NCE Presenters Dashboard

The form below will direct you to submit your session and presenter information which will be displayed on the event website. Please do so prior to April 30, 2021. 

Session Resource Submission Form

Use the form below to submit any session resources that were not originally submitted with your session information above.

We are seeking to promote participation collaboration throughout the event, and create opportunities to build relationships among attendees. We are relying on you to deliver content-specific professional development that aligns with the meeting goals for your career field and/or cross-field group.
Nebraska has several state and agency-wide initiatives that we would like you to consider integrating into your presentation, where appropriate.

Strategic Priorities
Our state plan for the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21^st Century Act (Perkins V) established eight strategic priorities to support the creation of high-quality CTE system responsive to Nebraska’s workforce needs and economic development priorities. The eight strategic priorities are:

Please download and read the summary document to learn details about these priorities and how they are manifested. We ask that, where appropriate, you reference one or more of these priorities in your presentation.

Diversity, Equity, Access, and Inclusion
Nebraska’s student population is becoming increasingly diverse. An effective school is an equitable school— one that provides high expectations and appropriate resources so that all students can meet the same rigorous proficiency standards. Please consider how the content you are providing addresses issues of diversity, equity, access, and inclusion.
Questions to help frame your content and thinking include:

• What considerations have been taken to include the voices, perspectives, and needs of the stakeholders who will be most impacted?
• Which groups are disadvantaged or advantaged by this policy, program, or practice?
  We ask that you seek to weave these concepts into your presentation and encourage people to think about equity as integral to their CTE programming rather than an add-on component.

School Renewal and Acceleration/Unfinished Learning
The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced new challenges for Nebraska CTE instructors. As life returns to a new normal, educators will face a myriad of concerns, ranging from academic gaps among student populations to the need to address trauma and other social-emotional issues. If appropriate, think about how your content might be applied to promote school renewal or contribute to accelerating and/or addressing unfinished learning.

Blending Learning/Remote Instruction
As you craft your presentation, consider how you might address issues of blended learning and remote instruction and demonstrate uses of technology to engage participants in new and interesting ways.

For continuity we strive to maintain the following format for each 45-minute session.

Introduction (5 minutes)
We encourage you to open your session with a brief overview so that viewers understand who will be presenting and what they will learn. It also will help for people to put a name with a voice. Your overview might include:

• Welcome
• Introduction of speakers
• Introduction of learning objectives/agenda

Content Presenting (15-20 minutes)
While you may organize your presentation in your preferred format, we encourage you to keep the ‘broadcast’ of information to less than 20 minutes at a time. This will help to keep people engaged. You may choose to offer content at several points in your presentation, in our experience, breaking up the delivery will be more likely to retain people’s attention.
To help involve your audience, we suggest that presenters incorporate one or more of the following elements that are built into the technology platform:

• Poll the audience and share their responses.
• Prompt people to enter thoughts or reactions in the chat.
• Use breakout rooms to foster small group discussions (if you have reason to believe your audience size is appropriate). Ensure that people will have sufficient time to interact.
  We have included additional ideas at the end of this document.

Q&A Session (5-10 minutes)
Consider leaving space for people to ask questions. Since some may be hesitant to speak, ask people to use the chat if they would prefer. You may also prepare questions ahead of time that your session facilitator or individuals you know will be in attendance can ask.

Closing (3-5 minutes)
Leave time so that you are not rushed at the end of your session. Plan to summarize your main points and provide contact information for individuals who might like to follow up with you after the conference.

PowerPoint Template
We have provided a PowerPoint template branded for the 2021 NCE conference.

Please use this template in developing your presentation.  Please try to adhere to the following guidelines:

Design

• Please do not change the design, fonts, or bullet levels. This will enable us to maintain a consistent brand across sessions.
• Keep text on the slides brief — flesh out the details in the presenter note script. People will be viewing the event on monitors of varying sizes, so slides with excessive text may be difficult to read. We suggest keeping font sizes to 24 point or larger.
• You are encouraged to include images, graphs, or other visual elements in your slides. If using content that is not included with PowerPoint please ensure you have acquired the rights to these materials. Consider using content from third-party sites (e.g., https://pixabay.com/ or https://www.pexels.com/) that offer royalty-free images. Include attribution if requested.
• Please avoid complicated animations in your PowerPoint. If you use animation, please use only “appear” as the animation type (avoid flying, bouncing, and spinning animations that may be distracting). Keep in mind that we will be sharing these slides in PDF format following the event, so these visualizations will not be obvious.

Format

• Please keep the general format of the opening and closing slides. Everything in the middle is up to you.
• To ensure section 508 compliance (accessibility), be sure to enter a title on each slide.
• Include the full URL for all links, (e.g., https://www.education.ne.gov/) and please make sure the link is active and correct.

Other

• If you make more changes after you send the final slide deck to Nebraska Career Education, add a version number. For instance, a second version after the final deck would be called “Work-based Learning_v2.pptx”.

Zoom Background Template

We have provided Zoom Background template branded for the 2021 NCE conference.

Download Zoom Backgrounds

Instructions for a virtual background in Zoom

1. Sign into your Zoom desktop client
2. Click on your profile picture, then click Settings.
3. Click on Virtual Background
4. To add the NCE virtual background click on the + (plus) sign in the right corner and click Add Image.
5. Choose the background that you want to upload to Zoom
6. After you select an option, the virtual background will display during your meetings.

Educators attending the conference are expecting to hear content. While delivering this is a paramount goal, we encourage you to employ strategies to actively engage your attendees. Use your time to model best practice in virtual instruction and make your session memorable. Below are some suggestions of how you might ‘spice up’ your session.

Sticky Note Brainstorm
Provide attendees with a link to a third-party website you’ve pre-built, such as https://padlet.com or https://pinup.com/, where people can type ideas on sticky notes that can be electronically posted. People may propose their own and/or comment on others’ posts. This will allow you both to prompt a discussion and create a written record of people’s thoughts.  In many cases, you can create an account for free or for a nominal monthly charge.

Solve that Problem!
After listening to a short presentation in which you pose a problem, put attendees into virtual breakout groups to discuss a problem of practice you have posed (ideally no more than 6 people in a room). Give them 15 minutes to brainstorm solutions and then have them report back their top 1-2 ideas and/or post them in the chat. You can use this activity as a segue into your own content. This approach actively engages people and offers them a chance to build relationships with others at the event.

Trivia Contest!
Come up with some interesting facts or tidbits about your topic and intersperse them throughout your presentation. Use the Kahoot application and make it a contest to see who gets the most answers correct. This can help keep people engage and spark friendly banter among participants.

Flipped Presentation
Ready to try something different? Rather than do a traditional presentation, pre-record your session (ideally no more than a 15-min clip) and have participants review it ahead of time and submit questions. Use the actual session to engage in discourse with attendees. Because some participants may not have done their homework, start the session with a brief overview of key points, followed by your response to submitted question (to get things rolling). Plan to send an email the day prior to your presentation to remind participants to view your recording.

Crowdsource Your Presentation
Why are you doing all the work? Reach out to 2-3 trusted contacts from the field and engage them in your presentation. Give them a prompt or an assignment on which they have 2 minutes to report out using different viewpoints (e.g., equity, academics, employer). Passing the mic helps break the monotony of a single presenter and offers multiple insights into an issue.

Road Trip
There is a wealth of information on the internet; the challenge is finding it. Using your knowledge of the subject, share your screen and take participants on a tour of the best of the internet. Create a list of hyperlinks that you can share at the conclusion of your presentation so that people can return on their own time and explore.

Bring an Academic Friend
Educational programming too often is siloed, with academic and CTE instructors teaching in isolation from one another. Team with an academic teacher to co-present on a topic, for example, how an English teacher might partner with a CTE colleague to reinforce instruction in both classes. Ultimately, we all want what is best for students….so why not work together to achieve it?

Create a Resource Library
Use a content sharing site, such as Microsoft Teams, to post resources that others might use. Take people on a virtual tour of the site during your presentation and invite people to post their own resources or examples of best practices they have created. After the event you may want to review information to see if it adheres to a threshold level of quality.

Personalized Support
As you develop your presentation, we have partnered with Education Northwest to provide you with personalized coaching and support around making your presentation both informative and engaging. If you would like to take advantage of these services, please contact your Career Field Specialist and they can share your information with them. Education Northwest will reach out to you provide support.

On the day of the conference, links to join your session will populate on the event website. Note: you will likely not be able to join the Zoom meeting for your session until 10 minutes prior to your scheduled start time. To allow you time to get acclimated with presenting via Zoom, we will host a Tech Check one week prior to the event (see “Tech Check” section below).

To join your session use the same link as provided to the public on the event website, which is listed under your session. Once you have entered into the meeting, follow the steps outlined in the video to claim host controls. This will allow you to share your screen, utilize breakout rooms, and mute participants if needed.

The “host key” needed to claim control is 101010.

If you have choose to pre-record your session, please contact our A/V Specialist Drew Worster at Drew.Worster@nebraska.gov before May 14th.

We will host a tech tech period on June 1st from 1:00pm to 5:00pm Central time and June 2nd from 2:00pm to 5:00pm Central time Central time to make sure that you are able to get settled in and everything working correctly. During this period, a link to an open Zoom meeting will be available below. Use this link to:

• Make sure you can open Zoom and join a room
• Test “claiming host” using the provided host key
• Ensure you can share your screen
• confirm your microphone and speakers are connected and functional

To ensure a successful experience, we encourage you to consider the following points:

• Include detailed speaker notes in your PPT deck. This can ensure that people who are unable to attend your session may still benefit from looking at your slides. While it may be tempting, don’t use these notes to ‘read a presentation,’ which can make you sound less authentic.
• Practice your presentation prior to the event. This can help you in presenting content and allow you to see how your technology operates (i.e., what will show on the screen).
• Keep the chat and participant tabs open. This will allow you to see if people have questions or are raising their hands to speak.
• Have two computer screens so that you have room to see your slide content, participants, and chats.
• Encourage people to keep their cameras on, which can increase the likelihood they are paying attention and can make you feel less isolated. Look at people’s faces to see how they are reacting to your content.
• Suggest that people use the reactions buttons. This can help you see if something you said resonates.
• Include some type of icebreaker to start your presentation. This could include asking people to chat their funniest CTE teaching moment or virtual instruction disaster.