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Winter Working Connections and Successful Online Training

For the third December in a row, the National Convergence Technology Center (CTC) will be hosting its annual Winter Working Connections professional development training event completely on-line. When it was first offered in 2009, Winter Working Connections was an expansion of the CTC’s popular week-long, in-person, Summer Working Connections event that runs each July.  The…

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Community Sharing of Curriculum

Four times a year, the National Convergence Technology Center (CTC) hosts a meeting of its Convergence College Network (CCN) community of over 60 community colleges and universities from 24 states across the country.  These meetings are one of the prime benefits of membership in the CCN in that they provide the perfect platform for resource…

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Soft Skills for All Ages

In 2014, the National Convergence Technology Center’s (CTC) “BILT” (Business and Industry Leadership Team – an engaged and dedicated group of IT industry experts that meets once a quarter to discuss IT trends, answer faculty questions, and validate entry-level job skills) recommended that IT programs weave “soft skills” training into IT every course. A year…

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Strategies and Activities to Increase Diversity and Improve Enrollment

Regular blog readers know that the National Convergence Technology Center (CTC) is currently steering a pilot program called the “Diversity Summit.”  The program kicked off in February with a workshop for select schools from the Convergence College Network (CCN) community of practice. Each participating school sent three attendees – an instructor, an advisor, and an…

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Security Skills Gap Continues

The National Convergence Technology Center’s (CTC) National Business and Industry Leadership Team (BILT) has long emphasized the need for IT students to learn security skills.  Indeed, the BILT urges that every class include instruction on security.  Specifically, since 2015, the BILT has asked instructors to find relevant moments in IT curriculum to ask students “Is…

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Wearable Market Continues to Expand

One of the largest growing markets in the “internet of things” is wearables. A recent Venture Beat article notes a sizable increase in wearables sales. It’s still a relatively small market, but for the second quarter of 2017, 26.3 million wearables were sold worldwide.  The leader is the Chinese company Xiaomi, with Apple and Fitbit…

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Teaching the Internet of Things

Two faculty members associated with the National Convergence Technology Center (CTC) recently delivered a standing-room-only conference presentation on teaching the Internet of Things (“IoT”) to IT networking students. Brian Nelson (Lansing Community College) and Bill Saichek (Orange Coast College) spoke to attendees of the 2017 HI-TEC educator conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. Here are…

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Perspectives and Successes from IT Administrators

The National Convergence Technology Center (CTC) spends a lot of time working with IT faculty, whether through professional development events like Working Connections or through quarterly meetings with the 60 schools in the Convergence College Network (CCN) that features best practice sharing. But twice a year, the CTC allows administrators the opportunity to get more…

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Integrating Data Visualization Tools in the Curriculum

Today’s post comes from guest writer, Rajiv Malkan, professor at Lone Star College in Montgomery, TX, a partner school of the National Convergence Technology Center. Big Data Analytics and Data Visualization are becoming a norm in business today. Data visualization allows the organization to interact with data to identify business trends and insights. As Internet…

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HI-TEC 2017 Preview

HI-TEC is about a month away and the National Convergence Technology Center (CTC) and the Convergence College Network (CCN) are well-represented this year with five panels and workshops as well as a convening following the event. First up, Ann Beheler from the National CTC will be giving a Business and Industry Leadership Team (BILT) presentation…

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