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Spring 2006 A newsletter for business, educators and students in the telecommunications industry |
Our annual educator-to-educator workshop is staying with the format that worked so well last year - an open Call for Papers to Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) faculty members and industry professionals. This process allows the Center to pool the resources of its Regional Partner Network for subject matter expertise to offer presentations, and it also invites unexpected presentations from traditional ICT areas and ICT dependent applications sure to be of value to attendees. Proposals are coming in steadily and a draft agenda will be available on NCTT.org in the coming weeks. Presentation applications are being accepted until May 15, 2006.
This year's workshop will also maintain the features that have made it such a success in the past. Instructional materials will be provided to facilitate bringing new knowledge directly to the classroom. The technical sessions will incorporate hands-on learning techniques in laboratory settings. The popular grant-writing sessions have been expanded to include evaluation and review process best practices - both unique offerings for a technically focused workshop.
Submit a proposal or sign-up for the workshop today - space is filling quickly!
For more information contact Setta McCabe 413/755-4475
Springfield, Massachusetts ---- Each Friday evening, Gordon Snyder, professor of Electronic Systems Engineering Technology at Springfield Technical Community College (STCC), settles in at his computer in a comfortable corner of his living room, pulls the microphone closer, and begins a conversation over the Internet with Michael Qaissaunee, department chair for Engineering and Technology at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft, New Jersey. The two are recording weekly podcasts on information and communications technology that will be downloaded by listeners worldwide.
Both Snyder and Qaissaunee have strong technical backgrounds, with Snyder serving as executive director of the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded National Center for Telecommunications Technologies (NCTT) located at STCC, and Qaissaunee as director of the NSF-funded Mid-Atlantic Institute for Telecommunications Technologies (MAITT), a regional partner of the NCTT.
Their conversations cover new and emerging technologies, and subjects range from Security 101 – What every Employee Should Know, to Broadband Technical Update, to Cash Mice: How E-Commerce is Going Micro.
Since mid-January, when they started the weekly sessions, Snyder and Qaissaunee have reached over 1000 listeners, a number that grows daily as the podcasts become better known. “Our goal,” said Snyder, “is to present technical topics at an introductory level, and grow our listener base.”
Snyder and Qaissaunee use Skype in recording their podcasts, which can be downloaded free, or subscribed to by using an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) application found at sites such as my.yahoo.com. The podcasts can be played on an iPod or through a personal computer at any time that’s convenient for the user, something Snyder and Qaissaunee refer to as time-shifting. And with an iPod or any other mp3 player, the podcasts can also be played at any location, from a car to the backyard. The podcasts are available free at Apple iTunes and at www.nctt.org/podcast.Snyder has been writing a weekly blog since last June, also available on the NCTT website. “I have tried to outline similar technical content along with industry trends and political issues such as the Telecom Act of 2006, that affect our work. Mike and I are currently working to incorporate the blog content into our weekly podcast,” he said.
NCTT, founded in 1995 at STCC through a multi-million-dollar grant from the National Science Foundation, is charged with “leading a national collaborative of business and education partners to develop and disseminate an always-relevant, industry-driven curriculum to teach and train tomorrow’s information and communications technology technicians and technologists.”
In 2001, Snyder was selected as one of the top 15 technology faculty in the United States by Microsoft Corporation and the American Association of Community Colleges. In 2004 he was selected Workforce Development Leader of the Year by the Boston-based Massachusetts Networking and Communications Council.
Descriptions of recent podcasts include:
Instant Messaging in the Workplace: Concerns, Technology, and Solutions
Instant Messaging or IM, once the domain of generation X and generation Y, is quickly becoming a mainstream business application. While this technology has been a great boon to business, increasing productivity and streamlining efficiency, there is a dark side. Chief among potential corporate headaches are manageability, security, interoperability, and records retention. This podcast reviews IM history, usage, trends and vulnerabilities, and suggests future solutions.
Cash Mice, or How E-Commerce is Going Micro
E-commerce has quickly become a mainstream business application, transforming the way business is done, opening up global markets for local and regional sellers as well as individuals, and providing new revenue streams for corporations. However, there’s a disruptive new technology on the horizon, called micro-commerce. This allows vendors to sell low-ticket items at a profit, allowing for value-added content, and providing new business models for online sellers. One need only look to Apple’s iTunes as evidence that micro-commerce has already become big business. By offering products, information, or services for a small subscription or a one-time fee, many businesses see potential for phenomenal growth. Online retailers aren’t abandoning the cash cow that e-commerce has become, but they’re paying a lot more attention to micro-commerce’s potential to become cash mice.
Desktop Search Engines: Indispensable or Intrusive?
How many times have you saved a file on your local machine and, a few days or weeks later, wasted time trying to find that file? Modern operating systems have search capabilities, but most are not very user friendly, and they are typically slow. Today, third party desktop search engines are adding new features and functionality, finding their way onto business and personal machines. These tools work similarly to the popular Internet search engines, only they allow you to search your own personal computer. Well-known companies such as Google and Yahoo, and some other not-so-well-known companies are making inroads onto our computer desktops.
To Open Source or Not to Open Source, That is the Question
Though not as memorable as Hamlet's question, a critical decision now confronting many companies concerns adoption of Linux and other open source software. Originally developed and used by individual enthusiasts for Intel 386 microprocessors, Linux and two subsequent generations of open-source software have gained support from IBM, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, and Novell. These products are used in servers, and have been successfully deployed in virtually all popular computer architectures, ranging from embedded systems (routers, mobile phones, Private Branch eXchanges [PBXs] and personal video recorders) to PCs and supercomputers. With increasingly competitive economic environments and continued pressure to cut costs and streamline operations, many organizations find the issue of open source adoption a vitally important question.
Gordon and Mike's ICT PodCast series can be found at: http://www.nctt.org/podcast/.
Gordon's text Blog can be found at: http://www.nctt.org/pages/events/exec_update/dirchair.php.
SiteScape Forum software has been selected to establish a communication and collaboration portal for the National Center for Telecommunications Technologies (NCTT), its Regional and Strategic Partners and contributing member institutions. http://www.ncttbuzz.org/NCTT_01/
This system was implemented as a response to the following sets of challenges and needs of the NCTT Regional Partner Network.
Limited Resources
Rapid Technological Change
In order to create:
The Open Source Definition: http://opensource.org/docs/definition.php
Open source has been used in the software industry to describe applications that are distributed with the complete source code available to licensees. This allows the users (licensees) to modify and re-compile the code to suit their own individual needs. They also can now share this modified version with other developers for peer review and to foster further derivative works. The underlying advantage to this model is the fact that through peer review and wide distribution of the source, the applications and derivative works are more thoroughly tested by a large developer/user base than traditional proprietary software packages. This leads to greater stability and less potential for security problems, generally.
In the scope of curriculum development for NCTT, the open source methodology is applied to strengthen the content offerings because of the diverse developer base involved in reviewing and compiling materials. This large body of talent also greatly decreases overall development time of new content drastically – a critical component because of the quick evolution of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT). There are representatives from universities, community colleges, high schools and industry involved in all levels of curriculum development. Oversight is maintained by a core group of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) who are qualified by NCTT to ensure that standards and curriculum guidelines are applied to facilitate the usefulness of all content for all applications.
This unique system is a powerful tool set and an ever-expanding resource for searchable, industry-validated technical content. Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) are contributing their curriculum, content, resource materials and labs to a common, on-line library which uses standard versioning control methods to track iterations of content. Faculty from all participating institutions can now:
All of the NCTT technical curriculum is searchable and readable by any user without a log-in. For contributors and developers of the system, a secured section is available for collaborative development and peer review of new course content. Curricula is available for fair use under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.
"The idea underlying Creative Commons is that some people may not want to exercise all of the intellectual property rights the law affords them. We believe there is an unmet demand for an easy yet reliable way to tell the world “Some rights reserved” or even “No rights reserved.” Many people have long since concluded that all-out copyright doesn't help them gain the exposure and widespread distribution they want. Many entrepreneurs and artists have come to prefer relying on innovative business models rather than full-fledged copyright to secure a return on their creative investment. Still others get fulfillment from contributing to and participating in an intellectual commons. For whatever reasons, it is clear that many citizens of the Internet want to share their work -- and the power to reuse, modify, and distribute their work -- with others on generous terms. Creative Commons intends to help people express this preference for sharing by offering the world a set of licenses on our Website, at no charge." - http://creativecommons.org/faq#About_Creative_Commons
http://www.ncttbuzz.org/NCTT_01/
I first enrolled at STCC in the fall of 2003. I chose STCC for two reasons. First, the college is just three miles from my house and my morning commute is only ten minutes. Secondly and more importantly, my brother graduated from STCC in 2001 and told me that he received an excellent education there.
After looking through the STCC course catalog, I chose the Electronics System Engineering Technology program because I had prior electronics experience. The high school that I went to was a vocational one. During my freshman year, I was exposed to ten different technologies that ranged from automotive repair to welding. After spending several weeks in each program, I decided to sign up for the electronics program. Over the next three years, our classes progressed from the basic concepts to the more complicated ones that included digital processing and computer repair/troubleshooting. I was hoping that the ESET program at STCC would be a continuation of where high school left off, and found out that it was. Over the next two years I increased my knowledge of electronics and computers greatly. I also learned about related fields, such as telecommunications and photonics, during this time. I graduated from the ESET program this past May and I am now enrolled in the engineering and science transfer program in order to get my bachelors degree in electrical engineering.
During my third semester at STCC, I registered for a photonics course that was taught by Jim Downing. During one of his morning lectures, he said that there would be a fiber optic job opening later that year. I felt that I could not apply because I did not have the proper classroom or hands-on experience at the time. However, Jim approached me a few weeks later and explained the position to me in more detail. Even though I was not a LASER/Photonics major, and he knew that, he considered me for the position anyway because he was impressed with work that I had been doing in both the classroom and in the laboratory. He then placed the job offer on the table for me to consider. A couple of signatures and a handshake later, I was officially hired at NCTT in early December 2004.
Jim told me that the fiber optic position was made available due to a government grant that NCTT had received. He said that the overall goal of the grant was to record 20 laboratory videos over a period of one year that would be used to supplement laboratory exercises. He said that my primary purposes at NCTT were to collect experiment data and to perform the experiments in front of a video camera. When I first started at NCTT, my duties were to focus mainly on the experiments that were going to be filmed. This would include obtaining data and creating spreadsheets and graphs that were going to be used as a basis for the onscreen video data. After obtaining all the necessary data, a professional film crew would come to NCTT and I would perform each experiment in front of the camera.
As time when by, my duties kept increasing and I found myself more involved with the grant project. First of all, we have hired other students to take my place in order to have diversity in the videos. However, I still partake in the video process, but I am now behind the scenes. I now teach and direct the students the proper way to perform each of the experiments on camera before actually shooting the videos. Secondly, I am now able to view the rough cuts of experiments we recorded in the previous months and give my opinion on how to improve the experiments if need be. Also, I have been assigned the duty to create rough animations for the experiments. The rough animations that I prepare are then forwarded to the professional animator to be used as a guide for him to produce a quality animation for the video.
Because the time between video shoots is quite long, I have been assigned other duties during these times. One such duty is to help Jim proofread his fiber optic lab manual. As I proofread the manual, I write down any errors that I find or missing items that need to be included on a piece of paper. I then hand my findings to Jim so that he can post a list of corrections on a website for other users of the lab manual to see.
Another duty that I have is to prepare experiments for conventions and conferences. In the past I have set up fiber optic experiments for Jim to take to work conventions. In October, I attended the annual ATE conference in Washington, DC and I am currently putting together a fiber optic experiment to present at other conferences.
Lastly, because I am being paid through the NCTT grant, any NCTT related duty within my grasp is fair game for me.
For our purposes here, the term Subject Matter Expert (SME) shall be defined as an individual who has, by virtue of his/her experience, skill or education, been acknowledged by his/her peers to exhibit the highest degree of knowledge in a specialized area.
A Subject Matter Expert will provide SME Services to NCTT and Partners to be determined on an individual basis. SME Services may include (but are not limited to) technical content, story boarding, pedagogy, or collaborations in support of NCTT or Partner educational initiatives. This can be the perfect opportunity for educators starting ICT programs to gain access to NCTT resources without a large institutional commitment.
Benefits for Association:
Benefits may include (but are not limited to):
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Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those
of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the National Science Foundation.
 This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number DUE 0302548. |
Copyright August 2004 STCC Foundation Press All rights reserved. E-Mail the Webmaster with your comments. |
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