ATETV.ORG - Thinking About A High Technology Career?

If you or someone you know is thinking about a career in a high technology field, you need to take a look at Advanced Technological Education Television (ATETV.ORG). There, you'll find a National Science Foundation funded Web-based video series and interactive network designed to connect students and professionals with careers in advanced technology. The series highlights ATE success stories from community colleges and ATE programs nationwide. Its outreach efforts -- at ATETV.org and on social networking sites like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter -- aim to connect employers in industry and government with the high-tech workforce of tomorrow.

Here's the third episode in the series, featuring how The College of the Mainland trains students on an industry-scale oil refinery and how schools are working to close the gender gap in biotechnology. Be sure to check this one out along with all the episodes on YouTube and grab them on iTunes.



A little more from the ATETV website....... globalization has changed the scope of our workforce, creating new opportunities and greater demand for workers in the fields of science and technology. In order to drive our economy forward, we must recruit, train and place technically skilled professionals to meet new demand.

How can you get involved and learn more - check out ATETV.ORG and your local community college!

The Convergence Technology Center at Collin College

Last week, I had the privilege of visiting Collin College and attending the National Science Foundation funded Convergence Technology Center (CTC) National Visiting Committee meeting in Frisco, Texas.


Here's some information from the CTC website:

The CTC was established in 2004 at Collin College to meet the growing need for skilled specialists in the area of Convergence Technology and Home Technology Integration. The Center pulls together the strengths of regional and national educational institutions and business and industry partners to create of pool of qualified convergence technicians who can design, build, test, secure and troubleshoot communication infrastructure and devices in the convergence technology arena, both for enterprise and home markets.

This center has four primary goals:

1. Program Improvement: Develop convergence technology and interoperability curriculum to meet workforce needs;
Objective A: Determine skills required by the region for convergence technology
Objective B: Design convergence technology curriculum

2. Professional Development for Educators: Equip regional faculty to teach convergence technology;
Objective A: Develop opportunities for educator professional development

3. Recruit and Attract underserved populations into the field of convergence technology;
Objective A: Recruit and attract underserved into the Convergent Technology programs
Objective B: Retain/graduate underserved populations in Convergent Technology programs

4. Capacity Building: Function as a Regional Distribution Center.
Objective A: Provide access to the CTC Convergence lab with regional business and college partners
Objective B: Serve as a clearinghouse for education materials on convergence technologies

Three college districts drive the work of the Convergence Technology Center, led by:

• Dr. Ann Beheler, Principal Investigator (PI), Vice President - Academic Affairs, Porterville College
  
• Dr. Bette Plog, Co-PI, Professor and Director, Information Technology Institute, Information Technology Programs and Systems Support, El Centro College, Dallas County Community College District (DCCCD)
• David Keathly, Co-PI, University of North Texas,Computer Science and Engineering Lecturer and Undergraduate Advisor
  
• Helen Sullivan, Director, CTC
  
• Ann Blackman, Program Manager, CTC

I am always so impressed with this group - the CTC in doing excellent work and we had an excellent meeting. Highlights included a tour of the brand new Frisco Independent School District Career and Technical Education Center.

Additional pictures taken at the meeting are linked here.

Can Seagrass Health Indicate Environmental Stress?

Del Mar College’s Natural Sciences Department has made providing research opportunities to students a priority through the Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program (MSEIP), funded by the U.S Department of Education, and has partnered with Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi (TAMU-CC) and other area institutions to give participants hands-on experiences by working with researchers and graduate students.

In this interview, done at the 2008 National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education conference held last October in Washington, DC, Del Mar College student Nicolas Perez discusses work he did in the summer of 2008 related to research conducted by TAMU-CC associate professor of molecular and plant sciences, Dr. Kirk Cammarata. Under the supervision of Dr. Kirk Cammarata, three Del Mar College students were paired with TAMUCC- graduate student mentors and focused on separate research projects related to the study of sea grass health.




You can get more information on Delmar College, TAMU-CC and Nicolas' project here.

I enjoyed talking with Nicolas and all of the other students that attended the conference. I had the opportunity to interview a few more of them and will be posting those interviews here on occasion. If you want, you can see them all now on our Center YouTube channel linked here.

A Conversation with Pierre Thiry and James Jones from MPICT

The Mid-Pacific Information and Communications Technologies (MPICT) Center is a recently funded National Science Foundation (NSF) – Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Regional Center hosted by City College of San Francisco (CCSF). MPICT's mission is to coordinate, promote and improve the quality and availability of ICT education in a region consisting of Northern California, Northern Nevada, Southern Oregon, Hawaii and the Pacific Territories. Current Regional Partners include: Ohlone College , Santa Rosa Junior College , Cabrillo College and Foothill College.

We've had a great relationship with Pierre, James and CCSF and were fortunate to get them on camera to talk about MPICT at the 2008 SAME-TEC Conference.

MPICT is off to a great start under the leadership and direction of Pierre and James. Contact them for more information at www.mpict.org

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We have several interviews from SAME-TEC posted and you can get them different ways:

YouTube: Watch our YouTube Channel at: http://www.youtube.com/user/NatCtrTelecomTech

Streaming and Downloading: View streaming videos and download content using your web browser at: http://nctt.org/podcast

iTunes: If you have iTunes installed you can watch and listen to this one, watch and listen to others, and subscribe to our video and audio podcasts by following this link.

We're planning and looking forward to next years conference. Watch here, our center websites and SAME-TEC.ORG for 2009 Conference information and updates.

Learning From Some Really Impressive People

This week I gave a presentation in Bloomington, Minnesota at the Investigative Science and Law Enforcement Technology Initiative (ISLET) Criminal Justice Summit. ISLET, led by Principal Investigator Dr Carol Mathews from Century College, is a project funded by the National Science Foundation. Here’s some detail from the ISLET project website:

The ISLET Project has been initiated to equip peace officers with a better awareness and understanding of the scientific foundation underlying the various investigative sciences and technologies.

Through changes to the degree programs, the initiative provides today's law enforcement officer:

• More focused investigative awareness
• A mapping of learning objectives for investigation and chain of custody for evidence across the community
• A comprehensive perspective of current law enforcement technological trends and expectations
• Meeting the role/identity challenges as first line of defense, first responder, one who protects and serves the community.

Many of the attendees were practicing law enforcement people and many were wearing their badges and their guns. Lacking any criminal justice experience I did not know what to expect. Session topics included forensics, gang identification, terrorism, cyber-crime and homeland security. I was so impressed with what I heard and saw - the different ways IT and communications technologies are being used are extremely complex and technical. If you think law enforcement is a low tech field, you need to take a closer look.

I also had the opportunity to make some new friends and listen to some real “cop” stories. Thursday evening I spent a few hours with a number of law enforcement people including three sworn police officers – Rick, a police chief from a town in Minnesota; Lee, an officer from one of the larger cities in Minnesota; and Vanessa a community college criminal justice faculty member who recently came off duty as a patrol officer in a large Massachusetts city. Between the three of them I’m guessing there is between 60 and 70 years of combined duty. Listening to their stories and seeing their dedication, awareness and conviction to their work was something I won't forget. We also had more than a few laughs.

Some fascinating presentations, technology applications, stories and conversation with extremely dedicated and responsible people that put their lives on the line every day for all of us.

To learn more about the ISLET project:

• Summary- an abstract of the project's purpose
• Goals - the overall project goals
• STEM Core - Science and Technology improvements are at the core of the initiative's purpose

Minnesota Criminal Investigation Fall Summit Presentation

I gave a presentation on Podcasting today to a group of college faculty, administrators and law enforcement office at the Criminal Investigation Fall Summit ISLET (Investigative Sciences for Law Enforcement Technologies) in Bloomington, Minnesota.

The ISLET Initiative is an NSF funded project undertaken by Century College and its collaborators to deepen the science and technology skills of licensed Law Enforcement personnel. Here's an overview from the ISLET website:

With ever more sophisticated terrorism a threat to our nation's security, Century College has undertaken an effort to directly counter the increasing risk by arming law enforcement students and currently licensed professionals with updated scientific, technical, and investigative education and skills. The project is educating law enforcement personnel more deeply in investigative sciences and technologies, and to establish a regional source for curriculum planning, course development and delivery, faculty training, and information dissemination. Curriculum supporting a new two-year degree, new certifications, new continuing education modules, as well as articulation agreements with four-year institutions will be developed. Close collaboration with stakeholders, including the Peace Officers Standards & Training (POST) board will ensure new materials remainrelevant and in compliance with new and existing licensing
requirements.

Here's the presentation posted on SlideShare:

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: criminal foundation)

Community Colleges: Preparing Workforce

Last week, on April 16, I had the opportunity to attend Community College Day at the National Science Foundation (NSF). The NSF hosts this annual event in acknowledgment of the importance of community colleges to science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education and the STEM "pipeline" to the workforce.

Each year the NSF invites a featured speaker with a community college background and Uri Treisman, professor of mathematics and executive director of the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin, was invited last week. The Chronicle of Higher Education has an excellent writeup of Uri's keynote speach linked here.

Uri was studying landscape design and employed as a campus gardener at Los Angeles City College in the 1970's , when he stumbled upon a Calculus course lecture. The course instructor allowed Uri to sit in on the course during his lunch break. Uri changed his major and, as a math professor, has dedicated much of his professional life to helping minority students succeed in math courses.

There are tens of thousands of community college success stories like this - if you are not familiar with community colleges - here's some interesting stats from the American Association of Community Colleges website:

Number and Type of Colleges:

Total: 1,195
Public: 987
Independent: 177
Tribal: 31

Enrollment:

Total: 11.5 million
Enrolled full time: 41%
Enrolled part time: 59%

Selected Demographics:

Average age: 29
Women: 60%
Men: 40%
Minorities: 35%
First generation to attend college: 39%
Single parents: 17%

Community College Students Constitute the Following Percentages of Undergraduates:

All U.S. undergraduates: 46%
First-time freshmen: 41%
Native American: 55%
Asian/Pacific Islander: 46%
Black: 46%
Hispanic: 55%

Employment Status:

Full-time students employed full time: 27%
Full-time students employed part time: 50%
Part-time students employed full time: 50%
Part-time students employed part time: 33%

What do I see when I take a quick look at these?

Almost half of all undergraduate students in the U.S. are community college students... Interpretation: If you are an employer, almost half of the people you hire with college experience will have attended a community college.

Almost 60% of current community college students attend college part time... Interpretation: They are likely working and paying their own way through school. As a result, they have a good understanding of commitment and know what it is like to work hard.

Many community college students work at least part time while going to college... Interpretation: They multi-task very well, juggling work, school, family, etc.

Many community college students are older, with an average age of 29... Interpretation: Community college students in general are more mature because they are older. Younger community college students are also typically more mature because they have been around older students in the classroom.

If your business is in the market for well prepared, hard working, intelligent, mature and committed people that can hit the ground running - don't forget your local community colleges.

To locate community colleges in your area, use the AACC Community College Finder Site linked here.

Motivated and Committed People = Outstanding Work

I've been back and forth to Dallas a couple of times the last two weeks - first for a futures conference presentation and this past week for a two day National Science Foundation (NSF) Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Convergence Technology Center at Collin College visiting committee meeting.

At the futures conference I spoke on Globalization - specifically how college courses need to morph to properly prepare students for today and tomorrow's work. The reception, hospitality and quality of the event were outstanding and I am so thankful I get invited to these kinds of events. I learn so much listing to other speakers and talking with attendees.

Last week was the two day visiting committee meeting - larger National Science Foundation grants are required to appoint a National Visiting Committee (NVC) that meets once a year. According to the NVC Handbook published by the Evaluation Center at Western Michigan University, these committees are groups of advisors that work with grantees and NSF to help them achieve their goals and objectives. They assess the plans and progress of the project and report to NSF and the project leadership. Committee members also provide advice to the project staff and may serve as advocates for effective projects.

At the NVC meeting, among many things, we had a lot of excellent discussion about current and future of converged communications and networks - what many are now calling unified communications/networking. I'd like to especially thank President Cary A. Israel and Executive Vice President Toni Jenkins from Collin College along with Director Ann Beheler, Ann Blackman, Helen Sullivan, etc, etc from the Convergence Technology Center at Collin College for their hospitality, commitment, work, understanding and dedication to their students. It's always wonderful to see excellent work being done - especially when it is funded with taxpayer dollars.

Here's one photo of NVC student lunch presenters (click to enlarge) taken on Thursday - each a different story and each incredibly EXCELLENT is all I can say. You can check out my iPhone Tumblr photoblog of both events (and a lot of other events) at http://gsnyder.tumblr.com/ - scroll down to see all photos.

I'll get back on my five per week (or so) blog schedule this week - I've got a bunch of them started and I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of weeks!

Thanks again to all at Collin College in Texas.

H.R. 2272: The America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science Act (COMPETES)

Last Thursday, in a 367 to 57 vote, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2272, a bill that provides $33.6 billion towards federal science, technology and research programs. Thursday night the bill was also approved by the Senate and is now on the President's desk.

H.R. 2272 is the result of 18 months of work led by the bipartisan House Science and Technology Committee and based on recommendations in the, 2005 Rising above the Gathering Storm National Academies report. This is from the H.R. 2272 bill summary:

"H.R. 2272 is the culmination of a year and a half-long, bipartisan effort led by Members of the House Science and Technology Committee to pass a package of competitiveness bills in response to recommendations in the 2005 National Academies report, Rising above the Gathering Storm".

"The Conference Agreement follows through on a commitment to ensure U.S. students, teachers, businesses and workers are prepared to continue leading the world in innovation, research and technology – well into the future".

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Title Portion of the bill is extremely encouraging with a strong emphasis on 2-year colleges and the Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Program:

"The conference agreement provides $22 billion to the National Science Foundation (NSF) over fiscal years 2008 - 2010, putting it on a path to double in approximately 7 years. Particularly strong increases are provided in fiscal year 2008 for K-12 STEM education programs at NSF. These programs, including the Noyce Teacher Scholarship program and the Math and Science Partnerships program will help to prepare thousands of new STEM teachers and provide current teachers with content and pedagogical expertise in their area of teaching.

In addition to providing increased support for programs that address the earliest stages of the STEM workforce pipeline, the conference report will help create thousands of new STEM college graduates, including 2-year college graduates, through increased support for the STEM talent expansion (STEP) program and the Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program.

For those STEM graduates who continue on the path toward academic careers, the conference agreement provides critical support for young, innovative researchers by expanding the graduate research fellowships (GRF) and integrative graduate education and research traineeship (IGERT) programs, strengthening the early career grants (CAREER) program, and creating a new pilot program of seed grants for outstanding new investigators. Such programs have an additional benefit of helping to stimulate high-risk, high-reward research by identifying and taking a chance on the best and brightest young minds".

As the director of an NSF ATE Center at a Community College it is wonderful to see recognition of the work being done at all NSF funded institutions including K-12 and the two-year schools.

Blogging from The NCTT Summer Conference - Day 1

We're into Day 1 of our summer conference and it has started out extremely well. We're running it this year at the Verizon Conference Center in Marlborough, MA. At the conference we have attendees representing 23 individual states and Canada. This morning Karl Kapp kicked us off with an excellent presentation based on his latest book Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning. To the right is a picture of Karl during his presentation.

This is from Karl's website:

Gadgets, Games, and Gizmos for Learning is an innovative book that provides practical and original solutions to the impending boomer/gamer knowledge and skills transfer gap. The book outlines how gamer values such as the use of cheat codes, the love of gadgets, the need to play games, and the desire to be constantly connected can be used as methods for moving information from the heads of the boomers to the fingertips and gadgets of the gamers. As organizations begin to think strategically about how to attract, retain, and train new talent, this book will be an invaluable resource.

In his presentation Karl challenged the common belief that gamer habits can have a negative effect in our classrooms and workplaces and suggested many ways their expertise can be used to enhance the learning and work experience.

After Karl we followed with a couple of great presentations from Vince Dinoto from Jefferson Community and Technical College in Kentucky and Terry Bartelt from Fox Valley Technical College.

Terry did a great presentation on his Multimedia Learning Object NSF Project and is shown presenting to the left. Terry and Fox Valley Technical College have developed over 200 learning objects on electronics technology topics. Learning objects are animated multimedia instruments presented on a computer, and are accessible at no charge on the internet. Through an NSF grant, over 300 more of them will be created for automation, robotics, mechanics, fluid power and process control.

Vince did and excellent presentation on Internet GIS. The presentation explored both web-based and data driven Internet GIS. In addition the concept of server based GIS was discussed.

Later we had Devin McLaughlin from Apple do a two part session on Virtualization for the Macintosh. Devin and the group explored the options for running multiple operating systems on Apple Macintosh Intel Computers. Over a year ago Apple started shipping Apple Macintosh Computers with Intel chips. This has made running the Mac OS and Windows on the same machine a reality. Participants learned about the options for running both environments on the Mac and how to easily deploy these machines.

After lunch Pierre Thiry from City College of San Francisco and Steven Barndollar from Juniper Networks discussed the Juniper University Center program. In January City College became the first Juniper Networks University Center in the United States and has been piloting the two courses: Operating Juniper Routers in the Enterprise and Advanced Juniper Routers in the Enterprise this past Spring. The presentation focused on a description of the curriculum, equipment and training needed to implement this pilot project and on the lessons learned in this first year implementation.

In addition NCTT CoPI Jim Downing presented on Fiber Optics, the Physical Layer, and the Classroom. Jim's presentation looked at the connection between fiber-optics (at the physical layer) and the next few layers in the OSI model. Beginning with the differences and similarities between basic media (copper, fiber, wireless) connections, the presentation showed the importance of understanding the differences and realizing how technically vast the physical layer is. Highlights included teaching decibels using a systems approach, defining the important differences between media, and explaining the layer 1-2-3 connections.

Peter Saflund from The Saflund Institute, Steven Budd from Springfield Technical Community College and Laura Qaissaunee from Brookdale Community College ran their extremely popular Steps to Successful ATE Proposal Preparation two part workshop once again. These sessions are always a crowd favorite with attendees learning critical steps in successful ATE proposal preparation with practice critical review of proposal segments and practice writing for clarity for successful review.

Robert Mortenson from The University of Nebraska at Omaha, Dennis Kirlin from the Midwest Center for Information Technology and Jeanne L. Surface from the AIM Institute discussed Mapping Research Evidence to Investigative Questions in their session. Their presentation described the results of a National Science Foundation funded ATE Center's efforts to respond to using "Key Questions of Interest" in the evaluative process. It provided a description of the processes used and the logic model developed to respond to a change in the NSF's evaluation paradigm.

Paula Velluto from Bunker Hill Community College then demonstated her Computer Forensics In a Box. This presentation frocused on crime and evidence gathered from an ensuing investigation that needs analysis. Participants observed the crime, reviewed the evidence, determined the connections, and reported back on their findings. CFATE(an NSF ATE Project) in a Box is a recruitment activity that is used for High School and Middle School students to introduce them to the field of Computer Forensics.

Next, Joseph T. Nairn and Mark Indelicato from Rochester Institute of Technology presented on the Avenues to Further Education program at RIT.

A national leader in engineering technology education, Rochester Institute of Technology provides many opportunities for students coming out of two year programs looking to further their education at the bachelor's or master's level. Joe and Mark discussed the portfolio of telecom-related certificates and degrees that accommodate community college graduates with the flexibility to earn a degree online from RIT.

We finished Day 1 with a cocktail hour sponsored by Juniper Networks - thanks Juniper!

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Note: As more pictures become available I'll be updating this post! Also, if you are reading at www.nctt.org/blog, you may not be able to see the pictures. To see the pictures go directly to http://ictcenter.blogspot.com