Virginia Cooperative Education Teachers Piloting VTECS Connect

A pilot program for new VTECS Connect software for Cooperative Education teachers was launched in Richmond this summer at the CTE Professional Development Institute. The pilot is being administered by the CTE Resource Center. The software is designed to ease the arduous and sometimes chaotic job of recording a students’ progress within detailed, individual training agreements with multiple employers. More than 30 teachers at the session volunteered to accept a free copy of the software, valued at $495 retail, in return for submitting a full product review at the end of the school year.

One important resource for these volunteers is a newly established online forum. In fact, this is where teachers will eventually submit their full product reviews: http://connectpilots.cteresource.org/phpbb/. But this site also offers a great channel for communication and timely assistance along the way. Teacher volunteers can even use the forum site to vent any frustrations and are encouraged to do so. The bottom line is that the Center wants to know about all Connect experiences, whether positive or negative. In addition to the forum, online Connect support is available through VTECS at http://www.v-tecs.org/connect2files.htm.

Based on the comments received thus far, loading the software onto networked computers has emerged as the chief challenge to users. There are a couple of solutions:

1. Load the software on a personal computer and avoid networks altogether.
2. Get permission from a network administrator. Usually this will require having a technician load the program for the teacher.

We wish to reassure administrators that this program is perfectly safe, comes with support, and is updatable online. So, we encourage teachers who are piloting this program to remain persistent and vigilant.

If you are a teacher who has been given a Connect CD by a colleague or who has signed up for the Connect pilot program at the conference, and you have not yet participated on the forum, please send an e-mail to Darren Morris and let him know how your review is going. If you have decided to withdraw from the review program, please return the software to our offices along with a brief description of your reasons for doing so.

Cooperative Education administrators and teachers not yet involved in this review project are invited to submit inquiries or apply to join the pilot program by contacting Darren Morris, VTECS Connect software pilot program coordinator for Virginia (804-673-3778).