ACTE

Mark your calendar today for the best professional development event of the year, December 2-4 in Las Vegas. Check back often or subscribe to this page via RSS for all the latest information and updates!

Proposals are no longer being accepted for sessions at the 2010 Annual Convention. The Association for Career and Technical Education Research (ACTER) is accepting submissions for its 2010 CTE Research and Professional Development Conference in Las Vegas, November 30-December 2.

Interested in exhibiting at the Career Tech Expo? Information is available here.

General Session Speakers

ACTE is pleased to announce Matthew B. Crawford as a keynote speaker for its 2010 Annual Convention, December 2-4.

Philosopher and mechanic Matthew B. Crawford brings to life the experience of making things with your hands, a reality that is receding from our current society. As an author of the New York Times best-selling book Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work, Crawford restored the honor of manual trades as a life worth choosing. As a speaker, Crawford mixes his dark humor with philosophy to consider how our economic choices form us, questioning the modern workplace, consumerism and technology. More information on is available at www.matthewbcrawford.com.

Back to top

Pre-Convention Tours

Industry Tours

See how the companies for which you prepare your students operate and rely on a trained workforce.

Switch | NAP
Affectionately called the "Fort Knox of Data," Switch | NAP is the world's most powerful data center, combined with industry-changing telecommunications pricing. It is located in the safest-rated city in America and protected by the highest levels of physical security. It is home to data for such multi-billion-dollar tech giants as Google, Disney Animations and Sony, and numerous financial giants, such as the FDIC and the Federal Reserve. This tour is seriously mind-blowing.

Zappos.com
This tour allows you to experience the culture that is Zappos.com. The founder's original idea was to create a Web site that offered the absolute best selection in shoes in terms of brands, styles, colors, sizes and widths. Over the past nine years, the Zappos.com brand and their aspirations have evolved and, in addition to offering the best selection, they now want to be the company that provides the absolute best service online—not just in shoes, but in any category. They have been voted the #1 company in America to work for.

School Tours

Pick the brains of your colleagues and see their best practices in action.

Veterans Tribute and Southwest Career and Technical Academies
Visit two schools that opened in 2009. Tour Veterans Tribute first and see how they integrate rigorous coursework into preparing students for careers in public service, including law enforcement, crime scene analysis, EMT and computer forensics. Enjoy lunch provided by Southwest’s culinary students, then tour their 11 programs under the Design Academy and the Professional Service Academy. Observe how Southwest utilizes project-based learning activities to prepare students for the workforce.

Back to top

Partners, Partners, Partners

Much of the success of last year's Convention was due to the content-provider partnerships ACTE established. Those will continue in Las Vegas. To date, ACTE has secured the support of:

• Association for Career and Technical Education Research—CTE researchers will be in Nashville discussing the latest findings and how they may pertain to the classroom.
• NOCTI—NOCTI will be hosting a pre-Convention session, "Successful Programs, Successful Schools." This session will focus on how programs around the country are improving their students’ technical competence, improving their instructional programs and becoming leaders in the educational community through their use and analysis of assessment data.

Back to top