Curriculum/Program
Social Media: What platform do you use?
This discussion started with a poll question: what social media platform do you use most often at school? LinkedIn, 21% Facebook, 18% Twitter, 6% Other, 3% I don’t use social media at school, 26% Below are some highlights of the comments that followed, focusing on the “Big Three” – LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter – and…
Read MoreAll about the ATE Program
The National Convergence Technology Center (CTC) is an ATE Center. That is, the National CTC is an Advanced Technological Education (ATE) center funded by the National Science Foundation. The National CTC, hosted by Collin College in Frisco, Texas, is one of many such ATE centers and projects at community colleges around the country devoted to…
Read MoreStudent Feature: Chidera Obinali
As a young girl, Chidera Obinali got her first taste of technology through playing an online virtual pet environment game, known as NeoPets. “They have little pages where you code HTML and CSS within NeoPets,” Chidera explained. She made friends all over the world through the game. “I would join guilds that were all based…
Read MoreWinter 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…
Read MoreCommunity 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…
Read MoreSoft 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…
Read MoreStrategies 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…
Read MoreSecurity 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…
Read MoreWearable 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…
Read MoreTeaching 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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