Winter Working Connections

For the fifth year in a row, the National Convergence Technology Center is offering Winter Working Connections exclusively online and registration is underway! Classes run Dec. 16-18.

Loyal blog readers know that the Working Connections IT Faculty Development Institute offers cutting-edge, cost-effective professional development opportunities to current community college IT/convergence faculty (at non-profit schools only) that is often only available through expensive commercial training. The idea is for faculty attendees to take what they learn and deliver it to students within the next twelve months.  Immediate classroom impact is the goal of Working Connections.

This year’s tracks include:

Beauty and Joy of Computing– The Beauty and Joy of Computing (BJC) is an introductory computer science curriculum for high school students to get a broad perspective of computing and its impacts. BJC is designed to attract diverse students, including females and underrepresented minorities, by emphasizing the joy and complexity of creating visual computer programs and with critical reflection on the impacts of new computing technology. Through BJC, students will learn about core programming concepts, big data, internet foundations, as well as abstraction, creativity, and social implications of computing.

Big Data Analytics and Data Visualization Dashboards with Power BI – This workshop is an introductory session to the world of Data Visualization Dashboards and Big Data Analytics. Microsoft PowerBI is one of the leading data visualization and analytics tools in the market today. In this workshop participants will understand the basics of Big Data and how businesses are creating a culture of data-driven decision-making. Participants will be introduced to the core features of PowerBI software. Hands-on labs using PowerBI will allow the participants to have a first-hand knowledge of how to utilize the software to gain business insights and trends. Participants will be able to demonstrate how to take different data-sets and convert into a meaningful visual and dashboard format for better understanding and decision making. Certain educational data-sets such as course scheduling will be used to analyze the data and create simple dashboards. Participants are encouraged to bring and work on their own data-sets on the last day of this workshop.

Palo Alto Networks Faculty Training: Admin I (Cybersecurity Infrastructure Configuration) – This faculty training will prepare you to teach the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Configuration (CIC) course offered through participating in the Palo Alto Networks Cybersecurity Academy program. It will provide hands-on experience to do the course labs available through our partner, Network Development Group (NDG), as virtual labs (preferred) or you can set up your own Palo Alto Networks VM-50s (free). Further it prepares faculty to become Palo Alto Networks Certified Network Security Administrator or PCNSA.

Please note that this is not an asynchronous on-line program. Everyone is expected to log in every day all day according to the schedule. Your track is a synchronous track.

Registration ends Monday, Dec. 2. If you are an IT faculty member and would like to register, please contact Mark Dempsey at mdempsey@collin.edu for more information.