Billings Senior High

Technology Education

Career Unit

Introduction

In this unit you will determine the monthly living expenses for a family, explore a variety of career paths, determine what training is required to work in those fields, find where the training is available, compare salaries, and share your findings with the class through a oral report which utilizes presentation software.

The Task

Follow the steps below to complete your assignment. Save all your work in the folder designated by your teacher. Your final goal is to present a well-research report to the class on your selected career. The can only be presentation per career so check on the sign up form at the top of this page.

The Resources

All the resources you will need to complete this assignment are listed on this page in “The Procedure” section. You are only to use the web sites listed unless you have specific permission from your teacher.

The Procedure

Use a spreadsheet program to set up a monthly budget of personal expenses.

With this activity you will make a list of monthly living expenses you are likely to have 10 years after high school, once you have received additional training and have been in your selected job. Items in the budget include housing, transportation, and food costs as well as entertainment, insurance, and utilities.

Your teacher will guide the class through the process of copying the spreadsheet template from the network to your computer. Then, as a class, we will determine the amounts for the various monthly expenses.

As we fill in the spreadsheet, watch how the annual salary and dollars per hour values change.

The spreadsheet for this assignment is also available here:

MS Excel 97 Format

Open Office 1.1.2

Explore Career Web Sites

Go to each of these web sites and look up as many career paths as you can. Pay attention to whether the number of jobs in each area are growing or not, what the salary ranges are, and the amount of training required.

Explore CareerZone for assessment and job descriptions.

There is a wealth of information on this site. When you get there click on the "Assess Yourself" button and follow the instructions to get a list a jobs that might suit your interests.

Explore CareerVoyages to see what the “hot” jobs are.

This web site has extensive information about hundreds of job. It lists salaries and training requirements and also lets you search for growth-type job by state.

Explore Career InfoNet

This site has information about jobs, wages, skills, and you can even view videos about many career paths.

Use the Occupational Outlook Handbook

The OOH provides detailed information on hundreds of jobs. Under each job are the following headings:

• Nature of the Work

• Working Conditions

• Employment

• Training and other Qualifications

• Job Outlook

• Earnings

• Related Occupations

Building the Presentation

Once you have decided on a career, sign up for it using the link at the top of this page.

Using the Presentation tool in the OpenOffice software, build your slide show that your will use when making your oral presentation. Use the items listed above in the Occupational Outlook Handbook as an outline for your presentation. There is no minimum number of slides required but it will probably take you at least 12 slides to do a decent with your topic.

Some guidelines to help with your presentation:

• Do not include large blocks of text for your audience to read. Just include key words.

• Use no type smaller than 26 point.

• Do not use dark letters on a dark background.

• Graphics short be appropriate for the topic.

• Look at the scoring rubrics below for addition guidelines.

The completed presentation and graphics will be uploaded to the student webserver when completed.

Right-Click on the picture to the right In the menu that pops-up, select "Save target as..." In the dialog box that opens, navigate to your folder and then click "Save"

Deliver a 5-minute oral presentation to the class.

Prepare for your presentation by becoming very familiar with the job you will be describing. The slides will be shown on a television or video projector connected to a computer. DO NOT read the slides to your audience. Be sure to ask if anyone has any questions when you are done.

The Evaluation

Project Grading Rubric