Advanced Technological Education · April 2015

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.

In This Issue

Featured Center: GeoTech Center
Featured Resources in Geospatial Technologies
Community Connection
ATE Success Tips: Social Media
Did You Know?
ATE Events
News & Reminders

Featured Center

GeoTech Center

http://www.geotechcenter.org/

With the growing use of geospatial science and technology (GST), global positioning systems (GPS), and mobile technologies, the GeoTechCenter works to expand, teach, and train a growing geospatial workforce. To accomplish these goals, GeoTech works to: "Create a national clearinghouse of exemplary geospatial curriculum materials, resources and national services; Increase the capacity to educate geospatial technicians through new partnerships and collaborations; Increase the quantity, quality and diversity of geospatial technicians to meet U.S. workforce needs; Provide a unifying voice for geospatial technology education interests in organizations, industry and government; and Increase the number of community and technical college geospatial faculty and secondary school teachers participating in geospatial professional development."

Featured Resources in Geospatial Technologies

From GeoTech:

GeoTech Center Map and Data Library

http://www.geotechcenter.org/map-library-and-data.html

This page from GeoTech includes data sources and online maps that would be useful in geospatial courses. Links include the Open Topography Portal, Data Basin, ArcGIS Online Map Gallery, and USGS Seamless Data Server. GeoTech notes "the validity and accuracy" of map data "varies widely, especially in academic sources."

From the Integrated Geospatial Education and Technology Training Project (iGETT):

Paint-by-Number and Supervised Classification (iGETT Concept Module)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tcs-SdQmcbA

This video, from the Integrated Geospatial Education and Technology Training Project (iGETT), uses a paint-by-number analogy to explain supervised classification in GIS data. The demonstration addresses some of the pros and cons of the process, and quiz questions are included at the end to test comprehension. The video is two-and-a-half minutes long.

From the Virginia Community College Geospatial Portal (GeoTEd):

GeoTEd Data Links

http://www.geoted.org/resource/file/data-links

This page from the Virginia Community College Geospatial Portal (GeoTEd) contains a single page Microsoft Word document with Geospatial Data Sources. A URL and short description is listed for each. Sources include the GIS Data Depot, links provided by the Stanford Library, and links provided by the Virginia Economic Development Partnership GIS Department.

Community Connection

STEM Success for Women: Empowering Educators to Recruit and Retain More Women in STEM

At ATE Central, part of our goal is to highlight the work being done throughout our community and to connect ATE faculty and staff to relevant, useful information and meaningful opportunities. Donna Milgram, Executive Director of the Institute for Women in Trades, Technology and Science (iWITTS), is hosting one such opportunity this month, via the telesummit, STEM Success for Women. This virtual event will be of benefit to members of the ATE community who are working to broaden impact by increasing participation of female students in STEM.

The event starts Monday, April 13 and runs through Thursday, April 16, 2015. Participants will hear from some of the country's leading experts on best practices for increasing the number of female students in STEM career pathways. Deans, administrators, instructors and counselors will leave this virtual conference with immediate action steps to jumpstart their recruitment efforts and help their female students succeed. Focusing on solutions backed by hard data and demonstrated outcomes, this event is designed for educators - particularly at the community college level - who are looking to achieve balance in their STEM programs and secure high retention rates for their female and male students.

The case studies you will hear over the course of the 12 sessions (offered each day at 10am, 12pm, and 2pm PDT) will discuss:

How Professor Barbara DuFrain of Del Mar College was able to increase female enrollment in her intro to computer programming classes by 62%, and improve female and male retention by 45%.
How one computer networking IT department improved female enrollment by more than 46% and increased retention of female students by 23%.
How one professor increased the number of women who declared a computer science major from 11% to 46% by changing an introductory computer science course.
How one professor improved retention of female engineering students by 42% in one semester in only 12 teaching contact hours.

Participants will hear from these presenters and will learn other best practices during the Telesummit. This free event is completely online, and you can be accessed via phone or computer. More information about this National Science Foundation funded virtual event can be found here.

ATE Success Tips: Social Media

Share Out Trending ATE Community News

It’s easy to get caught up in using social media platforms solely for the purpose of sharing out your project or center’s own activities. However, these platforms are most effective at engaging audiences when they balance unique posts with trending stories and news from other valuable members of the ATE community. So as you follow trending stories, from social media or mainstream sources, look for connections that will be of value to your audiences and try and link the work you’re doing to the larger education community. Finding the right mix of content will not only better engage your audience, it will allow you to share out your work and activities while also validating your follow-worthiness.

Did You Know?

Five hundred California community college students transferred to historically black colleges in 2011, according to a recent article from Inside Higher Ed. This number is likely to increase as the system launches a new program guaranteeing associate degree graduates from California community college students admission to nine historically black colleges and universities (HCBUs). Prior to this new agreement, seventeen HBCUs already had transfer relationships with individual community colleges in California.

ATE Events

Upcoming Events
April 9–10	Gen	Strengthening Ties for Collective Impact: Campus Sustainability in the Northeast Region	Amherst, MA
April 10	Gen	Project Access Workshop at St. Petersburg College	Clearwater, FL
April 11	Nano	Modeling a Micro Pressure Sensor Workshop	Albuquerque, NM
April 11	Gen	Writing in the Disciplines Workshop in Tallahassee, FL	Tallahassee, FL
April 14	Gen	Building Partnerships Webinar	Online
April 21	Eng	SAE 2015 World Congress	Detroit, MI
April 23–25	Gen	ATE Workshops for Physics Faculty: Modeling Tools for Introductory Physics (MTIP)	Appleton, WI
April 25	Nano	Manufacturing Technicians’ Skills and Careers	Albuquerque, NM
April 29	Gen	Science Diplomacy 2015: Scientific Drivers for Diplomacy	Washington, DC
April 30 – May 1	Gen	2015 Forum on Science and Technology Policy	Washington, DC
May 1	Eng	2015 CAAT Conference	Warren, MI
May 1	Gen	Challenge and Support: Applications of instructional technology	Kansas City, MO
May 16–17	Mfg	Welding Course for Educators	Marysville, CA
May 27–29	Gen	Scripting for Cybersecurity	Online
June 1–4	Mfg	Plastics-In-Motion	Dearborn, Michigan
June 1–5	Gen	CISSP	Online
June 8–12	Gen	ISACA (CISM)	Online
June 8–12	Mfg	STAR (Students, Technology, and Robots) Camp	St. Cloud, MN
June 16–18	Gen	Instructor Conference: Utilizing Student Smartphone & Other EHS Interactive Presentation Techniques	Eden Prairie, MN
June 17	Info	2015 Community College Cyber Summit (3CS)	North Las Vegas, NV
June 24–26	Nano	2015 MNT Conference	Seattle, WA
June 25–26	Gen	Netlabs+ User Community Workshop	Online

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

ATE Central has a new website!

Highlights include more information about the archiving service, sustainability support, and the upcoming social media and technology survey. We hope you'll take a look through the site and let us know what you think – we'd love to hear from you about the content as well as the look and feel.

The National Center for Optics and Photonics Education (OP-TEC) recently awarded photonics outreach sub-grants to four colleges.

These grants were awarded as a way to encourage high school students to enroll in associate degree programs that prepare them for careers as photonics technicians. More information can be found on the OP-TEC website.

Save the date for the 2015 National Association for Workforce Improvement (NAWI) Conference in Saratoga Springs, New York May 19-21.

This year’s conference will focus on “CTE for ALL: Celebrating 50 Years of Workforce Education.” Information on presentation proposals and registration can be found here.

The American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) is hosting its 95th Annual Convention in San Antonio, Texas April 18-21.

Join AACC and other ATE community members for professional development opportunities, as well as a chance to network, share, and learn from professionals in the fields of education, business and industry, and the government sector.

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.

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. The latest version (CWIS 3.1.1) was released on October 24^th and is available for download on the Scout site. Please email [email protected] if you have any questions or would like a quick tour of its features!

Find out more about ATE Central:

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