ADVANCED TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION · NOVEMBER 2009

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.

We want the ATE Central Connection to be a valuable tool; please e-mail [email protected] with any suggestions about how to make the ATE Central Connection more useful for you or to suggest any information you would like to see in an upcoming issue.

Upcoming Events

November 1-5 International Annual Meetings of the American Society of Agronomy (ASA), Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), and Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) Pittsburgh, PA
November 2-4 Discovery on Target Boston, MA
November 2-5 2009 National SBIR Transfer Program Conference Sparks, NV
November 2-5 International Congress on Applications of Lasers & Electro-Optics (ICALEO) Orlando, FL
November 3-4 National Workshop On Challenges To Innovation In Advanced Manufacturing: Industry Drivers And R&D Needs Gaithersburg, MD
November 3-6 EDUCAUSE 2009 Annual Conference Denver, CO
November 6 KITCenter - Fundamentals of Web 2.0 Part 2 Louisville, KY
November 6 Successful Practices You Can Use and NSF/ATE Partnerships for Funding Technical Education Baton Rouge, LA
November 9 Harnassing the Power of Green Hunt Valley, MD
November 9-14 American Evaluation Association Annual Conference Orlando, FL
November 10-14 ATMAE 2009 Annual Conference: Emerging Green Technologies for Today's Economic Challenges Louisville, KY
November 11 Our National Cybersecurity: Emerging Challenges and Strategies Adelphi, MD
November 12-15 American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges Las Vegas, NV
November 13 NTRCC/Green IT Summit Plano, TX
November 14-20 Super Computing '09 Portland, OR
November 17-19 Hands-On Nanofabrication Workshop for Educators State College, PA
November 17-20 The Alabama Counseling Association Annual Conference Birmingham, AL
November 17-21 2009 NAAE Convention Nashville, TN
November 18 Evaluation Webinar for New ATE Grantees Online
November 19-21 Association for Career and Technical Education Annual Conference Nashville, TN
November 20 GeoTech Center Webinar Series - Getting Started with the SkillsUSA National Geospatial Challenge Contest Online
November 23-24 Alabama Community College Association 2009 Conference Montgomery, AL
November 30 - December 4 IEEE GLOBECOM 2009 Honolulu, HI

For more events please visit the ATE Central Events page or if you have any upcoming events that you would like posted on ATE Central or in the ATE Central Connection please send them to [email protected]

Featured ATE Center

Mid-Pacific Information and Communications Technologies (MPICT) Center

http://www.mpict.org/

The Mid-Pacific Information and Communications Technologies (MPICT) Center is an Advanced Technological Education (ATE) funded Regional Center. MPICT’s mission is to coordinate, promote and improve the quality of ICT education, with an emphasis on 2-year colleges, in northern California, northern Nevada, southern Oregon, Hawaii and the Pacific Territories. MPICT’s Major Initial Goals are to: Develop partnerships among higher education institutions to increase and improve the region’s ICT education capacity; Deepen and expand collaboration with industry to create an ICT workforce that fully meets the region’s economic needs; Identify, implement and disseminate ICT education best practices in the region, working towards a standardization of ICT competencies, skills and education approaches; Develop fully articulated ICT education pathways and work to implement them throughout the region; Expand, diversify and improve the region’s ICT workforce; and Enhance linkages to global ICT educators and employers. MPICT's homepage includes links to Industry resources, job postings, an ICT Issues area, and news and events.

Featured ATE Resources

Here is a small sample of the valuable resources in ATE Central that focus on Computer Security:

From the Wisconsin Online Resource Center:

Firewall: Packet Filters

http://www.wisc-online.com/objects/index_tj.asp?objID=CIS4105

This brief interactive activity, by Electromechanical Digital Library and Wisconsin Technical College System faculty members Joseph Wetzel and Douglas Tabbutt, provides an interactive lesson on packet filters to demonstrate their use. After a brief explanation, there is a very useful activity that allows the user to control theoretical settings to try to block a certain port from transferring information – it’s a good test to verify if the concept is understood. This should prove a useful resource for students or teachers looking to introduce the concept of packet filters.

Firewall: Network Address Translation/Port Address Translation

http://www.wisc-online.com/objects/index_tj.asp?objID=CIS3405

This brief interactive activity, by Electromechanical Digital Library and Wisconsin Technical College System faculty members Joseph Wetzel and Douglas Tabbutt, provides a basic lesson on firewalls. This learning activity introduces the purpose of a firewall and a simple overview of what a firewall does within a computer system. The illustrations are helpful to identifying the separate parts and this would be a good resource for students that are being introduced to the topic.

From the Convergence Technology Center (CTC):

The Anti-Virus Install [ppt]

http://iws.ccccd.edu/ctc/Convergence...

This PowerPoint presentation, provided by the Convergence Technology Center, gives the first half of a module on LANs, WANs, and Anti-Virus. The module begins with basic instructions on how to download free anti-virus software, and then walks through setup and installation. It also covers how to update and schedule future updates for the software to remain effective against new viruses. The site requires free and quick registration in order to access the materials, but the materials from the Center are plentiful and well worth the short time it takes to log in. Visitors can also access an overview of the module and assessment under Module 5b.

For more ATE resources about Computer Security please visit: http://atecentral.net/index.php?P=BrowseResources&ParentId=980401

News & Reminders

ATE Central Recieves Further Funding from NSF

We are extremely pleased to announce that ATE Central has been awarded a second grant from the National Science Foundation which expands the scope of the project and will allow us to continue supporting the ATE community for the next four years. We look forward to working with all our partners within ATE as well as WGBH Boston and others as ATE Central moves forward into this second phase! For more information please e-mail Rachael Bower ([email protected]).

Connect with ATE Central Staff

ATE Central will be attending the AMATYC Conference in Las Vegas, NV, November 12-15. Stop by and visit us in the Exhibit Hall at Booth #103 or attend our presentation on AMSER and ATE Central on Thursday, November 12th at 1:40 pm in room Grande C. We will also be attending the ACTE conference in Nashville, TN, November 19. Stop by and visit us at the ATE booth or attend our presentation at 4:30 pm in room Lincoln D.

Can CWIS Software Help Support Your Project Goals?

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 Edward Almasy ([email protected]) to get started!

Find Out More About ATE Central

For information about ATE Central and how your project or center can take part and benefit from ATE Central's portal and services you may want to download the ATE Central Handbook at http://atecentral.net/handbook.