learning experiences relevant for these students. It really has to be relevant in order for them to have a buy-in to education and stay there. And students, unlike older adults and maybe people introduced to technology later, that didn’t grow up with it, you know, younger adults and younger students, they don’t want to just be information users, they don’t want to just be consumers of information, Catherine, they want to create content. That’s what they expect to be doing. They expect to be creating new media content. You know, I know so many students that have their own journals online by the time they’re 8 and 9 years old. And they’re password protected and they’re in safe environments, et cetera, et cetera. But they expect to be expressing their opinions, have their online expression of who they are. And this is how they’re growing up as young people and validating who they are. When we as educators or as adults cut off that experience from formal education or we don’t talk about it or we’re frightened of it like some people are, we lose a tremendous opportunity to engage with students, you know. It’s kind of like coming into their turf and capturing the possibilities of this technology for what we know they need to learn.

One of the great things is, too, and this is why I suggested a little bit, Catherine, that people might not want to start with student-created podcasts is I find that young people and young adults learn this so easily. So it’s a great opportunity to model that we can learn from our students, that we can be co-learners with them, that we can draw alongside and discuss the issues and move back and forth. They like grow several inches in their sneakers when you do that with them, you know, it’s a great experience to see that happen. That platform can just be so powerful.

CI: Do you know of any ineffective uses of podcasting in education?

KK: Oh, boy, I didn’t even have to tell you to ask me that question. I’d say, the one that frustrates me—I wouldn’t call it entirely ineffective—I’d say the one that frustrates me the most is what I call coursecasting. And this happens a lot, you’ll see in a minute, it lends itself to higher ed. People go in and they record lectures and then just slap them up on the Web for everybody to hear. And I have a problem with that—I mean, they don’t even edit them, you know, that’s even the worst scenario. I have a problem with that because what I do with my classroom first of all isn’t a lecture, I’m much more interactive in that I engage back and forth, asking questions, when I teach a class. So that’s going to be hard to record all of that dynamic, okay. Another is that when I prepare a class or a presentation or a keynote, I’m preparing for that a particular audience in mind. I mean you do that with every class you teach, you understand your learner’s needs, you understand where you’re headed, you know what you did yesterday, you know what you have to do tomorrow. There’s a context. And when you try to take something that’s been recorded or done or created for one context, and just broadcast it, kind of blast it out to every possible context, you’re going to miss the mark.

Now, there is some benefit to it, that’s why I wouldn’t say it’s totally ineffective. Students that miss a class, that’s a good thing so they can at least get the lecture audio part of it, right? Students that have a language area that they’re trying to catch up on, could be a variety of things, might be EOL, it might be difficulty taking notes, could be any number of things. They can play back the recording, okay, as many times as they need to, slow it down, rewind it, fast forward it, et cetera. So there are some valid uses of using that, certainly. But that’s not the purpose why most people are doing it. Most of the time I find people are doing coursecasting as a down and dirty, quick way to say, “our place is doing podcasting and look at how many we have.” Because their total emphasis was always, “we have 3,000 podcasts, we have this many podcasts,” you know, and everything. And all they are are recorded lectures slapped up onto a Web and a feed. So that’s what I would say are the less effective.

CI: resources can educators explore to learn more about podcasting?

KK: I know that there are a number of podcasts themselves for people to be able to listen to about podcasting. Podcast 411, now this has nothing to do with education, but this is a good friend of mine, Rob Welch, he’s one of the gurus of podcasting, and he does interviews with people that are podcasters. And so in there some where along the way I am, but that’s not the point. You get to hear why people started podcasting, how they do it, why they do it, and all these different formats and topics that they do. So it kind of gives you an overview. I mean, you can skip through this huge inventory, archive of all of these different interviews that Rob did. That’s a really good introduction to the “me as podcaster” side of the world. Another is our book, Podcasting for Teachers. That’s a very, very good one because we wrote that specifically with K-12 teachers in mind. We were introducing how to do podcasting, the need for podcasting, and the way to be able to do podcasting. In addition we went through curriculum and we went through curricular examples of podcasting. So we show you, this school’s doing this, this teacher’s doing that, this is an example of a podcast that’s used in science, this is one that’s used in English, this one’s used in social studies, this is an example of oral history, here’s an example of a historical narrative, here’s an interview, et cetera. So we walk you through that, give you plenty of examples, but we also show you the very basics of how to do podcasting, the equipment out there, kind of soup to nuts.

Other resources are also, I think, ISTE is a wonderful organization, International Society for Technology in Education. I’m headed down there in late June for their conference. And ISTE and NECC conference, you’ll always find sessions on podcasting. From time to time, Teachers’ Podcast has virtual sessions as well. We have a resource page at http://www.teacherspodcast.org/, if you go up to the top you’ll find a tab for podcasting resources, and it has links to the Audacity software, links to the book, links to tutorial on how to use that software, et cetera, et cetera.

CI: Well, thanks so much. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

KK: Well, I think that we need to also think about helping our administrators in the process of adoption, Catherine. And I’ve been able to be part of a project called District Leader’s Podcast. And that’s found at districtleaderspodcast.org. Another one that we’ve been doing is Talking Financial Literary, and that’s at talkingfinlit.org. So one of the ways to help your leadership or your other teachers around you to understand the power of podcasting is to provide them with some podcasts that are going to be meaningful learning for them, you know? Rather than talking at them, let them experience it. And so District Leader’s Podcast is a whole bunch of interviews with superintendents, school leaders, school board members, and meant to be a support, shot in the arm, strengthening, vision-building, leadership tool, you know? It’s all free. So that might be one to point a principal or superintendent to, so they could see, “oh, this does have value,” you know? And the Talking Fin Lit I know really fits a lot of career and tech ed kind of situations, and that might be whole different format that would be very interesting for people to listen to. And that’s about financial literacy, and we’re doing interviews with people from around the country who have developed programs and we’re bringing together curricular resources through that. The Teachers’ Podcast is really geared towards … Mark and I kind of like being your ed tech professional developers at a distance. You can tune in every two weeks or as often as you need to because we’re archived online. And tune in and be able to listen to our episodes about news, curriculum, technology advances, et cetera. Because a lot of people don’t have an ed tech person right there in their school or they can’t get PD often enough or relevant PD often enough. It’s really funny, a lot of people, Catherine, listen to podcasts while they’re driving to work instead of the radio or they tell me they’re listening to us at the gym. And so people are fitting this technology and learning opportunity into all different parts of their life, you know, which really fits us in the 21^st century. So we kind of think outside of the box as to how to help people realize the power of podcasting, get them on board to support what we want to do in our classrooms, in our schools, let them be able to bring that into what we do with our students. There are great possibilities, I’m really looking forward to seeing more developments in career and technical education because this is an area that’s so close to my heart, having worked for 6 years in an engineering college. That was working with people just starting out and getting launched into these careers.

CI: Well, great! Thanks so much for talking to me today.

KK: Oh, very happy to do. I’ve listened to your show and I know that you’re filling a great need for your professional group there. I wish that more professional associations were following the example.

CI: Thank you.

KK: We’re going to be mentioning you in some of our articles that are coming up, actually. Thanks very much!

CI: You can listen to the Teachers’ Podcast at http://www.teacherspodcast.org/. Learn more about the Fordham University adult education program at www.fordham.edu/gse/aded and Transformation Education, LLC at http://www.transformationed.com/.

June 20, 2008 - Interview with David Warlick

Catherine Imperatore: This is Catherine Imperatore with ACTE. I’m speaking with David Warlick, a 30-year educator, author, consultant and public speaker on 21st century teaching and learning. Hi David, it’s great to talk to you today.

David Warlick: Wonderful to be here with you.

CI: Why is blogging a useful tool to use in the classroom?

DW: Well, I think it’s important to understand exactly what blogging is about and what’s really in the … I like to call it the spirit of the new Web tools. Let me just start off by giving you my definition. If you listen to podcasts about, you know, Web 2.0, always the first question is “what is your definition of Web 2.0?” Cause it’s this nebulous thing that’s really kind of hard to understand. In my way of looking at it, Web 1.0 was like a library. It was a place where you went to find information. Web 2.0 is different in that in Web 2.0 applications, information is more about conversation. It’s more about information, but it’s about the conversation that takes place around the information. So in a blog, you have content being generated by the blogger, who may have some established credential or expertise in that area or may not have. But what gets wrapped around that blog is a conversation in the form of the comments and in the form of other bloggers who blog about what you blog about.

So I have a blog called 2¢ Worth and I post ideas and observations and reflections on things that I see in my work and depending on the time I have I will polish it and try to refine the quality of the writing because it is very much about publishing. But then what happens is people will comment on the blog, people will write about what I wrote about in their blogs and of course their blogs come to me through RSS. And then this conversation wraps around it, and the thing is, that’s where the real value happens in many blogs is in the conversation. The idea goes out but then the idea gets built upon and it becomes a part to larger ideas. I think it’s what’s really powerful educationally in that the reader actually becomes part of the content.

So, you know, you may have the teacher has a blog and the teacher writes something about what’s being studied and then the students are required to come in and read the teacher’s blog and then comment on it. So this conversation starts to take place around the document in a way that’s difficult to see happen in a textbook. But with a blog, it’s all built in so that you have this conversation going on and the result is the students get a chance to reflect on what they’ve read in the blog, they share their reflections with each other, they build on each other’s reflections and very often the teacher actually learns from this. The teacher learns from a perspective that a student or a group of students have shared. And it actually becomes a learning experience for the teacher. So you can have the teacher writing a blog and the students are commenting on the blog, you can have students writing the blogs and the teachers writing the comments. There are teachers who are actually using blogs as the platform for the writing assignments. So the students are studying some concept in physics or engineering or whatever and they’ve been asked by the teacher to reflect, you know, “here’s what you’ve learned how to do, how do you see this impacting on your industry or impacting on the service or the customers” whatever. And the students are writing and the teacher comes in and comments on the students’ writing. So it becomes a platform for the homework.

And then you can step back another level and have the students commenting on each other’s writing. The written homework assignment takes on whole new dimensions where it’s not just a conversation between the teacher and the student where the student, you know, does the assignment, turns it into the teacher, the teacher reads it, gives them a grade, turns that back into the student, you know, a very narrow conversation. But the students are actually required as part of the assignment to read the reflections or the work of each other and then respond to that. So it becomes more of a class-wide assignment, which adds a whole new dimension. And it doesn’t have to just be writings, it can be images, it could be, you know, some motor that a student has put together and they video the motor and they install that on their blog so that other students after class can come in and see the video and they can respond, you know, “I liked the way you solved this problem, have you thought about doing it this way.”

It takes education to a whole new dimension because, again, it turns it into a conversation. If I had to give one word to 21st-century education, it would be a conversation. It’s a whole different kind of conversation that happens in the learning experience. You’ve also got the comments coming in from the community. You’ve got that additional dimension where your students are learning, they’re working, they’re building, they’re reflecting, they’re taking what they’re building, they’re taking pictures of it, making videos of it, they’re writing about it, they’re putting it on their blogs. And the teacher has invited a community of people already in that field in your local community or globally. And you’re inviting, you know, practitioners to come in and reflect on the students’ work. So you’ve expanded that conversation out well beyond the classroom.

CI: I wouldn’t think that very many classroom blogs are open to the general public, are they?

DW: That depends on the age of the student and it also depends on the country. Here in the US very rarely do you see that happen although with my particular tool, Class Blogmeister, the teacher can switch that feature off and switch it back on again. I know a lot of the teachers will have the students do a blogging assignment and then they work on the assignment and they comment on each other’s and they polish it up to a point where it is ready for the community read and reflect on. And then the teacher can then open it up so that it becomes available to the parents, to the community, to a global audience. Once that part of the activity is done, then they shut it back down again. With Class Blogmeister, the commenting is controlled by the teacher. So anything that gets commented to a student’s blog comes to the teacher’s mailbox first and the teacher has an option of letting it through or blocking it. Or the teacher doesn’t want their mailbox getting filled up with comments, there’s a Web page that the teacher can go to read each comment as it comes in and approve it or delete or, you know, postpone it, or whatever. So the teacher has control over it. Now that’s K through, you know, 10, 12. Once you get on into postsecondary, then it’s a lot safer to leave it open.

CI: Can you introduce a little more about Class Blogmeister?

DW: Well, Class Blogmeister was developed in 2004. I’d been blogging since sometime in 2003 and talking to teachers at conferences about it. And teachers got very excited because they saw, intuitively they saw the value of this sort of thing because it gives voice to the student’s learning. It gives the student an opportunity to reflect and give voice to what they’re learning. And we’ve known for a long time that when students have an opportunity to talk about, to publish about, to express what they’re learning, they’re learning very well. IN fact, teachers know this as teachers. You get a group of teachers together and you ask them, you know, “how many of you learned what you teach better after you started teaching it than you did as a student in university?” And every single hand goes up because you have to organize and express and publish something to a real audience with a real goal in mind, to actually teach them something, you learn it very, very well. Problem was what you just asked, about, we get kind of nervous when we think of an 18-year-old, 15-year-old, 9-year-old writing into a Web form, a blog, and then hitting the submit button and it be suddenly available to the world and everybody, that makes us a little bit nervous.

So in 2004, there weren’t any blogging engines available that gave a teacher, a central person, control over the content for the sake of safety. So I built Class Blogmeister and it was opened up January 2005. It took off, there’s now about 160,000 users of Class Blogmeister. I’m not really promoting it now because there are other tools out there. What’s good about Class Blogmeister is that most of what is there that is good is there because teachers who are using it have suggested, you know, “it would be really cool if we could do this.” You know, “I like this feature but it would even better if we could do this.” So that’s what I’ve gotten out of Class Blogmeister is learning from practicing educators how these sorts of things can be integrated into the teaching and learning experience. The problem with CB is that, as you know, I’m almost constantly on the road with speaking engagements and if there’s a technical problem it can take a couple of days for me to get to a point where I can fix it. So I’d recommend some other tools: ePals, ePals.com has a blogging engine now; Gaggle.net has a blogging engine; there’s one called 21Classes, which I’ve heard some good things about. I don’t know a lot about it but there are some education bloggers who I respect a great deal who use it and like it. And there are a number of others that have full-time technical staff to support them. And I usually try to aim people in those directions because I know how important reliability is. But I continue to keep Class Blogmeister going because there’s so many people using it and I’m probably adding 20 or 30 new teachers a day. It’s what they want to use. Feature-wise it gives the teacher control over the content. Students’ blogs don’t go live until the teacher has seen it first and approves it. Comments that are coming in—students can’t see it until the teacher’s seen it first and approved it. That’s what educators, K-12 educators in the United States, need.

CI: So would you say that most blog applications in the classroom revolve around assignments?

DW: Yes, but also one of the things that I’m hearing from teachers is that the students take it on themselves. I remember specifically, and I hear this a lot, but I remember specifically a blog that was written by a teacher who uses Class Blogmeister but it could have been any blogging engine. Basically it was toward the end of the year and he was blogging about, it was basically a diary of the day. And he was talking about what he as a normal fifth-grade, I think it was a fifth-grade teacher, did that day. And throughout the description he was talking about approving this article or that article written by this student or that student in a blog. And at the end of the article he said, “You know, it only just occurred to me that none of the blog articles that I approved where a result of an assignment.” This was writing that the students were choosing to do on their own and it’s one of the first comments that I heard from teachers as they started using blogging was, you know, they writing back to me and saving, “I can’t believe this, my students are begging me for writing assignments.”

And I think that the key is that when students are blogging or whatever type of collaborative, communicative technology that they’re using to do their writing—when they’re blogging, it stops being a writing assignment and it turns into a communications assignment, it turns into a conversation assignment. When it’s a writing assignment, they are writing to the teacher, they are writing what they think the teacher wants to read, they’re writing for a grade. However, when they’re writing in their blog or their wiki or whatever, they’re writing knowing that at least their classmates are going to be responding. So it becomes more of a conversation and that’s what digital natives, if I can use that term, that’s what they do with the Internet. You know, when they go home, they’re instant messaging, they’re communicating through their social networks. You know, communication is really at the heart of much of who they are. And if we can give them assignments in the classroom, within the context of what they’re supposed to be learning, the curriculum, the standards, whatever, but that involve communicating, not just proving to you that they’ve learned what they’re supposed to learn, but they’re actually communicating, then it’s an assignment that becomes part of them. It’s something that they can climb into and work, rather than just performing.

CI: You mentioned wikis. Can you give us some tips on how they can be used effectively in the classroom?

DW: A wiki is really a work tool. It’s not like a blog in that you can give an assignment, and they write the blog and you have the conversations and then you get on with the next blog. A wiki is something that really takes on a life of its own. And the best wiki applications that I’ve seen in the classroom, it’s actually part of the classroom. For instance, if I were still—I taught history—and if were still teaching history, I would probably never make another study guide for my students for the tests. I would have a classroom wiki and my students’ job would be to develop their own study guides through the wiki. As we’re going through the unit, their job is to take their notes through the days and add those notes to the wikis and organize those notes so that they are constructing their own guide that they’re going to use to study for the test. Now as the teacher, I monitor their work and if see that they’re adding a lot of notes about something that’s not going to be on the test, I’ll tell them. You know, “I’m glad you’re interested in this, I’m interested in a lot of the content that you’ve put together, but to be fair, I need to explain to you that there aren’t going to be any questions on that on the test. However, there are going to be questions on this topic and you need some more content over there.” So I would continue to guide them but their job would be to produce an information product that will help them study for the test. I know one teacher, a computer science teacher down in Georgia, who doesn’t use a textbook anymore. I mean, she used to say to her class, say, “I want you to write a report about word processing, I want you to write a report about quantum computing, I want you to write a report about virtual reality.” And now she says, “I want you write the chapter on word processing, I want you to write the chapter on quantum computing, I want you to write the chapter on virtual reality.” The students are using a wiki site to actually produce their own textbook.

So part of being the student is not just learning, but it’s expressing what you’re learning and actually building your own information product, your own textbook. And the students become responsible, and I think that’s one of the biggest benefits of this type of assignment is if I’m writing a report for you, it’s like a two-way contract between me and you. I’m writing this report, I’m writing what I think you want to read, you’re going to read it, you’re going to give me a grade, and that’ s it. But if I’m responsible for writing the chapter that all of my classmates are going to be using to study for the test, I’m not responsible just to you, my teacher, and just to myself but I become responsible to the entire class. I become responsible for the learning that I’m doing and what I’m doing with that learning. Another application of it that I just read about recently, a college professor up in British Columbia who assigned the students to write a report as a Wikipedia article, to submit it to the Wikipedia as an article. The grade was based on the quality of their article, but the only way that you could make an A was if your article were elevated to a featured Wikipedia article. Each day they feature articles. And he said, “if you’re article is good enough that the Wikipedia includes it in their featured articles page, then you get an A.” What’s important about that is the authenticity of the assignment. You aren’t writing just for the teacher within the context of just the curriculum but you’re actually taking what you’re learning and then you’re putting it into a community and the community is responding by judging it worthy of being a featured article or just staying as an article or getting rejected. I mean, if you’re article gets rejected, then I guess that’s a good way to make a D or an F.

CI: I imagine it’s also a good place if you’re working on a special project to let the teacher and your classmates know your progress.

DW: Absolutely. In fact this is one of the biggest benefits that I hear from teachers on using wikis is that the teacher, because of how wikis work, the teacher can keep track, not only of the progress of the students but actually what individual students are contributing because the students have to log in to the wiki and the wiki keeps a record of every single edit. So the teacher can go through and look at the history of the students’ work and see who submitted what, who published what, who edited what. From an assessment point of view, it’s absolutely perfect for education.

CI: And just to clarify for our listeners because I know this … we all have trouble with this. Wikipedia is just one public example of a wiki—

DW: It’s actually an aberration (laughs)—

CI: An aberration, okay.

DW: –of the wiki. Wikis were never intended to be something like the Wikipedia. Wiki was intended to be a collaborative tool that a small group of people would use to build some sort of information product, a manual, a guide or whatever that would be useful to that small group of people. Wiki was never intended to be a global thing like the Wikipedia. Yet the Wikipedia has been a sensational success. It is, you know, it’s far more reliable, far larger, far deeper than anything that we have any right to expect. It’s an amazing source of content.

CI: Do you know of any particular applications for blogs or wikis in career and technical education?

DW: Well, the one that I just mentioned about the computer science teacher. And this could easily be done in any type of a technical or any applied area is having the students as a class contributing to a manual, contributing to, you know, a guide. If you’re doing networking, the class has probably got a project going on where you’re networking a business or a school or hospital or something like that. The administrators of that network need to have some sort of a guide or a manual—I’m sure there’s a better term for it—but that they can use to troubleshoot through problems that occur in that particular location. It could be part of the project to have the students use the wiki to build out this manual.

If I could add, there’s one other area of Web 2.0 that you might not have gotten into in your previous conversations that I think could possibly be the biggest benefit to educators, and that’s the use of RSS and RSS aggregators. We live in a time of rapid change, and especially as educators and practical skills, those skills are changing, the technology is changing, the clientele is changing, where the services are coming from is changing. And it’s become more important than ever for teachers to actually practice lifelong learning. And one way of doing that is to stay connected to the community of practitioners, of experts, in order to get the latest information, the latest techniques.

And one way of doing that is by reading blogs and one way of reading blog is by literally subscribing to those bloggers who have things to say to help you do your job. You do this with an application called an aggregator. An aggregator may be a piece of software that you download off of the Internet; in most cases it’s a Web site that you go and set up an account on such as Bloglines.com or Google.com/reader. There is a very interesting one called Netvibes, n-e-t-v-i-b-e-s.com. And with these aggregators, the instructor can subscribe to bloggers in their field who are actually researching or practicing that field and reflecting on what they’re learning and then reporting it back out again through their blogs and a teacher can take all of this information in. You don’t have to wait on professional journals, juried journals, you don’t have to wait on that sort of thing although this doesn’t mean that those types of sources become less valuable. In fact they may even become more valuable. But it gives you access to daily developments in the field that you’re teaching.

But what’s really interesting about RSS is that it goes way beyond blogs. It started out as a way for people to be able to pay attention to a group of bloggers that they’ve, you know, found to be valuable. But now, most newspapers, television and radio journalists now RSS feed their material. So you can go to the New York Times, if there’s a section in the New York Times such as media, well you can subscribe to all of the stories that are published in the New York Times that are published into that section, and every time a new story is submitted in the New York Times, then it goes to your aggregator. You can now go to Google News, you can do a news search for all the news stories that mention whatever field that you’re teaching and you can actually subscribe to that search. Then, and of course Google News includes news stories from all over the world, thousands of news sources from all over the world. And any time any of those news sources adds a new article that includes that word, then it comes to you. So we’re literally training content to find us.

CI: Well, great. Thank you so much for speaking with me today, David.

DW: Thank you, I enjoyed it.

CI: You can read David’s blog at www.davidwarlick.com/2cents. That’s d-a-v-i-d-w-a-r-l-i-c-k.com/the letter 2 c-e-n-t-s. You can also check out Landmarks for Schools, a resource site for education technology tools, which includes links to Class Blogmeister and the popular Citation Machine, at landmark-project.com. That’s landmark dash project.com.