Business Law and accounting resources can be difficult to collect information on. Below is a small list of some great resources for highschool teachers looking for resources in Business Law and Accounting.

BUSINESS LAW RESOURCES

Business Law Lesson Plan: Mystery Bag–Submitted by: Dolores Conley at Tug Valley High School, Naugatuck WV
mystery.html

Contract Elements
PDF

Pick 12 (online Jury selection game)
http://texaslre.org/jurygame_intro.html

Court System Scavenger Hunt
PDF

Business Law Unit Plan: Supreme Court By Joan Kaufman

http://www.geocities.com/ollie63670/BLUnitPlan.html

Who Dunnit? Online Activity
http://www.cyberbee.com/whodunnit/crime.html

Handwriting and Forgery Lesson Plan
http://school.discovery.com/lessonplans/programs/forgery/

National Constitution Center Lesson Plans
http://www.constitutioncenter.org/education/LessonPlans/index.shtml

Mock Trial Exercises (GREAT primer before a mock trials)
http://www.njsbf.com/njsbf/student/mocktrial/grades78.cfm

Mock Trial Scripts
http://www.classbrain.com/artteensm/publish/article_66.shtml

Jack and the Beanstalk Mock Trial
http://www.abc.net.au/mocktrial/thecase/thecase.htm


ACCOUNTING RESOURCES
Connecticut CPA Educator Resources
http://www.cscpa.org/Content/Students/Educators.aspx

New York CPA Association – resources for teachers
http://www.nysscpa.org/form/misc/teachers-network

A great resources for ideas and lesson plans related to accounting
http://community.startheregoplaces.com/

DECA Promotional Video

BPA Promotional Video

DECA Membership

Students may obtain DECA membership if they are actively enrolled in a marketing, finance, hospitality, business management, or entrepreneurship course. In order for students to retain their membership in the DECA chapter, they must be in on of the career areas.

DECA membership is open year around with some states or provinces having deadlines for participation in conferences and competitive events. The deadline for the DECA International development conference is March 1st.

BPA Membership

Students may obtain and retain BPA membership if they have or are enrolled in business management, office administration, information technology, or other related career field.

BPA membership is due by November 1st and ensures that students will receive their registration pins and membership cards. The deadline for the National Leadership Conference is Febraury 15th, 2011.

Below is a document with State approved work-based learning programs.

Step 1 – Open a Blank Automater Workflow

Step 2 – Insert Get Specific Text and Speak Text from the actions library into the workflow

Workflow step 1

Step 3 – Select a Voice to Speak the Text to you.

Step 3 Choose a Voice

Step 4 – Bring in variables that you would like to use. (Variables are not functional in certain areas of automater, to insert the variables into the text, we need to customize the xml file)

Step 4 add Variables

Step 5 – Save this as an application in a folder.

Step 6 – Customize your account settings to open this application when Mac OSX opens. Go to Accounts in System Preferences. Click on the Login Items Tab.

Step 7 – Open the XML file of the application. Open the application in Finder. Right click and select show package contents.

Step 7 - Show Package Contents

Open the document.wflow file

Step 8 – Open the file in texteditor and edit the file to add the variables to the voice text.

Toward the bottom of the file you will see the variables you inserted into the application. Use the command  +F function to find the words of your variables, for example, one of the variables we used was day, use command + F to find the word day, it should take you directly to the variable “day”. The first instance of day should be in a section starting with <key>variables</key>.

Each variable has several lines to define it. The first is the UUID, the line under the UUID line has an ID that looks like this

<string>1575CAFD-CE15-43F1-B81F-0537F31446D1</string>

This string of numbers is how automator refers to your variable. We need to copy this string of code and paste it into the text at the top of the file. Copy this string, with the $()surrounding it. Save and close the wflow file.

Step 8- Copy and past the Variable Code into the text

Step 9 – Open the application file to test the application you have just made, if it works currently, you should here the automated voice say something like “Welcome back to your computer Jose. Today is March 26th.The time is 8:45pm.”

Opportunities for students in the New York City School system are wide and broad. The Department of Education provides many internships and job preparation programs that help students obtain valuable job skills before beginning their careers and enrolling in post secondary education. In addition to programs offered by the New York Department of education, there are also many programs offered in each High School for students to obtain job skills. I will discuss some of the job programs offered by the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) and some of the programs offered in High schools within the NYC school system for students.

Summer Youth Employment

One of the programs offered by the NYCDOE is the Summer Youth Employment Program, which is designed to emphasize real-world labor expectations by allowing students in area high schools to work in an entry level position with law firms, government agencies, hospitals, museums, sports enterprises, and retail organizations. This is a seven-week program during the summer where young people between the ages of 14 and 24 work up to 25 hours a week while earning $7.25 per hour. The application process for the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) starts in April.

Ladders for Leaders

This is a program that provides an unmatched array of work opportunities for students of need with a good academic standing. Students in this program are paired with a mentor in a professional seven week summer internship. This internship coincides with gender specific workshops related to issues like financial literacy, leadership development, and health and well being. There are also college and SAT prepetory classes offered free to students participating in this program. At the end of the program students have the opportunity to apply for a college scholarship and a chance to apply for round-trip airfare to visit colleges throughout the continental United States.

Young Adult Internship Program

This 14-week program allows low-income young adults from the ages 16 to 24 who are not attending school and not working to receive a paid internship.  The first part of this internship program involves a 2 to 4 week orientation conducted by community organizations. This program serves around 1,360 youth per year and includes ongoing job education as well as some other employer support. After this internship the organization will help these young adults obtain jobs, training, and educational support.

In-School Youth (ISY) Program

This program provides year around services to high school juniors and seniors that are proven at-risk through a list of eligibility requirements. The purpose of the program is to get these at risk students thinking about their career and the affect that education has on their career options. This program is aimed at getting these students to go to graduate from high school, go to college, and develop career goals. All of the students in the ISY are given employment through the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP).

Out of School Youth Program

Those students between the ages of 16-21 who are not connected to work or school have an opportunity to participate in the OSY program. This program provides these young adults with job training, college selection and placement, GED preparation, and other support services. After the program has ended, students still receive up to 12 months of support services.

College Now

This is a collaborative program with the City university of New York and the New York City Department of Education that is designed to prepare students in New York City High Schools for college. Some of the services they offer include, academic courses, campus based tours and cultural events, such as theater or dance.

Scholarships

More than $134 billion dollars in scholarships are available for students in the New York City School system. Funding from these scholarships comes from both public and private institutions. For the most comprehensive resource available for college scholarships, go here.

NYCDOE Student Career Website Resources

Snap shot of a day under the green screen, taping web presentation videos.

One of the projects I have been working on lately is a resume and portfolio website. This website was created entirely in CSS and JavaScript. This is a good example of the type of technical skill I have.

One of the features of my portfolio website is the intuitiveness of navigation. Mouse over effects were added for the “ahhhh” effect.  I wanted a way to navigate users to more information about me through icons at the top of the page. I added four icons that help talent seekers find out more about me. Below is a screen shot of the icons used at the top of my resume website. Yes, it even includes a unicycle icon that takes users to one of my passions in life, unicycling.

One of the other features of my site that really provides users with a great showcase of talent is the slideshow at the bottom of the page.  This slideshow provides users with a controlled way of viewing a select few of my many work samples.

My resumes are positioned to the left and right of my transparent video cover letter. I decided to give users a choice in resumes since some people still prefer looking at traditionally styled resumes instead of looking at hip new designer resumes. It’s a good idea to cater to both sides of the market. If a current browser is used, the PDF resumes are designed to load directly into the browser. It even comes with viewing tools. A neat feature if I say so myself.

As you may know by now, I am currently in the market for a job. So if you or someone you know is hiring, feel free to send this resume off to others. Contact me via the e-mail link on my resume site if you are interested.

Obama talking with Steve Jobs about educational technology.

The government plans on spending over $49 billion dollars in educational funding for 2011. This is an increase of $3 billion+ dollars from educational spending in 2010. $500 Million of this funding is allocated to innovation, which includes funding of the governments National Education Technology Plan. This National Educational Technology Plan (NETP) utilizes data driven surveys of technology use in public schools . The National Center for Educational Statistics published a document called “Teachers’ use of Educational Technology in U.S. Public Schools: 2009″. This report displays data on teacher surveys stemmed at identifying how districts use school technology resources. This survey data is projected in the U.S. government’s budget plans for 2011 and beyond.

This survey provides a goldmine of data about how teachers use technology in the classroom, the resources teachers have available, teachers competence using the technology provided, and the frequency of using the technology. The survey collection consisted of 4,133 teachers in all 50 states including the District of Columbia.

While looking at this data, I am analyzing teacher competency of technology and their comfort using the technology resources. In other words, is all of the money that the government is spending on educational technology in our public schools going to benefit the student’s?

The question above hopefully will be answered soon. However, we do know that for technology to be useful in the classroom it has to be used effectively by teachers, which means that teachers need to receive training on the technology they have access to for it to be effective. Furthermore, the technology needs to be used enough for students to receive benefits from the technology instructions.

Of the teachers that completed the survey, 13% reported not having received any educational technology training in the last 12 months, 53% reported receiving 1 to 8 hours of training, 18% reported 9 to 16 hours, and 16% reported receiving 17 hours or more of training. There was a correlation in the data, with those low economic status schools receiving less technology training than higher economic status school. This data indicates that majority, 66% of teacher’s from this survey, received less than 8 hours of technology training in 12 months.

While the amount of training that a teacher receives may increase the comfort level of teachers using technology in the classroom, this survey reports that 78% of teachers are prepared for using educational technology resources through independent learning. 64% said separately that professional development activities and training provided by technology staff prepared them to make effective use of the technology resources available. This indicates that teachers perceive independent learning as more effective than professional development and training. What the survey does not answer is how teacher’s utilize independent learning effectively. It would be interesting to know what resources teachers use when undertaking independent learning of educational technology.

The use of technology in the classroom is an important measure of teachers ability to effectively combine instruction with technology.  75% elementary teachers reported sometimes or often using technology in the classroom, among those that had technology resources available either in the classroom or elsewhere in the school. Comparatively, among high school teachers, 59% reported sometimes or often having access to computers during instruction time. This data suggests that while technology is readily available for the majority of elementary school teachers, there is a gap in the access of technology among high school teachers.

Overall, I believe that the U.S. government technology budget needs less spending on technology resources in schools that already have those resources and instead allocate the technology resources available in the budget to the low economic status schools where better resources are desperately needed. Training should be the focus for the technology budget among all schools, especially among low economic schools where teacher comfort levels with technology are less sufficient. I am shocked to find that 66% of those surveyed received less than 8 hours of technology training in schools that have moderate technology resources. Also, shocking is the perception of training among teachers, among which 78% reported they felt prepared through independent learning of technology.

This data is by no means a full account of the data obtained in the survey. I focused reporting on key finding that effect teachers competency and use of educational technology .

For a more in depth look at the educational spending of technology take a look at the 2010 National Education Technology Plan.