Image of the Pew Center Report abstract.

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of “the first host-to-host internet connection,” an innovation that has impacted millions around the world since its 1969 creation. To mark this momentous event, the Pew Research Center and the Imaging the Internet Center at Elon University surveyed 530 experts, scholars, policymakers, and other technology innovators about what to expect from “the evolution of the internet over the next 50 years.”

Visions of the technological future from internet pioneers suggest “smart prosthetics” and driverless cars will be commonplace. Some also envision space travel “beyond Mars,” or brain-computer interfaces. Overall, respondents were optimistic, with 72 percent agreeing that things will improve. 

Students at Northern Iowa Area Community College are learning to program cobots the college recently purchased with its NextGen Technicians ATE project grant from the National Science Foundation.

When the first collaborative robot or cobot arrived at Northern Iowa Area Community College (NIACC), the NextGen Technician project team members named it “Osa” in honor of their Mentor-Connect mentor Osa Brand.

“She’s just a really good educator,” Robert Franken said of Brand. Franken is the industrial systems technology instructor and principal investigator of the NextGen Technicians: Addressing Industry Demand for Robotics project that began in June 2019 when NIACC received its first Advanced Technological Education grant (Award 1901957) from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

A special thanks to Molly Blake for contributing to this month’s From the Archive blog post. Molly is a recent graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison iSchool.

Games and gamification have a variety of applications in higher education, including as a component of blended learning experiences. Through fun and interactive games, educators can introduce new concepts, engage students with different learning styles, review course materials, or spark lively class discussion. In this month’s From the Archive blog post, we highlight educational games created by ATE projects and centers—a board game on career pathways, a computer game on mathematics, and three Jeopardy-style quiz games. 

Maritime Life Board Game

The Southeast Maritime and Transportation (SMART) Center offers a variety of materials designed to introduce middle school and high school students to maritime career pathways. Below is one such resource, a game that was created by an educator who partook in the annual SMART Maritime and Transportation Institute. 

Kelsey Warren, a participant of the 2016 institute, designed the Maritime Life Board Game. In this board game—similar to the popular board game Life—each student starts by selecting either a college card or a career card and learns about a variety of maritime careers and educational programs throughout the game. The Maritime Life Board Game includes all materials needed to play the game (including a game board, game pieces, and detailed instructions), as well as an accompanying pre-assessment and post-assessment. 

For more archived resources by the SMART Center, visit the ATE Central resource portal.

InnovATEBIO will build on BABEC’s BioScope Project. This project developed a supply chain that involves community college students honing their biotech skills while creating biotech kits for high school labs.

The recently funded InnovATEBIO National Biotech Education Center at Austin Community College in Texas unites community college biotechnology educators from across the nation in dynamic collaborations that build on their existing technician preparation efforts and branches out in new ways.

“Collaborations are key so I try to make sure within the network we’re all working together,” said InnovATEBIO Principal Investigator Linnea Fletcher.

People from the eight partner institutions worked together for more than a year preparing the Advanced Technological Education (ATE) grant proposal that they submitted to the National Science Foundation in October 2018. The institutions partnering with Austin Community College are Bay Area Bioscience Education Community, Cold Spring Harbor DNA Learning Center, Madison College, Digital World Biology, Forsyth Technical Community College, Baltimore City College, and Finger Lakes Community College. Beyond this, Fletcher said, the new center partners with “of course, the Bio-Link community.”

Image of Lyssa Wilson Becho

In this feature ATE Central continues our "I Am ATE" series, which showcases an ATE PI, staff member, industry partner, or other ATE stakeholder. We are excited to help spread the word about the wonderful people who are at the core of the ATE community and the innovative work everyone is doing.

Name: Lyssa Wilson Becho
Title: Training and ATE Survey Coordinator
Institution: Western Michigan University
Center Name: EvaluATE
URL: www.evalu-ate.org

ATE Central: How did you become involved with ATE?

Becho: I started working with the ATE Survey in 2015 while working at The Evaluation Center at Western Michigan University. At first, I mainly analyzed data and created data visualizations. I continued to work with the survey and increased my role with EvaluATE to other training aspects, such as giving conference presentations, creating resources, and designing webinars. 

ATE Central: Tell us about the goals of your center.

Becho: EvaluATE is the evaluation hub for the ATE program. We aim to advance evaluation in the ATE Program through workshops, webinars, resource materials, research on evaluation, networking, and technical assistance. Through these activities, EvaluATE strives to support improvements in the conduct and use of evaluation, increase professional exchange, strengthen connections among ATE evaluation stakeholders, and expand the evidence base for effective STEM education evaluation practices. 

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Researchers conducting PathTech LISTEN (NSF #1801163) interviews have found that most of those who completed technician education programs are “extremely pleased” with the education they received and have found their training to be “100%” relevant to their jobs.

The PathTech LISTEN project is a mixed methods, longitudinal investigation of post-college experiences of alumni from AS/AAS degree, certificate, and license programs. It grew out of PathTech LIFE: A National Survey of LIFE (Learning, Interests, Family, and Employment) Experiences Influencing Pathways into Advanced Technologies (#1501999). Will Tyson, associate professor of sociology at the University of South Florida, is the principal investigator (PI) of both of these Advanced Technological Education (ATE) targeted research projects. The Florida Advanced Technological Education Center (FLATE) is a PathTech partner.

More “early findings” from PathTech LISTEN will be shared at the 2020 ATE Principal Investigators Conference. The theme of this year’s conference is Innovation and Impact: ATE for the Future. The significant role that ATE projects and centers play in creating and implementing successful career pathways will be the focus of most sessions. For more information visit the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC)'s ATE PI Conference pages.

During the PathTech Listen session at 10 a.m., on October 24, Tyson hopes to generate discussions with ATE principal investigators that will lead to them staying in touch with the researchers and using PathTech findings.   

Accounting for roughly 30 percent of the archived resources stored in the ATE Central resource portal to date, ATE’s engineering-focused projects and centers have long produced a breadth of materials in a variety of high tech industries such as electronics and controls; optics and photonics; materials, marine, or space technologies. Of ATE Central’s archived engineering resources, 83 percent are instructional in nature and well over half are audio or video files. In fact, ATE’s engineering-related projects and centers represent the single largest group of contributors to ATE Central’s audio/video collection. In this month’s From the Archive blog post, we explore some basic engineering curriculum and videos created by the ATE community.  

Technicians employed at salmon hatcheries in Alaska care for vulnerable salmon eggs and juvenile fish before releasing them into the wild.

The Enhancing Aquaculture project combines classroom and experiential learning. Students will learn from University of Alaska fisheries technology faculty in classrooms and outdoor coastal settings as well as from industry professionals during internships at salmon hatcheries in Southeast Alaska.

In 2019-2020 the new fish pathology and mariculture courses developed with the support of an Advanced Technological Education (ATE)  grant  will be piloted online before they are taught in-person as part of the 13-credit Salmon Culture Semester. Marketing and recruiting efforts are underway for the program that will be offered for the first time in fall 2020 at the University of Alaska Southeast (UAS) in Sitka. Students who complete the semester will receive an industry-recognized occupational endorsement.

“The industry is 100% behind it. They are excited about it because it is going to bring them employees and trained technicians,” explained Joel Markis, principal investigator of Enhancing Aquaculture: Education for Underserved Alaskan Communities to Promote Workforce Development in Fisheries Industries (1764383).

Image of Ann Beheler

In this feature ATE Central continues our "I Am ATE" series, which showcases an ATE PI, staff member, industry partner, or other ATE stakeholder. We are excited to help spread the word about the wonderful people who are at the core of the ATE community and the innovative work everyone is doing.

Name: Ann Beheler 
Title:  Executive Director of Emerging Technology Grants
Institution:  Collin College
Center name: National Convergence Technology Center
URL: http://www.connectedtech.org/index.php

ATE Central: How did you become involved with ATE?

Beheler: In 2001 I became a Dean at Collin College, and my department had a very small ATE Project. The rest is history. We first proposed and received a Regional Center in Convergence Technology, awarded in 2004, and then proposed and received a National Center in Convergence Technology, awarded in 2012.

ATE Central: Tell us about the goals of the National Center for Convergence Technology.

Beheler: “Convergence” is the term our business team uses for Information Technology and Communications. Originally, the focus was on the changing need for technicians when IP data networking and telephony first began to merge. Now, it often refers to the converged data center. Our Center focuses on four major missions to equip colleges nationally to ensure their students are extremely “workforce ready” for the many high-paying jobs in the Information Technology area. First, we work with our national employer team to predict what “workforce ready” students must know and be able to do 12-36 months in the future; second, we work with over 70 colleges and universities to ensure curriculum is aligned with workforce needs; third, we provide free, employer-driven professional development for IT and Cybersecurity faculty nationally, so they can implement cutting-edge curriculum; fourth, we disseminate our work via webinars, conference presentations, and mentoring other individuals and colleges in a variety of ways.

Northland Community and Technical College had the nation’s first accredited UAS Maintenance program. With NSF ATE support it has offered faculty professional development, created a UAS Maintenance certificate program, and a UAS Field Service Technician program.

The National Center for Autonomous Technologies (NCAT)—recently funded with a grant (#1902574) from the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technological Education (NSF ATE) program—will prepare technicians for careers working on unmanned vehicles that operate on land, sea, or air. The new center’s multi-disciplinary approach will encompass the array of emerging technologies utilized by autonomous vehicles from their composite-material structures to their geospatial-informed navigation systems.

To accomplish his ambitious goals for the new center Principal Investigator Jonathan Beck has partnered with multiple ATE center and project leaders. One of the center’s co-principal investigators is Jill Zande, associate director, co-principal investigator and competition coordinator for the Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center.

The center’s staff at Northland Community and Technical College in Thief River Falls, Minnesota, will also leverage industry activity in the Red River Valley and the assets at Northland’s aerospace site, the Minnesota State Transportation Center for Excellence, St. Cloud State University, and the University of North Dakota. The university operates the Northern Plains UAS Test Site, one of six Federal Aviation Administration test sites for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) that are also known as drones.

These cross-discipline and cross-state-boundary collaborations add another dimension to the center’s goal of preparing technicians to work with the convergence of technologies that are integral to airborne drones, remotely operated underwater vehicles, and autonomous automobiles.

“What we are doing is training students to be adaptive and nimble, to think outside the box as they look at changing skill sets that will be required over the course of their careers in autonomous technologies. There’s a lot of jobs that are increasing the skills sets that are required … big changes to the skills sets that’ll be required, but modifications to a lot of the existing job titles,” Beck said.