Advanced Technological Education · January 2014

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 info@atecentral.net 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.

In This Issue

Featured Project: Geospatial Technician Education (GeoTEd)
Featured Resources in Geospatial Technology
ATE@20: New Subscription Feature for the ATE@20 Blog
Community Connection: Archiving: Start Off the New Year with a Plan
Did You Know?
ATE Events
News & Reminders

Featured Project

Geospatial Technician Education (GeoTEd)

http://www.geoted.org

Geospatial Technology (GST) is a rapidly expanding industry that crosscuts nearly every discipline and sector of the U.S. economy. As a broad term, it refers to geographical information systems (GIS), global positioning systems (GPS), remote sensing (RS), and emerging technologies and applications that support the collection, analysis, and interpretation of spatial data. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) considers the field a high growth industry, particularly within the public sector –federal, state, and local governments – as well as in regulated industries, such as telecommunications, utilities, and transportation. Accordingly, the DOL Initiative states that the tremendous growth potential of GST is limited only by the educational system’s ability to provide future workers. The VCCS Geospatial portal, also known as GeoTEd, serves to facilitate the efforts of Virginia’s Community Colleges through the development of a future workforce that meets industry demand for trained GST technicians. Virginia’s vibrant geospatial industry mirrors national trends, and continues to experience growth and demand for geospatial technicians, despite the downturn in the economy. The VCCS is very well poised to help develop a geospatial literate workforce across the commonwealth. The VCCS Geospatial Portal supports the efforts of VCCS member colleges by: providing a calendar of geospatial events and activities across the state, developing and promoting geospatial career awareness efforts and related opportunities; enhancing the precollege geospatial pipeline; and facilitating collaboration among VCCS faculty by supporting the sharing of geospatial curricula and other educational resources.

Featured Resources in Geospatial Technology

From GeoTEd:

VCCS Geospatial Institute - Summer 2013

http://www.geoted.org/geospatial/2013institute

This page from GeoTEd archives materials from the 2013 VCCS Geospatial Institute, which was held at Virginia Tech in the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation in Blacksburg, Virginia. Included are the Summer Institute Resources, including a list of the eleven sessions by topic and links to Links to ESRI Resources for Educators. Many of the sessions revolved around GIS, an introduction to GTS, GPS, ArcGIS, remote sensing, integrating GIS into the classroom, and yearly goals. Visitors will also find Institute Workbook PDF files, all of the original PowerPoint presentations, all of the original Word files (exercises and handouts), and data used for exercises (most folders are zipped).

From GeoTech Center:

21^st Century Skills Map by the National Council of Geographic Education

http://www.p21.org/storage/documents/21stcskillsmap_geog.pdf

This 21st Century Skills Map is the result of hundreds of hours of research, development and feedback from educators and business leaders across the nation. The Partnership has issued this map for the core subject of Geography. The PDF document consists of 29 pages of information on standards related to geography education.

From ATETV:

Alternative Paths to a Technical Career

http://www.atetv.org/watch-videos/episode.aspx?e=1634

The ATETV project delivers web-based videos to connect students to careers in advanced technology. In this episode of ATETV, dual enrollment, changing careers and GIS technology are discussed. Many community colleges offer dual enrollment programs: high school students can receive college credit while still attending high school. Students who participate in dual enrollment programs are more likely to graduate high school, enroll in college and obtain a degree. Community colleges are also perfect for adults looking to change careers. Returning to school provides adults with training in new technology such as GIS. The episode can be watched in full or through the three segments: "Dual Enrollment Programs," "Forging a New Career in Architectural Technology, and "A GIS Program Helps Students Find Their Way." Running time for the full episode is 7:30.

ATE@20

New Subscription Feature for the ATE@20 Blog

Over the last few months, we’ve had a number of requests for an ATE@20 blog subscription option, which readers noted would be helpful in staying up-to-date on new posts. In response, we have added a new subscription feature and thank all of you for the wonderful suggestion. Once a new blog entry has been released, the new Subscribe feature will send email notifications out to all subscribed users. To sign up, simply log in to ATE Central (or sign up for an account) and click on the Subscribe button on the main blog page.

We’d love to know how you feel about this new feature. Please send your feedback on this (or any other feature of ATE@20) to ate20@atecentral.net.

Have You Received Your ATE@20 Book for the Holidays?

We are still amazed at the warm reception ATE@20: Two Decades of Advancing Technological Education has received from all our fellow ATE community members! All book orders placed before December 15th should have been processed in time to make it to you before last-minute holiday deliveries. If, for some reason, you have not received your books, please let us know. Additionally, if you would like another round of ATE@20 books to hand out in the new year, please place another order and we would be happy to send them your way. As a reminder, book orders and general inquiries can be emailed to ate20@atecentral.net.

Community Connection

Archiving: Start Off the New Year with a Plan

Many ATE projects and centers rely on the web to disseminate the resources they create, though not all members of the ATE community have the infrastructure necessary to sustain online access to these deliverables over time. In order to preserve resources created by ATE-funded projects and centers, we would like to remind you that ATE Central offers a free digital archiving service. Beyond preserving valuable material, this service can help support your project or center’s required Data Management Plan.

ATE Central can work closely with project and center PIs to identify valuable resources that are appropriate for long-term preservation. Resources can vary from an entire website or course to a single illustration. Resources may consist of classroom instruction materials, research results, curriculum guidelines, and much more.

ATE PIs and staff interested in using this service can prepare for an easy transition by considering the following:

Which resources do you feel are most valuable to your audience(s)? How will you organize and format them for archiving?
Are all of your resources saved in a maintainable format? See the ATE Central Handbook for specifics.
Have you constructed a logical hierarchy of your resources through the use of folders or naming conventions? These should illustrate the relationship between related resources and will make for a more seamless transition for resources into the ATE Central archive.

For more information on this digital archiving service, check out ATE Central’s archiving guidelines or contact Metadata and Information Specialist, Kendra Bouda at kbouda@scout.wisc.edu. The earlier you start, the easier it will be!

Did you know?

There are about 600,000 U.S. workers in geospatial technology today. This number is expected to reach more than 850,000 by 2018.

ATE Events

Ongoing Events
February 1 – July 31, 2014	Integrated Geospatial Education and Technical Training - Remote Sensing	Online
August 19 – May 31, 2014	Photonics Faculty Development Course: Fundamentals of Light and Lasers	Online
January 3–10	CNS-ASU Winter School 2014	Mesa, AZ
January 6–7	2014 Winter ICT Educator Conference	San Francisco, CA
January 6–10	ACE Five-day Experiential Learning Institute	Apatos, CA
January 6	NY - Teacher Wind Energy Workshop	Herkimer, New York
Upcoming Events
January 8–10	Emerging Technologies and Technicians Workshop	Clearwater, FL
January 13	Hands-on Microtechnology in the Classroom	Bellingham, WA
January 13–17	Cyberwatch West Ethical Hacking Class	Online
January 14–17	CNF TCN Short Course: Technology & Characterization at the Nanoscale	Ithaca, NY
January 14	Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) Class	Seattle, WA
January 16	Science Cafe: Citizen Science!	Phoenix, AZ
January 22	Orientation to ATE Survey 2014	Online
January 24–25	DREAM !T DO !T CENTRAL MINNESOTA VEX ROBOTICS TOURNAMENT	St. Cloud, MN
January 29, 2014 – February 1, 2014	AACC Workforce Development Institute	St. Petersburg, FL
January 31	Florida Energy Systems Consortium (FESC): 3rd Annual Florida Colleges Energy Education Forum	Lake Worth, FL
January 31	K-12 Resources in Nanotechnology	Online
February 5–7	Conference for Industry and Education Collaboration	Savannah, GA
February 5–7	Conference for Industry and Education Collaboraton (CIEC)	Savannah, GA
February 7	Designing and Using Videos in Undergraduate Geoscience Education	Online
February 13–17	AAAS Meeting 2014 - Meeting Global Challneges: Discovery and Innovation	Chicago, Il
February 20–22	CUR Dialogues 2014 - Striving and Thriving: Fostering Successful Research Environments	Arlington, VA
February 24–27	GIS/CAMA Technologies Conference	Jacksonville, FL
February 26–27	Logistics, Trade, and Transportation Symposium: Southeastern Opportunities and Challenges	Long Beach, MS

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 submit them online.

To add a continuously-updated list of ATE and STEM education events to your website, use the ATE Event Widget.

News & Reminders

Is your project/center on Facebook, Twitter, or another social media site?

If so, please make sure we've found that site and added it to the ATE Social Media Directory. Having your social media presence linked through the directory will help ensure that interested parties can find you online. In addition, if you currently publish a newsletter, please let us know, as we will be adding links to newsletters to the information available on ATE Central.

Follow ATE Central on Facebook and Twitter to keep up with all things new at ATE Central and in the ATE Community as well as in the world of STEM Education

Want to know which ATE Projects and Centers and ATE partners and collaborators are using Social Media? Check out our ATE Social Media Directory and follow them too!

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. 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!

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.

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