Webinar

One of the tools NJDOE used for the PSLP program is a webinar. I have never used one so it was an interesting experience. Besides feeling like a telemarketer with my headset and built-in microphone on, the program was pretty easy to use once I found the link in my email and joined the discussion. NJ DOE used the web-based program, Elluminate, which was easy to navigate once I clicked on the link in my email.

The webinar is also available to us if we want to listen to the session a second time - I hate my voice on tape so one listen was enough! This was helpful because I missed a few things participants had said about the advisory periods and I am very interested in the idea of establishing an advisory period in our schools. One comment I did notice was that the advisory period had become a union issue in one district. That will be a challenge -- how to we establish an advisory period without it becoming a union issue? Some of the ideas thrown around by my team were: extended homeroom, an activity period in place of 9th period once a month (but then we'd have to flip flop classes so the students didn't always miss their 9th period class), taking time off classes to have an activity period once a month.

If anyone has any suggestions for an advisory period or would share how they handled advisory periods, I'd love to hear from you.

My team also talked about pairing up a career teacher w/ one or two academic teachers and splitting the career classes into smaller groups for each teacher to advise, that way the career teacher doesn't have his/her entire career program to advise, which can be up to 70+ students. We also talked about having this year's freshmen class eventually becoming student advisors their senior year to the incoming freshmen, helping to turnkey some things. This would give the students more ownership and responsibility because they would be teaching the freshmen so they would have to become experts at the PSLPs.

After the webinar, my head was swimming. I'm glad we have two years to work out the kinks for this pilot program, although there are some days when I think two years is not enough time.

There are so many things to think about, like how can the students use webinars . . .

Guidance Program

As part of our PSLP program, we've decided to go with a student guidance management system through a company called Kuder. There are a few other schools involved in the PSLP pilot program who are also going to use Kuder.

One of the main features we like about Kuder (because they were all similar in the features they offered to students and parents and schools) is that we can customize the pages to fit our needs and our look.

We're going to customize the first page with the same banner and colors of our district web page and we've decided to use the name of our PSLP in the name of our customized site. The name of our customized site will be: S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Career and College Navigator.

Our guidance director is going to work with Kuder's IT people to customize links for the students, links to college, career and financial aid resources. There will also be a place for students to develop e-portfolios to showcase their best works to show to future employers and college admissions officers.