ADVANCED TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION ·
OCTOBER 2011
Welcome to the ATE Central Connection! Published the first Monday of each month, the ATE Central Connection is meant to disseminate information to and about ATE centers and projects, providing you with up-to-date ATE news, events, reminders, as well as highlighting new centers, projects, and resources. In addition, we will also highlight an educational topic with complementary resources found within ATE Central to help illustrate how ATE resources can be used in the classroom.
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The American Association of Community Colleges with the support of the National Science Foundation will hold the 18th national ATE Principal Investigators Conference, at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC. The conference brings together approximately 800 people to focus on the critical issues related to advanced technological education. Key people working on ATE projects across the country participate in the conference. Conference attendees represent community colleges, business and industry, secondary school systems, four-year colleges, and research and development centers covering projects in a wide variety of areas such as: information technology, engineering technology, micro- and nanotechnologies, chemical technology, biotechnology, and others.
Here is a sample of the valuable resources in ATE Central that focus on Engineering Technologies:
From OP-TEC:
This page from OP-TEC, the National Center for Optics and Photonics Education, contains videos of successful two-year college technical program students and graduates. The audience for these videos are teachers, counselors, students and parents. The video subjects explain who they worked for, what they do, how they became interested in photonics and who helped or encouraged them. The videos range from two to five minutes and are hosted on YouTube.
This page from OP-TEC, the National Center for Optics and Photonics Education, features the National Precision Optics Skill Standards for Technicians. This document "represents the consensus of a broad cross-section of U.S. employers regarding the technical and workplace skills required of precision optics technicians." These skills include critical work functions and tasks, technical skills, and employability skills and the list will be used in curriculum design. Visitors can view the standards as a pdf or request a complimentary bound copy.
From NetWorks:
Hands-On Optics: Making an Impact with Light is a comprehensive, ready-to-use collection of six classroom modules on optics. The kit comes packaged with a How to Manual and everything you need to use with 20 to 30 students for all six modules. All materials are reusable. The manual is full of activities and teaching ideas. In addition, a companion resource, Scope It Out! An Optics Activity and Resource Notebook, is available to all program leaders. Designed for educators, optics professionals, and others who want to expand the optics they teach, the resource notebook also contains a host of resource lists on a wide range of optics topics and optics background materials.
ATE Central, in conjunction with AACC, is happy to announce the upcoming release of the 2011 ATE PI Conference mobile app.
The 2011 ATE PI Conference app is designed for iPhone/iPad, Android, and Blackberry mobile devices. A browser-based version will also be available and can be accessed via laptop, desktop, tablet, or smartphone. The purpose of the 2011 ATE PI Meeting app is to help meeting attendees streamline access to conference information, allowing them to easily create a personal agenda for the meeting and keep track of the sessions and showcases they wish to attend. In addition, the app will help attendees make the most out of their time among ATE colleagues by organizing the valuable contacts they make at the conference conveniently on their mobile device. For up-to-date information on the 2011 PI Conference app, including release date, check back on ATE Central, or follow @ATECentral, @Comm_College, and #2011ATEPI on Twitter.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) recently released a report that addresses a fundamental question about community colleges: why are so many of them unable to successfully secure federal funding for computing programs? The report, Digitally Enhancing America's Community Colleges, offers recommendations designed to spur new grant proposals, inventive initiatives, and dynamic partnerships that infuse innovation into community college computing courses and programs. The full 24-page report is available online here: http://www.acmccecc.org/.... NSF's release about the summit, ACM, and the report is available here: http://www.nsf.gov/news/.... Printed copies of the report along with a strategic planning template are available for free via an online request form at http://www.acmccecc.org/contactus/.
ATEEC is looking for environmental and energy specialists to vet (review) materials for the electronic Environmental and Energy Resources Library. If you are interested in participating please contact Lora at lkaisler@eicc.edu.
CWIS is open source software, created with NSF funding, that can help your project or center showcase resources online. It's free and very easy to use — click here to check out a few of the sites running CWIS. We'd be happy to provide you with more information about CWIS and give you a quick tour of its features — please e-mail cwis@scout.wisc.edu to get started!
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