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June 15-19, 2009, the Mid-Pacific ICT Center conducted its
first annual Summer Faculty Development Week at the City
College of San Francisco Ocean Campus. 50 faculty from ICT-related
programs at 22 community colleges in 4 States attended the 4 ˝
day event.
June 15-19, 2009, the Mid-Pacific ICT Center conducted its
first annual Summer Faculty Development Week at the City
College of San Francisco Ocean Campus. 50 faculty from ICT-related
programs at 22 community colleges in 4 States attended the 4 ˝
day event.
Faculty Development Week is an opportunity for community
college instructors in programs under the ICT umbrella to get
together for a week, get to know each other and learn
something new to improve ICT education in our region.
MPICT provided stipends and travel expense reimbursements to
qualified, attending faculty, to make it possible to be a part
of the event in these challenging economic times.
Faculty chose from 5 week-long tracks. The first 3 provided
intensive training, preparing instructors to teach new
courses:
1. Ethical Hacking and Network Defense
2. iPhone Programming
3. Cisco Networking Academy: CCNA Security
Two outstanding pedagogical tracks offered hands-on skills,
practice and tools to improve ICT teaching and learning
experiences - for any instructor, department and course:
4. Adding Scenario Based Learning to Your Classroom
5. ICT Teaching and Learning Toolkit
Ethical Hacking and Network Defense was taught by
veteran Ph.D. Sam Bowne from City College of San Francisco’s
CNIT Department. Instructors received free textbooks, and Sam
led faculty through the mindset and techniques hackers use to
attack computers, systems and networks. The better a defender
understands an attacker and his/her methods, the better the
defense. This angle on teaching security is extremely
engaging. Instructors left with knowledge, experience and
access to an entire course worth of curriculum and hands-on
exercises to integrate into their instruction.
iPhone Programming was taught by Mike Qaissaunee,
Director of the Mid-Atlantic Institute for Telecommunications
Technologies (MAITT), Co-PI for the National Information and
Communications Technologies Center (NICT) and winner of the
first ever High Impact Technology Exchange Conference (HI-TEC)
Educator of the Year Award.
iPhone Programming is hot and attractive to students. This
class provided instructors with a complete introductory course
in iPhone and iPod Touch programming, using the iPhone SDK.
lectures, class discussion, demonstrations, and hands-on
projects to enable students to quickly begin building simple
to complex iPhone applications, master iPhone interface
elements, databases and APIs.
CCNA Security was taught in-person for the first time
ever to Cisco Networking Academy instructors at MPICT’s
Faculty Development Week by MPICT Regional Partner and Santa
Rosa J.C. instructor, Michael McKeever.
13 instructors are now ready to teach this course in the MPICT
region. It prepares students for the Cisco CCNA Security
Certification exam and to assume responsibilities for network
security in job roles like Network Security Specialists,
Security Administrators, and Network Security Support
Engineers. It balances theory, hands-on practice and
application; uses the same Graphical User Interface as CCNA
Discovery and Exploration; is enabled for both ILT and Blended
Distance Learning (BDL) delivery; consists of 9 Chapters with
at least 1 complex hands-on lab and Packet Tracer activities
per chapter, has 9 end of chapter exams, 1 final exam and 1
skills based assessment.
In the past, instructors typically have had to pay to learn to
teach Cisco Networking Academy courses. This time, instruction
was provided free, and faculty got help with travel expenses
to be able to attend. Working together, these instructors
resolved a variety of practical issues in teaching this course
for the 1st time and created a network of subject matter
experts each is comfortable calling on.
Adding Scenario Based Learning to Your Classroom was
taught by an outstanding team associated with the Experiential
Learning Center at DeAnza and Foothill Colleges: Experiential
Learning Center Co-Director, Jane Ostrander; Foothill College
Software Engineering Faculty and Experiential Learning Center
Senior Faculty Fellow, Elaine Haight; Carnegie Mellon
University – Silicon Valley Professor, Dr. Ray Bareiss; and
SRI International Center for Technology in Learning Research
Social Scientist, Dr. Louise Yarnall.
One of the most consistent messages the MPICT Center receives
in its many interactions with employers of ICT technicians
from community colleges is that employability or soft skills
are very important.
Employees need to be able to communicate efficiently and
effectively and identify and solve a variety of structured and
unstructured problems. They must be able to identify and
acquire relevant information to get the job done. They need to
show pride in their work and conscientiousness and take
responsibility for their own continued learning and growth.
They must demonstrate motivation and work well in groups.
Behind many employer comments like these is a desire for
students with real world experiences. It is a great challenge
to pedagogy just how we as educators can help students get
real world or real-world-like experiences. Experiential
learning techniques include: internships, mentoring, service
learning, job shadowing, site visits, industry guest lectures
and apprenticeships.
A key, accessible strategy for integrating experiential
learning experiences into ICT classroom teaching and learning
is Scenario Based Learning (SBL). In SBL, we bring real world
problems into the classroom and put student teams to work
solving them.
“Adding Scenario Based Learning to Your Classroom” helped
faculty prepare, teach and assess scenario-based learning with
students, to help them acquire and develop soft or
employability skills that are so important to employers.
The ICT Teaching and Learning Toolkit was a collective
effort to provide ICT faculty knowledge, skills and practice
with a variety of ICT teaching and learning tools - to expand
the reach and richness of ICT classroom experiences.
Using ICT Technologies to Enhance Your ICT Teaching was
a two-day session which gave faculty guided, hands-on practice
with inexpensive, but powerful digital media tools and
techniques to spice up classroom experiences. Led by Donna
Eyestone, a CCSF instructor and winner of awards for online
learning from both @ONE and the U.S. Distance Learning
Association, this section included things like making audio
and video podcasts, enhanced slideshows, desktop screen
recording and use of smart pens.
CCC Confer to Expand Classroom Reach and Experience
gave faculty two days of hands-on training with experts,
Blaine Morrow and Michelle Taramasco, Director and Client
Services Manager for 3C Media Solutions and CCC Confer.
CCC Confer is an absolutely exceptional set of collaboration
tools provided free to California Community College educators
through a grant from the CCC Chancellor’s office. ADA and
Section 508 conformant, these tools allow online and audio
conferencing between faculty - and rich synchronous online and
audio conference classroom instruction delivery to students
anywhere, which can be recorded for asynchronous review via
the Internet or for download as audio or video podcasts.
Application sharing capabilities allow students to access and
share laboratory equipment in a remote collaborative
environment. Most forms of content can be shared.
High Quality Videoconferencing for Impact in the Classroom
brought in CENIC’s Coordinator for CalRen Video Services
(CVS), Cassandra Patrizio, and Director of Technical
Operations, Sherilyn Evans, and Center for Interactive
Learning and Collaboration (CILC) consultant, Doug Meyer, to
provide examples and experiences with videoconferencing and
how it can be used to build community and expand and enrich
classroom experiences.
Each morning at the event started with a plenary, stimulating
more engaging teaching and learning methods: MPICT on the
Center’s mission and how to engage with it; Mike Qaissaunee on
Web2.0 tools, Blaine Morrow on CCC Confer, Elaine Haight on
Scenario Based Learning and CENIC on videoconferencing.
We networked and built community between peers! We had fun! We
know each other now, so it will be easier for us to work
together on matters of common interest. We’re all doing our
best to provide high quality ICT education, but we’re going to
work on pulling together rather than just duplicating efforts.
Back to Q2 2009
Newsletter |
