Advanced Technological Education · January 2017

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.

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In This Issue

Featured Center: Northeast Biomanufacturing Center and Collaborative (NBC2)
Featured Resources in Biotechnology
Community Connection
ATE Success Tips: Social Media
Did You Know?
ATE Events
News & Reminders

Featured Center

Northeast Biomanufacturing Center and Collaborative (NBC2)

biomanufacturing.org

The Northeast Biomanufacturing Center and Collaborative (NBC2) organization is dedicated to building infrastructure for biomanufacturing education and training to create a qualified workforce. To meet this goal, NBC2 "supports the local development and growth of biopharmaceutical manufacturing and crossover industries that use bio-production methods in the United States by providing curriculum and hands-on instructional materials based on harmonized global biopharmaceutical industry skill standards and by mentoring biomanufacturing programs at community colleges, high schools and universities." On this site, visitors will find biomanufacturing jobs and companies, as well as articulations, skill standards, curriculum, professional development, equipment resources, and internship information. The site also hosts a blog and calendar to find out about upcoming events and a selection of press articles about the Center. Viewers will also find a document on Biomanufacturing Skill Standards, which is free to download, as well as other curriculum documents and career information.

Featured Resources in Biotechnology

From Northeast Biomanufacturing Center and Collaborative (NBC2):

Introduction to Biomanufacturing Textbook

biomanufacturing.org/curriculum/textbooks-manuals/introduction-to-biomanufacturing

NBC2 has created this introductory textbook on Biomanufacturing that features twelve industry SME-authored units. Chapters cover Facilities, Metrology, Validation, Environmental Health & Safety, Operational Excellence, Quality Assurance, Microbiological Control, Quality Control Biochemistry, Upstream Processing, Downstream Processing, Process Development, Manufacture of a Drug Product, and Biofuels. Individual chapters may be read online or downloaded, and the complete textbook is also available for purchase.

From Biosciences Industry Fellowship Project:

Bioscience Industry Fellowship Project 2016 Presentations

atecentral.net/downloads/1044/2016%20BIFP%20Combined%20Modules_8.3.16.minimum.pdf

This resource contains presentations from the 2016 cohort of the Biotechnology Industry Fellowship Program at Forsyth Technical Community College. In June 2016, nine Fellows spent four weeks traveling throughout North Carolina to gain hands-on skills and practice in lab techniques utilized in biotechnology and to learn about the areas of research and industry related to, or resulting from, biotechnology. At the end of their time in North Carolina, Fellows worked in pairs to develop presentations ("learning modules") that they will share with colleagues at their home institutions (e.g. community colleges, K-12 school, etc.) to promote involvement in the biosciences. This PDF contains slides from five presentations.

From Bio-Link: Educating the BioTechnology Workforce:

Perspectives of Biotech Students

www.bio-link.org/home2/video/perspectives-of-biotech-students

In this video from Bio-Link, four students talk about their experiences as biotech students. Students talk about the community college experience, advantages of community college courses, getting involved in the biotech program, and internship experience. This video runs 3:43 minutes in length.

Community Connection

The ATE Blogosphere—Projects and Centers in the News

When it comes to sharing information about the ATE community and its dedication to improving the education of America’s technical workforce, blogs offer a great platform to engage and inform others. Over the past few weeks, a number of blog posts covering inspirational stories, detailed research, and personal experiences have appeared. Below are a few that we hope will inspire further reading, and maybe a little bit of writing of your own:

Preparing Students for Information Technology Careers: The Role of Career Technical Education
Jill Denner, project PI of Beyond Marketing to Stealth Recruitment: Creating ICT Pathways from High School to College and Work for Underrepresented Groups, was recently featured on the ETR etc. blog. In this post, Denner discusses the project’s research findings along with strategies to boost career technical education (CTE) pathways in IT fields. There is also a link to three Tip Sheets designed to help initiate educator, administrator, and industry partnerships.
The Value of Using a Psychosocial Framework to Evaluate STEM Outcomes Among Underrepresented Students
The EvaluATE blog is a great informational resource that features guest posts along with regular series written by EvaluATE staff. This post from December 1, 2016 comes from Dawn X. Henderson, Breonte S. Guy, and Chad Markert and discusses the value of a psychosocial framework for project design and evaluation. This framework may be especially valuable for those looking to increase the retention and persistence of underrepresented groups in the STEM education-to-workforce pipeline.
Executive Director’s Take on Mechatronics & the Changing Face of Engineering Education
For those interested in mechatronics education, the executive director of Florida Advanced Technological Education Center (FLATE), Marilyn Barger, details her experience at a November workshop at the New York University Engineering College. This post from the December issue of FLATE Focus also touches on what employers are looking for from new graduates, a topic of special interest to the ATE community.
Del Mar College Student Wins AAAS Poster Competition, Presents Research in Qatar
This entry from Madeline Patton on the ATE@20 blog highlights the academic successes of John F. Ramirez, a Del Mar College student who recently won an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) student poster competition, and presented his research at the First World Congress on Undergraduate Research in Qatar in November.

If you don’t happen to have a blog of your own (or even if you do), ATE Central can help celebrate and share your stories and showcase the valuable work being done by your project or center. If you have a story to share or accomplishments to highlight, please let us know at [email protected].

ATE Success Tips: Social Media

Timing is Everything: When to Post on Social Media

Effective scheduling of social media efforts is a central component of a successful outreach plan. Scheduling allows you to reach your target audience at the times when they are online and also increases the relevance and timeliness of your posts, tweets, and networking. But when is the best time to post on social media and is it the same across all platforms? Here are some guidelines for three of the major social media platforms used by members of the ATE community:

Twitter
Twitter users are most active during the daytime between 8am and 7pm. Tweets posted during these hours will generate the most interaction, but there are several smaller time slots that see a significantly higher engagement rate. To get the most out of your tweets, consider posting between 8am and 10am, 11am and 1pm, or 4pm and 7pm.

Facebook
Facebook usage tends to be a little more constant than Twitter, but some times are still better than others to reach your audience. The best times to post on Facebook are between 1pm and 4pm and between 6pm and 10pm. There is also significant usage over the weekend, so consider scheduling posts to be released between 10am and 1pm on Saturdays and Sundays.

LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the largest business network and is great for connecting with industry partners, educators, administrators, and students. On average, users check their accounts twice per day, allowing for two time slots to attract and touch base with others in your network. The social rush hours on LinkedIn are between 8am and 10am and between 4pm and 6pm, and Thursdays and Sundays are the most active days of the week.

Did You Know?

According to the Pew Research Center, more than one-in-three American workers today are Millennials (adults ages 18 to 34). This makes them the largest generation in the labor force, with 53.5 million workers in 2015.

ATE Events

Upcoming Events
January 3–6	Mfg	4-Axis CNC Milling Workshop	Online
January 3–6	Mfg	Live Tooling CNC Lathe Teacher Training	,
January 4–5	Nano	Workmanship Skills Workshop	Albany, NY
January 5–6	Gen	WASTC Winter ICT Educator Conference	San Jose, CA
January 5–6	Info	Winter 2017 ICT Educators Conference	San Jose, CA
January 6–7	Nano	Workmanship Skills Workshop	Albany, NY
January 9–11	Eng	Mechatronics Workshop	Albany, NY
January 10–11	Mfg	Automotive News World Congress	Detroit, MI
January 10–11	Mfg	Radio Frequency (RF) Technology Workshop	Albany, NY
January 11	Gen	AAAS Council Meeting	Online
January 11–14	Ag/Env	2017 Annual Institute	, California
January 18	Info	Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity Course Webinar	Online
January 19	Gen	What Can We Know About Our Graduates As They Enter the Workforce?	Online
January 21	Gen	Pneumatic Technology Workshop	Albany, NY
January 23	Mfg	Advanced Materials for Automotive Summit	Detroit, MI
January 25–28	Info	AACC Workforce Development Institute	Newport Beach, CA
January 25–28	Info	AACC Workforce Development Institute	Newport Beach, CA
January 26	Ag/Env	Mapping the Susquehanna Workshop at the Rockwell Museum	Corning, NY
January 26–27	Gen	Science and Human Rights Coalition Meeting: The Human Right to Water	Washington, DC
January 26	Info	Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity Webinar	Online
January 27	Gen	Project Access Workshop in CA	Riverside, CA
January 28 – February 2	Eng	SPIE Photonics West	San Francisco, CA
January 28 – February 2	Eng	SPIE Photonics West 2017	San Francisco, California
February 1–3	Gen	2017 Mentor-Connect Outreach and Technical Assistance Workshop	New Orleans, LA
February 6–9	Info	FutureView 2017	Nashville, TN
February 7–10	Info	2017 Esri Developer Summit	Palm Springs, CA
February 15	Gen	Drones Flying Free	Online
February 15	Gen	Drones Flying Free	Online
February 15	Gen	Small-Scale Evaluation	Online
February 15	Gen	Drones Flying Free	Online
February 18–19	Gen	Family Science Days	Boston, MA
February 23	Gen	Preparing a Budget and Budget Justification for your NSF ATE Proposal	Online
March 6–9	Mfg	Maintenance and Reliability Conference 2017	Knoxville, TN
March 11–17	Info	ASPRS Annual Meeting 2017 Uniting Imagery, GIS, Mapping, and Surveying	Baltimore, MD
March 12–15	Nano	Innovations Conference 2017	San Francisco, CA
March 20–21	Gen	Wine Sensory Analysis Workshop	Syracuse, NY
March 22	Gen	Outcome Evaluation: Step-by-Step	Online
March 23	Ag/Env	New York Council for the Social Studies Conference 2017	Albany, NY
March 27–28	Gen	2017 Forum on Science and Technology Policy	Washington, DC
March 29	Gen	Science Diplomacy 2017	Washington, DC

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

Get involved with NSF’s Community College Innovation Challenge (CCIC).

The National Science Foundation invites teams of community college students to participate in the third annual Community College Innovation Challenge (CCIC). Teams will submit innovative STEM-based solutions for real-world problems across three themes: Maker to Manufacturer, Energy and Environment, and Security Technologies. All entries must be received during the competition submission window, from October 17, 2016 to February 15, 2017. More information can be found on the challenge website.

Archiving your deliverables with ATE Central is now easier than ever!

Upload your curriculum, professional development materials, or other deliverables created with ATE funding directly to the ATE Central resource portal via the new archive submission form.

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.

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 3.9.1 beta) was released on August 17^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!

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