The Best Internet Resources for Choosing Education Careers and Education Jobs

Whether to choose a career in education is a difficult but common decision. Many people are interested in education careers. After you match your personality with careers, narrowing your choices based on high-quality career information is critical to making a good career choice. But it takes work to find high-quality information on the Internet; so I've started it for you.

Having worked as an adjunct professor myself and raised by a college professor and a public school librarian, I know a little about education careers. With few exceptions, they are political, not well-paid, enjoy iffy job security, and often suffer from a lack of resources. All that said, with the right job fit, education is one of the most rewarding careers in the world. I feel fortunate to have grown up and worked in this environment.

Education is undergoing enormous change from technology, fluid government involvement, college “business models,” and demographics. A few examples of trends:

• the growth in distance learning and Internet based education,
• charter schools and changing public school system funding & structure,
• accountability required by No Child Left Behind and state laws,
• changes in the college professor tenure system, and
• the growing diversity of the American student population.

So whether you are a high school career planner or an adult planning a career change, you need to more about what an education career is like before you leap. The resources I recommend are just a few to get you started, to show the variety of quality career information out there.

Before I recommend these career info links, don’t forget to:

1. Talk with people working in the jobs that interest you – their information will be much more accurate, especially about your geographic region or specialty than any Internet source. Yes, it’s more work but it’s worth it. Learn more about career specific networking.
2. Use your public or school/college library for free subscriptions or links to websites the general public has to pay for. See more tips for taking advantage of the library.
3. Be skeptical of website sources of career information selling something – what is their bias? Where does their information come from? That includes The Career Key. You can learn more at our site about our mission and philosophy (we don’t accept reciprocal linking agreements or advertising).

To start, look at job descriptions, certification requirements, salary, job outlook, and related occupations and websites in the Department of Labor's Occupational Outlook Handbook:

Preschool and K-12 Teachers
Post-Secondary (College) Teachers
Education Administrators
Counselors
Librarians

Higher-Ed (college, post-secondary)

• Chronicle.com (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
• Chronicle also offers a great academic blog list focused on academic life and careers.
• For a “real world” perspective on 2009 trends in technology and higher ed from a college IT VP, read this post from “Bytes from Lev”

Secondary School (K-12)

• About Teaching and the First Year (Editor’s Picks from Ed.Gov)
• Teacher Training and Certification Information (Editor’s Picks from Ed.Gov)
• Ed.gov’s State by State Education Department listing (for licensing info)
• Is teaching overrated? Marty Nemko’s USNWR (U.S. News and World Report) article will give you even more reasons to do your informational interviews.
• Life as a Teacher. This UK government site offers more video and interactive media than any U.S. site I’ve seen in offering teachers’ stories about their career paths and daily work.
• What is Teach for America Really Like? (article in USNWR)
• TeacherLingo.com (teacher blogs)
  
• The School Counselor’s Role (at the American School Counselor Association website)
• Vocational Information Center (VIC) This non-profit, popular website is a source of career information for educators and can help you explore what it might be like to teach subjects that interest you.
• Top 10 Librarian Blogs to Read in '09 from Librarian and Information Science News. The great thing about librarians is you know they love media - so you're guaranteed to find some interesting career info about librarians on the Internet. This blog list is just a sample...

Early Childhood Education & Preschool

• National Association for the Education of Young Children
• Links on Early Childcare and Education Careers from VIC (see above)
• TeacherLingo.com (search for preschool teacher blogs)
• Lead from the Start Blog: views on preschool, policy and the teaching profession
  

Any suggestions and feedback on this post or any others is appreciated. This is my second post in a series about challenging but rewarding career choices, and finding the best Internet resources for career information. Click here for my first post about women interested in science careers.