Last chance to register for WOIS Portfolio training.  Free training, free clock hours.  Learn how to use the WOIS Portfolio for Advisories, High School and Beyond Plans and Culminating Projects.

Wednesday, March 10, 3:00 to 6:00 at Ballard High School in Seattle

Thursday, March 11, 8:30 to 2:00 at Bower Learning Center in Olympia

Future Training sessions will be held:

Wednesday, March 17, 3:00 to 6:00 at Ballard High School in Seattle

Friday, March 19, 8:30 to 2:00 at Columbia Basin College in Pasco

Friday, March 26, 8:30 to 2:00 at Lower Columbia College in Longview.

For more information and to register, click here.

Join us this Wednesday, March 10, at Shoreline Center, for Creating Schools with Heart and Soul (where students want to be).  This workshop is designed to teach educators how to engage students in their education.  Perfect for schools delivering Navigation 101 or any kind of advisory system.  This is also great for any educator ready to light the fire under their otherwise disengaged students.

Dr. Cal Crow has a rich history of delivering interesting, informative, and relevant workshops.   All evaluations of the workshops delivered over the past year have been excellent. 

This is your last chance to register.  The cost is $149 and we will invoice you after the workshop.  Don't miss this one, it might be the last Creating Schools with Heart and Soul workshop this school year.

Register here today!

The Education Planner in the WOIS Portfolio is now the High School and Beyond Plan.  This section now has more options! 

In the High School and Beyond Details, students can record their Career Path, Program of Study, up to three Post-High School Plans with specifics for those plans, and up to three Career Goals.  This section can be used by iteself, or combined with the planned coursework for a student's educational career.

In the Terms and Classes section, students can create their course plan for their educational career.  Just as before, this section can be revisited often for updates to coursework, grades, credits, etc.

Four reports provide flexibility to meet everyone's needs.  They are:

Current Details Report:  shows High School & Beyond Plan details for the highest grade for which they have been entered.

Classes Report: shows terms and classes for all years.

Summary Report: combines the information from the Current Details and Classes Reports (most recent details and terms and classes for all years)

Full Report: shows all information - High School & Beyond Plan details, terms, and classes - for all years entered.

Portfolio Administrators:  Remember you can customize the list of classes to match the classes offered at your school, customize your pathways and programs of study, and generate High School and Beyond reports for a group of students through the Portfolio Administration.  To generate reports, simply choose the students you wish to generate reports for, then click Generate Reports at the bottom of your student list.  Choose the report you wish to generate -- then click and let the system do the work for you!

Remember, there are now eight FREE Portfolio training workshops in February and March, all around the state, that can help you learn how to use the Portfolio High School and Beyond Plan and other great features available in the WOIS Portfolio system.  Register today!

Thank you to a number of WOIS sites that helped to shape this improved High School and Beyond Plan section, including Central Kitsap High School, Anacortes High School, Sehome High School, and Shadle Park High School.

WOIS/The Career Information System is Washington State's most comprehensive career and educational planning resource and is used in over 900 sites in the state of Washington.  WOIS has provided career assessment tools, detailed information about occupations, educational programs, and postsecondary institutions, along with supporting activities and resources, for more than 35 years.  WOIS provides complete, accurate and up-to-date information for Washington State and NOW also provides national wage, outlook, and college information.  As a non-profit organization, our goal is to provide these resources, and related training and technical support, at the lowest cost possible, to the institutions and organizations in Washington State. 

Every spring we award a $750 scholarship to one or more students or clients of our WOIS user sites.  This scholarship is sponsored by WOIS and the Center for Learning Connections .

Nominations must be submitted by those administering a current WOIS site (individuals may not nominate themselves). Each site may nominate one student or client per year. Funds awarded will be paid directly to the scholarship recipient after he or she has sent transcripts to WOIS from one quarter or semester of post-high school training. The scholarship must be used within one calendar year after it is awarded, and funds may be used for any expenses related to training.

Log in to WOIS today and nominate your student or client!  Applications are due on April 16, 2010.

WOIS/The Career Information System is Washington State's most comprehensive career and educational planning resource and is used in over 900 sites in the state of Washington.  WOIS has provided career assessment tools, detailed information about occupations, educational programs, and postsecondary institutions, along with supporting activities and resources, for more than 35 years.  WOIS provides complete, accurate and up-to-date information for Washington State and NOW also provides national wage, outlook, and college information.  As a non-profit organization, our goal is to provide these resources, and related training and technical support, at the lowest cost possible, to the institutions and organizations in Washington State. 

Because WOIS moved to a new database structure to integrate National Colleges with our Educational Program and School sections, our old School Compare tool was taken out of our program for a few months. 

But now it's back -- and even better than before!

You can still access School Compare from the Assessment menu on the left-side menu, and the Schools menu.

Now your students and clients can also compare schools they have saved in the School Research section of their WOIS Portfolio!

And, your students and clients can save schools to the School Research section of their WOIS Portfolio, after they have done a School Compare.

Try it out!  You will love it!

If you have questions or ever need a training or demonstration, contact tami@wois.org or call 1-800-700-WOIS.

WOIS/The Career Information System is Washington State's most comprehensive career and educational planning resource and is used in over 900 sites in the state of Washington.  WOIS has provided career assessment tools, detailed information about occupations, educational programs, and postsecondary institutions, along with supporting activities and resources, for more than 35 years.  WOIS provides complete, accurate and up-to-date information for Washington State and NOW also provides national wage, outlook, and college information.  As a non-profit organization, our goal is to provide these resources, and related training and technical support, at the lowest cost possible, to the institutions and organizations in Washington State. 

Now your students can enter their Academic, Career, Community and Personal Goals, and the reflections about those goals, directly into the WOIS Portfolio.

Then, of course, you can administratively see which students have completed their goal setting through the WOIS Portfolio.

This is another way the WOIS Portfolio supports your Advisory and/or High School and Beyond requirements.

Give it a try -- we know you will like it!

WOIS/The Career Information System is Washington State's most comprehensive career and educational planning resource and is used in over 900 sites in the state of Washington.  WOIS has provided career assessment tools, detailed information about occupations, educational programs, and postsecondary institutions, along with supporting activities and resources, for more than 35 years.  WOIS provides complete, accurate and up-to-date information for Washington State and NOW also provides national wage, outlook, and college information.  As a non-profit organization, our goal is to provide these resources, and related training and technical support, at the lowest cost possible, to the institutions and organizations in Washington State. 

WOIS is continually enhancing our system to meet the needs of schools, colleges, agencies and businesses in Washington.  You ask, and we work hard to deliver.

So What's New for this week?  Pathways and Reality Check!

Pathway descriptions and occupations are now found in each of the WOIS Cluster descriptions.  Now when you go to Occupations by Cluster, then choose a Cluster to explore, you will see each of the Pathways found in the cluster with a brief description of the Pathway, and a list of occupations that relate to that Pathway.

Thank you to Vancouver School District for this request.

The other exciting feature added this week, Reality Check, is a tool that allows a person to decide how much money they will need to live independently, and how well the salaries for their selected careers will meet their expense requirements.  Reality Check offers several different ways to relate a monthly budget to career choices.  Reality Check is found both in the Assessment section of the WOIS website, and the Occupation section.

Enjoy these new features, and watch for more announcements in the weeks to come.  If you want a hint of the new features that will be added soon, send an email to tami@wois.org.

WOIS/The Career Information System is Washington State's most comprehensive career and educational planning resource and is used in over 900 sites in the state of Washington.  WOIS has provided career assessment tools, detailed information about occupations, educational programs, and postsecondary institutions, along with supporting activities and resources, for more than 35 years.  WOIS provides complete, accurate and up-to-date information for Washington State and NOW also provides national wage, outlook, and college information.  As a non-profit organization, our goal is to provide these resources, and related training and technical support, at the lowest cost possible, to the institutions and organizations in Washington State. 

Now your students/clients can enter their career research directly into the WOIS Portfolio! 

If you have used the "Research a Career" worksheet, found in the activities section of the WOIS website, and had students/clients upload the worksheet to their portfolio in the past, now they can enter their responses to the career research questions directly in the Career Research section of the WOIS Portfolio! 

Your students/clients simply log into their Portfolio, click on Career Research, then click on Add New Career Research.

By entering this directly in the portfolio, it's easy for you or the student/client to view and/or print reports on the research. 

Thank you to Kari Farnsworth at Shadle Park High School for this fantastic idea!

We are working on more great ideas from WOIS users.  Stay tuned!

If you have questions about this, or any other WOIS function, call us at 1-800-700-WOIS or email tami@wois.org.

WOIS is a non-profit organization that provides the most comprehensive career and educational planning tools available in Washington.  WOIS is used in nearly 1,000 sites in Washington State, including more than 260 public high schools, more than 100 middle schools and junior highs, and many agencies, libraries and private businesses.

Do you have customized links in your WOIS portfolio system?  If so, there is a new way to organize those links!  You can now create headings for groups of links (for example College Planning Links, or Financial Aid Links) and organize the appropriate links under each special heading.   Headings can also be added to your Culminating Project links in the Culminating Project section.

AND you can choose whether you want your links to continue at the top of the student Portfolio Main Menu, OR if you want your links to be in a separate box on the right side of the Portfolio Main Menu.

Try it -- you will love it!  If you look at the options (click on Links in your Portfolio Administration), read the instructions, and still need more help, call us at 1-800-700-WOIS.

We've also added a column on the Detail View Report in the Portfolio Administration that allows you to see the total number of volunteer hours each student has added to the Work and Community Experience section of their Portfolio.  If your school requires that students have a certain number of hours -- this allows you to see at a glance if the students are reaching their required community service hours.

Thank you to Puyallup School District and South Bend School District for these great ideas!

Hold on to your hats!  There's more to come in the next few months!