San Francisco votes to expand computer science education across all grades

Donations from Salesforce charity will fund the new program from pre-school onward.

Ars Technica by Cyrus Farivar - Jun 10, 2015 4:25pm PDT

This is the view from George Washington High School, in San Francisco.

Sandra Cohen-Rose and Colin Rose

FURTHER READING

WASHINGTON LAWMAKERS WANT COMPUTER SCIENCE TO COUNT AS FOREIGN LANGUAGE

If bill passes, two years of comp sci would count toward university admission.

Within a few years, every single student in the San Francisco Unified School District will be studying computer science, at all grade levels.

The city’s Board of Education unanimously approved the measure during its weekly meeting on Tuesday evening.

"Information technology is now the fastest growing job sector in San Francisco, but too few students currently have access to learn the Computer Science skills that are crucial for such careers," Board President Emily Murase said in a statementon Wednesday. "We are proud to be at the forefront of creating a curriculum that will build on the knowledge and skills students will need starting as early as preschool."

According to the district, computer science classes are relatively rare across the United States.

"Currently, no national, state, or local standards exist for Computer Science and the academic research in Computer Science education is quite limited," the board wrote. "As such, a cohesive progression of Computer Science knowledge and skills does not yet exist."

The effort is going to be largely funded by the Salesforce Foundation, a charitable wing of the company.

At present, only a "few hundred" San Francisco public school students took the Advanced Placement Computer Science exam in Spring 2014. Of those, just 22 percent were women, and three percent were African American, Latino or Native American.

How exactly will San Francisco’s preschool set get in on the action? SFUSD says they "will most likely be using blocks to build robots, to introduce the concepts of procedural thinking, cause and effect, decomposition of complex tasks, pattern recognition as well as the ability to notice similarities or common differences, abstraction and algorithm design and the ability to develop a step-by-step strategy for solving a problem."

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, "employment of computer and information research scientists is projected to grow 15 percent from 2012 to 2022, faster than the average for all occupations."

The median salary nationwide in the industry is just over $102,000—likely higher in the competitive and increasingly-expensive San Francisco Bay Area.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Industries and Employment Booming in the San Francisco Bay Area: California Community Colleges Organizing to Meet Demand

July 10, 2014

PRESS RELEASE

Contact:  James B. Jones, Executive Director, Mid-Pacific ICT Center (MPICT.org)

Office:  415.239.3600 / Cell:  415.867.6616

E-mail:  jjones@mpict.org

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Industries and Employment Booming in the San Francisco Bay Area:  California Community Colleges Organizing to Meet Demand

SAN FRANCISCO, California – The Mid-Pacific ICT Center (MPICT) and the San Francisco Bay Center of Excellence today announced final release of the report, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Demand and Supply, Issues and Opportunities in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area, which documents exceptional ICT industry and employment performance and growth.  The report also documents exceptional capacity and opportunities to meet ICT industry and employment cluster needs by Bay Area California community colleges.

According to MPICT Executive Director James Jones:  “Information and communication technologies are key drivers of 21^st century economic growth and livelihood.  Yet, many of our educational and workforce development systems have not adjusted to meet the phenomenal growth in ICT workforce demand.  Code.org publicizes a shortfall of a million workers in software development between now and 2020.  According to the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Computing will represent half of all Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) jobs by 2020 and 62% of STEM job openings between now and then.  We are not even close to meeting that demand.  We have a national crisis in ICT workforce development.  Hopefully, reports like this will help people understand the scope of this crisis and ways we might come together to address it.”

According to the report, ICT industries, which create, market and deliver ICT related goods and services, are among the largest and most important industry clusters in the greater San Francisco Bay region.  Relative to all industries, in 2012, ICT industries accounted for:

•                    1 in 11.5 firms

•                    more than 1 in 10 jobs

•                    about one in five dollars of sales revenue

•                    more than one in 4 dollars of taxable earnings

•                    almost one in six new jobs between 2012 and 2015.

Not all ICT industry jobs are technical, though, and ICT workforce doesn’t just work for ICT industry employers.  ICT workforce is now strategically important to most organizations, across all industries, because that ICT workforce enables increasing productivity from all workforce and most strategic efforts of all business functions.  ICT Workforce demand in the Bay Area is large and growing.  In 2012, cross-sector ICT workforce in the Bay Area accounted for:

•                    about 1 in 12 jobs

•                    median annual salaries of about $90,000

•                    about 1 in 12 job openings between 2012 and 2015

The report calls for ICT industry support and improved ICT technical workforce development as very high, ongoing economic development priorities in the San Francisco Bay Area.  ICT jobs each create an additional 4.3 jobs through multiplier effects, according to the Bay Area Council.  ICT industries and workforce are major economic development drivers in the 21^st century.

The report provides detailed data and findings for the Bay Region, and for five identified Bay Area sub-regions, which should be valuable for economic planners, grant funders and seekers, educators, workforce systems, community based organizations and other stakeholders. 

In addition, the report documents the ICT education and workforce development capacity of the 28 Bay Area community colleges, which offered in 2010/11 related to ICT:

• 1,350 faculty in 82 programs
• 140K for-credit and 16K non-credit enrollments
• 180 academic degrees and 405 certificates
• More than 7,000 sections of more than 2,000 courses
• More than 17,000 full-time equivalent students
• Strong Vendor Neutral and Industry Academy Programs and Certification Preparation
• Service to all Bay Area geographic areas
• Affinity to local K-12 and 4-year college and university systems and schools

The report points to ICT related offerings of the 10 Bay Area public universities, nine of which offer 32 ICT related departments, with a variety of bachelor, master, doctoral and research opportunities.

Finally, the report includes many problems, issues and opportunities related to ICT education and workforce development - and suggestions for how diverse stakeholders in the Bay Area might come together to address them.

Download the report free at www.mpict.org/pdf/SF_Bay_ICT_2014.pdf.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is an umbrella term, widely used outside the U.S., and in the U.N, to encompass all rapidly emerging, evolving and converging computer, software, networking, telecommunications, Internet, programming, information systems and digital media technologies.  ICT/Digital Media has been adopted as sector nomenclature by the California community college system, California Department of Education Career Technical Education, the California Employment Development Department, and the California workforce system, including the State Workforce Investment Board, the California Workforce Association and all 49 local Workforce Investment Boards.  ICT is a much more effective search term than the more prevalent IT (Information Technology), which, ironically, as an indefinite pronoun and returns at least everything in the English language.

The Mid-Pacific ICT Center (MPICT.org) is funded in part by the National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education program to coordinate, improve and promote ICT education, with an emphasis on 2-year colleges, in California, Nevada, Hawaii and the Pacific Territories. 

California Community Colleges (californiacommunitycolleges.cccco.edu) form the largest system of higher education in the nation, with 72 districts and 112 colleges serving 2.76 million students per year. Community colleges supply workforce and basic skills training and prepare students for transfer to four-year colleges and universities.  One in four community college students in the U.S. attends a California community college.

Centers of Excellence (http://www.coeccc.org), funded in part by the Chancellor’s Office, California Community Colleges, Economic and Workforce Development Program, in partnership with business and industry, deliver regional workforce research customized for community college decision making and resource development.  

California Community College ICT/Digital Media Sector Navigators (ict-dm.net) are focused on developing and delivering regional solutions to ICT education and workforce development needs in every region of California.

2014 CSSIA Train-the-Trainer Schedule

2014 CSSIA Train-the-Trainer Schedule is 100% posted… CLICK here to check it out! If you like what you see,   All trainings are 100% distance-learning, synchronous & instructor-led ~ which means, NO travel is required! The National Science Foundation has generously subsidized 90% of participant costs making the fee only $99 for the majority of trainings! Don’t hesitate to register today… The next Train-the-Trainer Schedule will not be posted until 2015 Questions? Contact Lynn Dohm at lynn.dohm@morainevalley.edu.

ACM CCECC May 2014 Version of Associate-Degree Curricular Guidance for Information Technology - A Competency Model of Learning Outcomes and Assessment

ACM CCECC

The ACM CCECC, at the direction of the ACM Education Board, convened a task force of subject matter experts from both academe and industry to define the core IT learning outcomes and the accompanying assessment rubrics which should be common to all associate-degree IT programs. The report embeds these core IT competencies into an expanded volume of IT curricular guidance which includes the opportunity for faculty at individual institutions to identify course examples and for industry representatives to identify themselves as champions of such competencies.

The ACM CCECC has presented the Associate-Degree Curricular Guidance for Information Technology at several venues including the Mid-Pacific Information and Communication Technologies (MPICT) Winter ICT Educator Conference on January 6, 2014. You can find a video of this presentation on the MPICT YouTube channel.

If you would like to have your institution's IT programs (associate degrees, tracks, certificates, or clusters of courses) to be considered for inclusion, simply complete the process for correlating courses in your programs with the newly-defined set of IT Core Competencies promoted by the ACM CCECC. Visit http://capspace.org/correlation/to take advantage of this opportunity!

ACM Survey on Computing Programs in Community Colleges

The ACM Committee for Computing Education in Community Colleges is conducting a brief survey on the computing programs currently being offered in community colleges. We appreciate your time in responding to our four quick questions and we urge you to identify your programs via this survey!

Upcoming Conferences

The CCECC will be disseminating materials at the following upcoming conferences:

ITiCSE Conference 2014

Three Great ICT Faculty Professional Development Opportunities in June!

These three June ICT faculty development opportunities are really good, they are filling fast, and we want as many good people as possible to participate in them.  In addition to being great learning opportunities, they are also great opportunities to make valuable connections with your peers!

• CCC ICT Sector Navigators' Digital Media Conference, June 12-13 in Santa Clarita
• Cisco Regional Academy Conference, June 16-20 in Pomona
• ICT Faculty Development Week, June 23-27 in San Francisco

 

The California community college ICT sector navigator team is sponsoring a first ever Digital Media Educators Conference, June 12-13 in Santa Clarita.  More than a hundred of your peers have registered so far!

This event gathers faculty and experts to improve Digital Media education and workforce development at California community colleges.

It features keynote presentations from:

• Diane Domeyer, Executive director of the Creative Group at Robert Half, the world's largest staffing firm
• Lynda Weinman, Cofounder and executive chair of lynda.com, one of the most successful companies in online education today
• Eddie C. Drake, Vice President, Technology for the Walt Disney Studios

It also features outstanding breakout presentations in the following tracks:

• Web/App Development & Management
• Digital Media in Entertainment
• Graphic Design and Multimedia
• Digital Media in Business

Limited travel assistance is available for qualified faculty, on a first-come/first-served basis.

Learn more and register!  Registration closes June 3rd.

 

WASTC

Cisco Regional Academy Conference

Pathways to Success in ICT

  

Want to add a bit of Cloud or Big Data Technology to your classes?

Don't miss out on the professional development opportunities still available 

This event includes two days of great conference keynotes and breakout presentations, June 19-20.  See the agenda for details. More than a hundred of your peers have registered so far!

It also includes three days of pre-conference workshops, June 16-18, where you have the opportunity to learn something in-depth.  See the event description.  Pre-conference workshops are:

• Cisco IT Essentials Instructor Training
• Cisco CCNA1 Introduction to Networks, Instructor Training - CLASS FULL
• EMC Cloud Infrastructure and Services (CIS)
• BIG DATA: Introduction to Talend & Tableau, Business Analytics and Intelligence Tools
• LPI Academy Linux Essentials Train-the-Trainer Workshop
• NDG Netlab+ Setup, "Bring your IT Programs Online"
• VCA [VMware Certified Associate] in Data Center Virtualization and vCloud 

For more information please visit: www.wastc.org.

 

The Summer 2014 ICT Faculty Development Week event, June 23-27 in San Francisco provides opportunities to go deep for 4.5 days and learn to teach new content.  Roughly a hundred of your peers will be there, and it is a great opportunity to learn to know them.

Tracks this year are:

• VMWare Vsphere: Install, Configure, Manage (v5.5)
• Teaching Beginners Mobile Programming with App Inventor
• Certified Ethical Hacker - CLASS FULL
• User Experience and Interaction Design Intensive
• Oracle SQL and PL/SQL

A special track for San Francisco Unified School District teachers to learn Exploring Computer Science (ECS) curriculum is also full. 

Limited travel assistance is available for qualified faculty, on a first-come/first-served basis. 

Learn more and register!

Midwest Center for IT Faculty Development Opportunities, June 9-14, 20014

MPICT Faculty Development Week, June 23-27 in San Francisco

So far, 56 of your peers have signed up for the June 23-27 Faculty Development Week event in San Francisco!

  

 

Please note an agenda change:  

• The Web Engineering track has been cancelled.  
• A new User Experience and Interaction Design Intensive track has been added

Please check out the current event description!

Register here.

Limited support stipends are still available.

Please also check out these great summer ICT faculty professional development events:

• WASTC Cisco Academy Conference and Pre-Conference Workshops, June 16-20 at Cal Poly Pomona
• CCC ICT Sector Navigator/DSN Digital Media Conference, June 12-13 at College of the Canyons

Hope to see you at one or more of these great events!

WASTC Cisco Regional Academy Conference: Pathways to Success in ICT, June 16-20 at Cal Poly Pomona

WASTC

Cisco Regional Academy Conference

Pathways to Success in ICT

  

Are you interested in learning more about the Cisco Networking Academy?

Would you like to add some professional development to your summer?

• EMC Cloud Infrastructure and Services
• Big Data: Talend & Tableau
• LPI Academy Linux Essentials Train the Trainer
• NDG+ Workshop [Tune your NetLab to Smoking Hot]
• VCA in Data Center Virtualization and vCloud
• CCNA Introduction to Networks Instructor Course
• Cisco Academy IT-Essentials [A+] Instructor Course

Would you like to visit Southern California?

• Disneyland                                                                
• Warm beaches
• Knott’s Berry Farm
• Universal Studios, and so much more

Spend a little downtime with other ICT Educators

• Welcome Event, June 18^th, 5:30 – 8:00
• Appreciation Event, June 19^th, 5:30 – 8:00

Maybe you should click and Register Here

 for the Cisco Regional Academy Conference

At Cal Poly Pomona

June 16 – 18 Pre-Conference

June 19 – 20 Academy Conference

WASTC Cisco Regional Academy Conference: Pathways to Success in ICT

                                                                                                      

WASTC

Cisco Regional Academy Conference

Pathways to Success in ICT

Registration Is Now Open And You are Invited To Attend!

The Cisco Western Academy Support and Training Center (WASTC) is pleased to host its Regional Academy Conference, Pathways to Success in ICT, at Cal Poly Pomona, June 16-20, 2014.

Register Here

  

The event consists of:

·         3 days of Pre-Conference Workshops, June 16-18

·         2 days of Regional Academy Conference, June 19-20

Pre-Conference Workshops

We are very excited to be able to offer (at no additional fee) a number of outstanding pre-conference workshops, in which you can develop in-depth knowledge and skills. For full descriptions go to:  www.wastc.org

·         Cisco IT Essentials, Instructor Training

·         Cisco CCNA1 Introduction to Networks, Instructor Training

·         EMC Cloud Infrastructure and Services (CIS)

·         BIG DATA: Introduction to Talend & Tableau, Business Analytics and Intelligence Tools

·         Linux Essentials Train-the-Trainer Workshop

·         NDG Netlab+ Setup, “Bring your IT Programs Online”

·         VCA (VMware Certified Associate) in Data Center Virtualization and vCloud

These are each valuable, intensive 3-day workshops, and some require pre- or post-work.  The Linux track includes free certification testing.

Academy Conference

The agenda features a daily keynote address, and provides a diverse range of empowering and informative 75-minute breakout sessions, organized in tracks such as:

• Technical topics, hands-on labs, and best practices [IT-E, CCNA, Wireless, CCNP, Security, Packet Tracer, Wireshark, IPv6…..]
• Topics related to improving ICT educational pathways and jobs
• Cybersecurity and cybersecurity competitions
• New Academy best practices
• NetSpace
• Free "LPI Linux Essentials Certificate of Achievement” exam [$110 value]

Each day, you will have time to rub shoulders with other attendees and industry sponsors at a light breakfast and lunch, and we have two social events planned.

·         Welcome & Graduation Reception, June 18, sponsored by MPICT

·         Appreciation Dinner, June 19, sponsored by SIGMAnet

Fee Information

The registration fee for both the Pre-Conference and the Academy Conference is $99 for WASTC academies, and $150 for non-WASTC academies.  You may attend the Pre-Conference, the Academy Conference, or both, for the same registration fee.  Hotel and travel information is on our event website.

Register Today!

Thank you to our sponsors and partners who make this event affordable to all!

For questions, please refer to the event website.

Or you may contact Karen Stanton at karen.stanton@wastc.org

Cisco Western Regional Academy Confeence: Pre-Conference Sessions Announced!

WASTC

Cisco Regional Academy Conference

Pathways to Success in ICT

Registration Opens April 12, 2014

Pre-Conference Sessions Announced!

The Cisco Western Academy Support and Training Center (WASTC) is pleased to host its Regional Academy Conference, Pathways to Success in ICT, at Cal Poly Pomona, June 16-20, 2014.

The event consists of:

·      3 days of Pre-Conference Workshops, June 16-18

·      2 days of Regional Academy Conference, June 19-20

Pre-Conference Workshops:

We are very excited to be able to offer, at no additional fee, six outstanding pre-conference workshops, in which you can develop in-depth knowledge and skills:

·      Cisco IT Essentials Instructor Training

·      Cisco CCNA1 Instructor Training

·      EMC Cloud Infrastructure and Services (CIS)

·      BIG DATA: Introduction to Talend & Tableau, Business Analytics and Intelligence Tools

·      Linux Essentials Train-the-Trainer Workshop

·      NDG Netlab+ Setup, “Bring your IT Programs Online”

These are each valuable, intensive 3-day workshops, and some require pre- work.  The Linux track includes free certification testing.   

Descriptions may be found on our website: www.wastc.org

Fee Information: The registration fee for both the Pre-Conference and the Academy Conference is $99 for WASTC academies and $150 for non-WASTC academies.  You may attend either the Pre-Conference, or the Academy Conference, or both for the registration fee.  Hotel and Travel information is on our website: www.wastc.org

Thank you to our sponsors and partners who make this event affordable to all!

For questions please refer to the WASTC website: www.wastc.org

Or you may contact Karen Stanton at Karen.stanton@wastc.org,

--

Karen Stanton
Cisco Networking Academy
ASC ITC Ohlone
WASTC Coordinator
Western Academy Support & Training Center-WASTC
www.wastc.org
661 362 5363
karen.stanton@wastc.org

MPICT

www.mpict.org

IWITTS: Changes to an Introductory Course Helped Female Students Succeed in Computer Science

MPICT is hosting WomenTech training for qualified ICT instructors.  For more information, please contact info@mpict.org. 

Hi, it's Donna here.

I want to share with you some of the successful strategies that worked for one program featured in our Proven Practices Collection. This collection of over a hundred research based articles and case studies underpins the knowledgebase of the WomenTech Educators National Institute. At Harvey Mudd College, women now make up about 42% of the computer science program after educators introduced a few key recruitment and retention strategies.

One of the changes made at Harvey Mudd was to implement a new curriculum for their introductory computer science course. Professors at the college found that many female students did not have a solid idea of what computer science was. So the introductory course was revised to provide an overview of the breadth of computer science and its connections with other disciplines. During the first week of class, students now delve into the content by writing interesting and useful programs. This hands-on experience increases their level of interest, and also gives students more confidence in their abilities. For female students in particular, we know that confidence is a big predictor of success in STEM.

Learning how to provide students with hands-on experience and build confidence are just part of what you'll take away in the WomenTech Educators National Institute. When you attend the training, you join educators from around the country to learn the full knowledgebase, and then develop a customized recruitment and retention plan to increase the number of female students in your STEM classes, often in just one year. Plus, Fresno Pacific University is now offering one unit of continuing education credit to training participants!

Find out more about the WomenTech Educators National Institute

When you attend the WomenTech Educators National Institute, you will take away:
An easy-to-implement recruitment plan that will greatly increase the number of women and girls in your STEM classrooms.
A retention plan for your school that will increase the completion rate of your female (and male students), starting the next semester.
The knowledge and confidence you need to put these plans into action, right away.

How can you make the training even more effective? Attend in a team!

The more people that you can get involved in this campaign, the more lasting change you're going to have. Yes, one teacher on their own can get more women in the classroom, but the schools that have been the most effective and had lasting institutional change have had more people involved. Teams should have between 4-10 members. Your team will be the most effective if it includes a variety of stakeholders from your college dedicated to increasing the number of female students in your STEM program.

Learn more about attending as a team

Here are a few recent quotes from participants about the WomenTech Educators Training:

"The most valuable things I received from working with IWITTS were strategies that have been researched and have data to support them. There are also many inexpensive strategies; 'inexpensive' is a key term in these difficult economic times. I anticipate additional increased retention in my programs. I have already implemented retention strategies from IWITTS with much success. The workshop has empowered me!"

~Jessica du Maine, Assistant Professor/Program Coordinator, Electrical/ Electronic Engineering & Technology, St. Louis Community College

"Completely made me re-evaluate the approach that we have been taking. I realized the many mistakes and plan to make changes that I learned from the training. Great information!"

~Hector Yanez, Department Chair/CADD Manager of Computer Drafting and Design Technology, Texas State Technical College, Harlingen, TX

I look forward to meeting you and your team in the San Francisco Bay Area this summer!

Warmly,



Donna Milgram

Executive Director - Institute for Women in Trades, Technology and Science
Institute for Women in Trades, Technology & Science (National IWITTS) | 1150 Ballena Blvd. | Suite 102 | Alameda | CA | 94501