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May 6, 2011, MPICT led a successful ICT Pathways Symposium
at Ohlone College in Fremont, CA with over 50 attendees.
MPICT co-sponsored the event with the
California
Department of Education,
Cisco
Networking Academies,
WhyITNow.org,
and Ohlone
College.
Dr. James Wright, VP Instruction, Ohlone College and
Charles Brown, Superintendent of Mission Valley ROP at
Symposium
The goal of the ICT Pathways Symposium was to help community
college and high school administrators and faculty learn about
Ohlone’s model ICT Pathway - and to stimulate activity to
build other K-14 ICT Pathways.
The Symposium began with an engaging panel presentation of the
Ohlone ICT Pathway Model, which includes the following
components:
-
Collaborative Middle School, High School and Community
College Faculty and Administrator Relationships
-
Middle School Introduction to ICT Course
-
Middle School ICT Summer Camps
-
High School ICT Courses
-
High School ICT Summer Boot Camps
-
Pathways with Cisco Networking Academies
-
Formalized Relationships, Dual/Concurrent Enrollment and
Articulation (2+2) with High Schools
-
Work on High School A-G Requirements for ICT
-
Students Recycling Used Technology (StRUT)
Morning Panel Presentation
Afterwards, morning breakout sessions were divided into best
practices “outside the classroom” and best practices “inside
the classroom.”
Outside the Classroom
Sonia Martin, Silicon Valley ICT Collaborative (SVICT),
discussed how the ICT Pathway can begin early with week-long
middle school ICT Summer Camps. These build interest and
awareness in students for taking high school ICT classes.
One participant remarked, “The information I learned at the
seminars was valuable. Our college recently developed
multiple A/S degrees and certificates thanks to the
assistance of MPICT. For the past 3 years, I have wanted a
Summer Academy for the Computer Science and during this
symposium, I learned a lot from Sonia on how to accomplish
my goal.”
Richard Grotegut showed how ICT Summer Boot camps can engage
students and prepare them for industry certifications.
Ohlone’s 2-4 week boot camps serve as a college orientation,
provide ICT industry fields trips, and prepare students who
have taken the CCNA Discovery 1 and 2 course sequence to
pass the industry CCENT certification exam.
Dennis Smith,
StRUT, and George Wong from Ohlone, co-presented how the
Silicon Valley Students Recycling Used Technology (StRUT)
program provides work-based learning experiences for
students through repairing and upgrading donated computer
equipment for K-12 schools as part of an ecosystem for an
ICT Pathway. Being able to make a real world contribution to
improving education is a very valuable and meaningful
experience.
Inside the Classroom
John Bjerke, West Region Area Academy Manager, provided an
overview of the Cisco Networking Academy program, which
provides free curricula for high school and postsecondary
institutions for courses that help students prepare for
industry certifications, such as CCENT and CCNA. Having
common curriculum makes developing articulated relationships
between schools way easier.
Clint Johns,
Irvington High School IT Academy, gave an overview of
resources and curricula for a 9th grade Intro to ICT course,
which provides a digital literacy foundation, ICT career
exploration and understanding the importance of ICT and ICT
occupations in information and innovation economies. If we
are going to attract students to strategically important and
well-paid ICT careers, we have to reach them early,
stimulate their interest and give them exposure and
opportunities to learn.
Sheryl Ryder, California Dept. of Education, presented
various flavors of how to formalize relationships between
K-12 and community colleges, including:
-
articulation agreements (2+2), in which colleges accept
high school ICT courses as college equivalents and
students can proceed directly to more advanced course
work,
-
Dual enrollment agreements in which high school teachers
are qualified by colleges to teach ICT classes for both
high school and college credit, and
-
Concurrent enrollment agreements, in which high school
students are taught by college faculty at the high school
or college.
(A female, central valley student recently experienced
receiving an ICT A.S. degree one night and her high school
diploma the next night. How cool is that?)
Packed Into a Breakout Session
After a catered lunch, there were two presentations.
Nilay Ghoghari and Isaac Majerowicz gave a look at the
continually developing Cisco Networking Academy portfolio,
including Cisco’s Aspire simulation and quest game, which
builds students’ ICT and entrepreneurship skills using a
Packet-Tracer based game engine.
Michael McKeever,
Santa Rosa
Junior College, gave a demonstration remotely to Symposium
participants of how
CCC Confer,
(free to California community colleges), can be used to
deliver college courses to high school students remotely, so
high school students can get high quality college ICT courses,
including access to college labs, without going to the
college.
Take Away Message
A concluding plenary and breakout sessions were devoted to
attendees exploring opportunities to build ICT pathways in
their communities.
The first step is for local high school and community college
faculty and administrators to get together and establish
common ground. ICT is important for every business in every
industry; there are a wide variety of stimulating ICT careers
that support high quality lifestyles; and we need to do a
better job exposing students to that early, giving them
opportunities to learn while K-12 students and making it easy
for them to build on that and continue their studies in
college.
With that, pick a project and start. You don’t have to try to
implement in one semester what it has taken Ohlone a decade to
build. Build on successes and grow a pathway!
MPICT will support project efforts with mini-grants (up to
$2,000). If interested, email
info@mpict.org.
Back to Q2 2011
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