What I Learned At GACTE

For the next several days I will be attending the 64th Annual GACTE Conference.

As I explained yesterday I wound up arriving much later than I had originally hoped to arrive but after breakfast today I headed over to registration to retrieve my packet.

I wound up bumping into two of my co-workers. Each of us all had the same question, "Did you see the boss?" We all had the same reason to ask this question because we all wanted to make sure that she knew that we had shown up and attended all of the meetings.

The first General Interest Session I attended was entitled, "Engage, Excite, Educate! It was conducted by Dr. Marilyn Skinner who I thought had a plethora of online resources available for teachers to use in the classroom. Some I had already known about but others were new and I'm excited about investigating them further.

The second General Interest Session I attended was entitled job Search Readiness-The New job Market and How to Help Students Succeed. As the media reminds us constantly, we are living in the new normal and I for one have been worried about how I can help my students find a job after graduation.

Several things impressed me about this session and one of them was the fact that Judi Adams of RightChanges.biz actually spelled out to those in attendance the TRUE Unemployment numbers. When I explained them to my students many of them had no idea that the real unemployment numbers are between 16%-20% but the government is quick not to calculate them in a more transparent manner and therefore release the unemployment figure as being 9.2%.

After the morning workshops my co-worker and I headed out for lunch over to Schlotzsky's. I don't know if I'd ever eaten there before but i can tell you that I really loved their Greek salad. I probably would have liked it even more if I hadn't managed to get a large squirt of salad dressing on the front of my dress.

At 2PM I was able to view the Career Tech Expo and view the various exhibitors tables. I also got to enter to winner some of these exciting prizes:

IPad
2-Night Weekend Stay at the Renaissance Waverly with Breakfast for 2
iPod Touch
and other prizes donated by exhibitors. Wish me luck. They will be drawing for prizes on Wednesday and you can only win if you attend the GACTE Awards Brunch and Business Meeting on July 13th

In order to receive learning credit for this conference I had to pick up all conference materials at the registratioon desk and attend all activities and breakout session. Approximately one month after the conference concludes, I will be sent an e-mail which includes a link allowing me to evaluate the conference. This survey will require the CTAERN password, which allows GACTE to confirm participants ho have completed the final required evaluation step. Once I have completed the on-line survey I will be issued a Professional Learning Contact Hour Certficate that reflects the 20 contact hours recommended for participation in this conference.