ACTE 2015

ACTE 2015 has come and gone, and, as always, LearnKey was part of it. Scott Walker and Jared Baker, two of LearnKey’s sales representatives, manned our ACTE booth in New Orleans, and we recently caught up with them to ask them a few questions about LearnKey’s involvement in the show.

Why is it important that you attend shows like ACTE?

Scott: Several reasons. To see exciting clients. It’s a great place to visit with numerous clients and also a great opportunity for them to meet one another. This particular conference is great for new leads. It’s who we deal with. It’s important for them to see us and learn that we service all areas of the country.
Jared: It is the main national show that all of our solutions align to perfectly.

What LearnKey product did people ask you about the most?

Scott: Microsoft Office, Adobe, and Career Readiness had a lot of interests.
Jared: Office, Adobe, and career readiness courses. Many people associated our career readiness courses with “work-based learning.”

What schools or companies stopped by our booth?

Scott: School District of Palm Beach; Jefferson Parrish, LA; Iberia Parish, LA; East Baton Rouge Parish, LA; West Baton Rouge Parish, LA; Vermillion Parish, LA; Livingston Parish, LA; Tammany Parish, LA; Erie School District, PA; Philadelphia School District, PA; Alpine School District, UT; Washington School District; Jefferson District, KY.
Jared: NYC Schools, Clark County, Minneapolis, APS, University of New Mexico, Houston, and Dallas.

We premiered the new LearnKey Certification Highway at ACTE. Did you have a chance to show anyone? What was their reaction?

Scott: I didn’t actually have the opportunity to show anyone.
Jared: It was a hit. It was a great way to get people excited about a student’s pathway to a career.

Who won the drawing for the watch and headsets?

Scott: Chris Broussard from Iberia Parish won the watch, Ronnie Pocorello from East Baton Rouge won a headset.
Jared: Alexa Wheeler, University of New Mexico Graphics professor.

What is the core message that you try to convey to everyone you talk to at a trade show?

Scott: We are the best Curriculum provider, in not only Industry Certifications but Career Readiness and preparation for job readiness.
Jared: Every student is not going to college and this gives LearnKey a chance to help each student with a certification pathway to a career.

Thanks to all those who stopped by our booth this year, and congratulations to Chris, Ronnie, and Alexa!

ACTE 2012 Recap

The ACTE conference in Atlanta was a huge hit For LearnKey. Jeff, Lori, Kim, Scott and I were able to re-solidify the fact that we are on the right track. The track of preparing teachers first for certifications and then taking that knowledge gained and marrying it with our award winning full motion video, hands on projects created by teachers that align directly to Adobe and Microsoft objectives, mobile technology alerts and the constant mentoring of teachers so that they are up on technology as well as behavioral assessments to best pinpoint career pathways for students. All these lessons learned over the past 27 years are now a road map for teachers to make sure that each student is successful in their life quest.

It was so good to see school district administrators and teachers embracing the fact that businesses and community partnerships are valuable in many different ways. The more involvement that you have with people from a broad spectrum of knowledge, the better the result is for the students. New and innovative ideas are what is going to drive success in the classroom and ultimately engage and empower the student to go on and do great things.

It was great to see how “Team LearnKey” interacted with partners and clients as well as with one another to bring digital literacy into the classroom.

Oh yeah, we ate a lot of great food and also went to an Atlanta hawks basketball game and had a good time. We were able to sit behind Danny ferry, the Duke “hall of famer” who won the Naismith College Player of the Year and Oscar Robinson Trophy award winner in 1989 and his #35 jersey was retired after his senior season in 1989.

Home Sweet Home

Atlanta, New Orleans, Indianapolis, and…St. George, Utah? You may be wondering what St. George could possibly have in common to be included in a list with these large cities. Well, before the end of the year LearnKey will be in each of these cities attending trade shows and sharing our training with local teachers and administrators.

Today and tomorrow we are in our hometown St. George, UT! We don’t often attend shows in Utah, let alone in St. George, and we have a new booth design and will be doing presentations today and tomorrow – so stop by Desert Hills High School and check us out.

Presentation Times

Saturday

9:00 am Mobi Mentoring in the Classroom
11:00 am Leveraging Classroom Behavior
1:00 pm Industry Certified or Career Ready? LearnKey Can Do Both
3:00 pm Mobi Mentoring in the Classroom

Hot as a Billy Goat in a Pepper Patch

This week I had the opportunity to go to the great state of Texas and attend the Texas Career Education Conference. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Texas so y’all may find that some Texas talk made its way into this post. Jared Baker, one of LearnKey’s “road warriors”, was nice enough to let me go to the show with him for the week and really help me see what happens on the front lines. Thinking back on this week, three things come to mind: Hot tempertures, tasty food, and amazing people.

Coming from Southern Utah I didn’t think that the weather in Dallas would be anything to blink an eye at, but when we walked out of the airport it was hot–darn hot! Heat I am able to handle, but mixed with humidity made being outside downright uncomfortable.

Not much can compare to the bbq, mexican food, or creole food that has been perfected across Texas. But one thing that is a secret to non-Texans is Blue Bell Ice Cream. I had this for the first time this week and I can honestly say that it is the best ice cream I have ever had.

The highlight of my trip was not the food and definitely not the weather – it was the great teachers that I was able to interact with at the show. The first day of the show was on Tuesday and I was scared as a sinner in a cyclone to talk with the teachers. Luckily for me I realized that I had no reason to worry and I had a fantastic time. I loved hearing about how teachers are using LearnKey in the classroom.

How do you use LearnKey in the classroom? Let us know in the comments or on our Facebook page!

Barbeque and an Arch – ACTE 2011 Recap

Recently I traveled to the annual ACTE conference that was held in St. Louis, MO. I traveled with all guys from our company, and it has been pretty interesting trying to keep them all on task and under control!

Travel

It was a great experience; we arrived on Tuesday afternoon and had a great evening relaxing after our long day of traveling that consisted of a two hour car ride to the Las Vegas Airport, about a minute train ride to the gate, then a three hour flight to St. Louis, a five minute bus ride to the rental car counter, and a fifteen minute drive to the hotel. Yes, you read that right; excluding a boat we pretty much covered all modes of transportation.

Set-up and event

The next day it was time to head over to the booth and set-up. Everything went well and thanks to Kari, our graphic designer, the booth we have takes about an hour to set-up. As we headed out to the parking garage, we noticed a sign that said cash only. Living in the modern age that we do it was shocking and of course we had no cash on us. Well we talked the nice parking attendant (I won’t name her just in case her boss by a small chance reads this) into letting us out on the honor that we would bring her back the two dollars we owed her. We went and got some supplies and brought the money right back to her.

That night we held a reception at our hotel; it went off without a hitch and everyone had a great time. So thank you to everyone who attended the event and to everyone who helped make it a success!

Show Time and chow

So on Thursday it was time to get down to business and start talking with all of the wonderful educators that made it out to this year’s show. It was a great show with a lot of enthusiastic people and a great energy. People were loving the giveaways, and of course gobbling up the Dots candies that we put out.

After a really long day on our feet, we all decided that when in St. Louis you better eat some BBQ. So we asked around and got a tip that Pappy’s Smokehouse was the best place in town, but that we better make it there pretty early because once they run out of stuff it is just gone. We got lost, but eventually found our way there and boy was it worth it. We ordered the Adam Bomb named after Adam Richmond from the television show Man vs. Food. It was a lot of really good food and we all ate way too much, but everyone was in consensus that they would recommend it to anyone who ever visits St. Louis. The food was so good that we ended up getting another Adam Bomb for take out on Friday.

We made our way back home and back to the LearnKey offices. Sad to leave our new friends and the great food, but excited to be back home!

A few pictures from the event:

ACTE 2011

Well, it’s that time of year again. No, I am not talking about the Holiday Season, I am talking about the Annual ACTE Conference. This year’s conference is taking place in St. Louis, MO November 17-19, 2011. It might seem like we are early writing this blog post, but we started planning for this show a couple of months ago and I am starting to get really excited about it. We have exhibited at this trade show in the past and it is always a fun and rewarding event to attend.

If you have never heard of ACTE before, it is the Association for Career and Technical Education. They hold an annual convention every year that draws over 4,000 educators and over 200 exhibitors. The highlight of the conference will be that Sir Ken Robinson will be speaking, if you have not heard him you should check him out on his website. This animated video created from one of his speeches is a particular favorite of ours.

If you are going to attend this years ACTE conference, be sure to come see LearnKey at booth 428!

ISTE 2011

Last week LearnKey was exhibiting at ISTE 2011 in Philadelphia, PA. ISTE is an annual tradeshow for educators, and this year there were 18,000 attendees expected. The show was a lot of fun, and it was fun as the planner of these shows to finally be able to be a part of one. We had a steady stream of educators visit our booth over the course of three days. We met a lot of great teachers and administrators from all over the country and the world; I think the farthest visitor came from Taiwan.

The convention center was huge, although you would never have guessed that there were that many people there. There were so many different meeting rooms, and the exhibit hall was so large anyone could get lost in there. There were rows upon rows of vendors with all kinds of different ways to get attendees to stop and chat with them.

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