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 Richard
Grotegut, in the Computers, Networks and Emerging Technology
Department at Ohlone College, is a former high school math and
computers teacher. In the early 90’s, he started the 1st
Novell Network Administration program for high school students
in California. He continues to work closely with high school
students and teachers on ICT education, co-leading MPICT
Center efforts to reach out to K-12 education and develop ICT
pathways.
Under Grotegut’s direction, Ohlone College, Irvington High
School, and Mission Valley ROP have partnered to establish a
Career Pathway in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).
The ICT Pathway leads high school students through courses
that prepare them to transfer to community college and then on
to a university for baccalaureate degrees with a computer
science or engineering focus. Following is a graphic
representing ICT pathway work at Ohlone.
 This
summer, Ohlone hosted its first ICT Summer Institute, which
engaged 16 students from high school Cisco Networking Academy
programs at Irvington, American and Castro Valley high
schools.
Students came to Ohlone 4 days a week for a month, with a 100%
attendance record. They learned networking concepts,
technologies and practices, which they practiced in labs, took
a field trip to the Cisco headquarters in San Jose and
prepared for the Cisco Certified Entry Networking Technician (CCENT)
exam.
Skills learned included installing, operating, optimizing,
and, troubleshooting routed and switched networks; connecting
to other networks (LANs and WANs), installing wireless
networks; identifying security threats and basic mitigation
methods. Exposure to professionals working in the field
provided context and career inspiration.
After the event, one of the students, Suzette Jane Bana,
joined 5 Ohlone student interns in a Cisco Academy mentoring
program, providing real world experience, for example in a
structured cabling project via SigmaNet at Menlo College.
If we are going to attract enough people into the
strategically and economically important ICT field, we have to
attract and engage them early.
Back to Q3 2009
Newsletter |
