North Dakota Career & Technical Education’s annual Professional Development Conference was held on August 8-10th at the Bismarck Event Center. The event featured industry round table discussions, workshop sessions, networking, exhibits, and more. Educators, counselors, faculty, and other CTE champions were present for all of the fun and learning. Our amazing friends at EduTech were amongst the attendees and helped with our exhibit booth and informational sessions.
On Tuesday, Lynn and Maddy joined Matt at the event center. The drive to Bismarck meant the duo had to make an early departure, but they made it just in time for the majority of the day’s action. Meanwhile, Matt took part in an industry round table and had meaningful discussions with other leaders and attendees. The booth had a steady stream of curious folks pass to ask questions, try on the VR headset, and grab some water balloons for the road (don’t worry, they were unfilled)!
As Lynn was exploring the show floor, they saw quite the spread of booths. There were state entities, colleges, and other cool education technologies and solutions. One especially caught their eye, a booth taking free headshots for attendees. After asking for permission, Maddy and Lynn posed with the VR sets we had at our booth. Shoutout to Clint and Leslie from the Photography Department at the Dakota College at Bottineau for taking and editing the amazing 80’s inspired photo above. Not meaning to brag, but it’s highly possible that it was the best headshot of the day.
One of the highlights of the event was Matt’s featured session on Tuesday, titled “CareerViewXR: Exploring Careers in Virtual Reality”. He shared his first experience with VR, the Nintendo Virtual Boy. We were happy to share that our current state of virtual reality has much more to offer than the Virtual Boy’s simple monochrome games. We answered questions and got input on what tours the attendees thought should be captured for CareerViewXR. Amongst the recommendations were lineman, underwater welder, video game developer, and agriculture-related careers. We have added them to the idea book for the future! If you can provide a shooting location or have a contact for anyone in any one of these careers, please reach out. We’re always looking to form production partner relationships.
Thank you to all who attended Matt’s talks and stopped by the booth. It was great to meet new people and reconnect with people the team already knew. Keep an eye out for us at similar events in the future. We wish all those involved in education a great new school year!
