Cisco WASTC Conference, June 15-19 in Pomona

  

Do you feel like you work in a VACUUM?  

  

Do your Co-Workers think you are Strange?                                                                             

WASTC Academy Conference 2015

is not just about great Professional Development [of course we include that]-It is about getting to spend some time with people like you [and we are the best], so WASTC has scheduled time to do just that!

Breakfast & Lunch Every day

Appreciation Event, Thursday at 5:00 [food, band, industry representatives]

After Hours Networking Room to brush up on your technology or just hang out in the evenings getting some downtime with peers. 

  

Come join the fun -see flyer for the PD part.

Hope to see you there,

  

Karen

--

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

New CompTIA Linux+ Exam now available

The new version of CompTIA Linux+ Powered by LPI Linux includes changes in core Linux technologies and processes used by Linux administrators, as well as the addition of systems to several major Linux distributions. Linux is an important technology in tech and it's growing in importance. The exam validates baseline skills in the Linux OS. These skills are central to those aspiring to sys admin roles, but also important to those in a wide assortment of IT careers. Find more details here.

2015 Winter ICT Educator Conference – Presentation Archives Available on YouTube

January 5-6, 2015, MPICT co-hosted its Winter ICT Educator Conference in San Francisco.

More than 250 registered to attend physically.  Others attended remotely by clicking on presentation titles on the agenda and program at the scheduled times.

Presentation archives have been converted and are available on MPICT’s YouTube channel.

Most Winter Conference presentations were recorded.  A few were not, due to technical issues or presenter choices.  Click on links to launch YouTube videos.  Some presentations fit multiple tracks.

There were four keynotes for all:

·        Connecting the Dots:  From Awareness to Action in ICT Education and Workforce Development

James Jones, MPICT Executive Director, and Steve Wright, CCC ICT/DM Sector Navigator

·        Crisis in Computer Science Education and Workforce:  Chicago Responds

Brenda Wilkerson, Senior Manager, Computer Science & Information Technology Ed., Office of College and Career Success | Computer Science for All!

·        The Internet of Everything Changes Everything

Howard Charney, Senior Vice President, Office of the Chairman and CEO, Cisco Systems

·        Bridging the Skills Gap: Reflections on the Past, Present and Future of IT Credentialing

E. Clarke Porter, Founder and VP Pearson VUE

There were twelve presentations by industry representatives, sharing information and resources for improving ICT education:

·        Cisco Networking Academy, LPI.org & NDG Curriculum Partnership: Introducing Linux Essentials

·        IISME:  Gain Insight into Today’s Workforce Needs through Paid, Relevant, Rich, Revitalizing, Summer Fellowships

·        Juniper Networks Academic Alliance Program Update - New Resources for your Students!

·        NDG Linux Essentials – Course Overview and Train the Trainer Session

·        NDG LPIC-1 101 – Course Overview and Train the Trainer

·        Netapp:  Data Management Certification and Expertise - The Foundation for Careers in the Cloud - 1

·        Netapp:  Data Management Certification and Expertise - The Foundation for Careers in the Cloud - 2

·        Storage, Virtualization and Cloud Computing

·        Test Drive the Cloud Computing Labs from EMC and VMware using NDG's NETLAB+

·        The Internet of Everything:  Prepare Your Students with Courses from Cisco & Listen To What Employers Say!

·        What's New From CompTIA?

·        Where is IT Certification Headed: What Educators Need to Know

 There were 32 presentations by educators, sharing best practices:

·        ACM Competency Model of Core Learning Outcomes and Assessment for Associate-Degree Curriculum in IT

·        Active Learning in IT from Strategy to Execution

·        Adobe Certified Associate Certification – Campus Testing Model

·        At MassBay A Learning Community Project with a Twist

·        Bay Area ICT Faculty Forum Meeting

·        Best Practices for Implementation: Integrating the ICT Model Curriculum into your College's ICT-related Programs

·        Building Blocks of Successful IT Education Programs

·        Building High Impact K-14 ICT/DM Pathways in the East Bay Region

·        Creating and Distributing Video Lectures

·        Creating IT Pathway through the Reinvention of the Curriculum Development Process

·        Developing Programs/Courses for Emerging Occupations

·        Easily Store + Share your Media (and other) Files with 3C Media Solutions

·        Exploring Computer Science at SFUSD: Feedback from Teachers Trained in the Curriculum

·        First the BIG DIG, Now BIG DATA: Boston’s Experience Developing Big Data Curriculum

·        Help Your Counselors Get Students on ICT Career Pathways: MPICT ICT Counselor Toolkit (Begins at 3:45)

·        HELP! I need to understand IPv6! - 1

·        HELP! I need to understand IPv6! - 2

·        ICT Education and the California Open Textbook Initiative

·        ICT Model Curriculum - Gaining Momentum

·        Inside Microsoft's Cybercrime Center

·        Is Teaching Cloud Computing in Your Future?

·        Learn Strategies to Prepare Students for Internships and Jobs in the ICT/DM Sector

·        Make your videos stand out with great audio!

·        Skating to Where the Puck Will Be: A Framework for E-Books, Interactivity and Student Engagement - 1

·        Skating to Where the Puck Will Be: A Framework for E-Books, Interactivity and Student Engagement - 2

·        Speed Networking: An Effective and Alternative Way of Connecting Your ICT Students with Local Employers

·        Teaching Introductory C++ Using Programming Principles and Practice Using C++, by Bjarne Stroustrup

·        The Latest News from Microsoft on Windows 10, Server Next, Hyper-V, Azure and Office 365

·        The Teacher Externship: Exploring Quality Professional Development with Mission Bit, MPICT and SFUSD

·        Using Launchboard for Program Outcomes and Funding Support

·        Virtual Internships - an Alternative to Traditional Internships

Voices from the Field: Bridging the Gap Between ICT Education & Workforce

There were five presentations on improving diversity in ICT:

·        Beyond Marketing to Stealth Recruitment: Creating ICT Pathways from High School to College and Work for Underrepresented Groups

·        Nontraditional Students - How, What, and Why

·        Online Marketing Techniques for Recruiting Women to ICT

·        TechSpot 2.0: Providing Hands-on ICT Experience for Underserved Students

·        Using Lean Startup and Social Franchising Methods to Connect Low-Income Americans to Digital Work: SamaUSA Case Study

There were thirteen presentations focused on cybersecurity:

·        Bringing Security System Analysis to Classroom Environments

·        CAE Mapping the Knowledge Units

·        Course Materials for the New CompTIA CASP Certification

·        Cyber Security Instruction Using Virtual Environments – A Hands-On Session

·        Cybersecurity and Health Care Information Technology

·        Developing a Multi-function Security Course to Incorporate within Multiple Pathways

·        Introducing Security and Responsible Coding in Computing Courses

·        Is the Cyber Aces Program for You and Your Students?

·        NICE Challenges Project (Part 1&2) - Using NICE Framework Based Challenges to Enhance Cybersecurity Education

·        Partnerships and Processes Vital to the Development of a Cyber Security Program at Middlesex Community College

·        Retaliatory Hacking (a/k/a active defense and "hack back")

·        Something Like A Sport:   The Future of Cybersecurity Competitions

·        What is CAE-CAE/2Y and NICE:  How Do I Get It?

There were at least 7 hands-on labs not covered above:

·        Creating/Using a Virtual Windows 8.1 System

·        Developing Your First Cloud Foundry App

·        Exploit Development - 1

·        Introduction to Jquery Mobile

·        Using Intel XDK to Build Mobile Apps

·        Violent Python

·        Wireshark Network Protocol Labs for Netlab and ICT Certification Classes

Thank you to everyone who contributed to making this a resounding success!

Please continue to communicate and work with each other!

Cisco Western Academy Conference: Call for Presentation Proposals

WASTC Cisco West Coast

Academy Conference 2015

June 18 & 19

Call for Presentation Proposals!

Hello Greatly Talented People!

It is time to submit your presentation proposals for the Academy Conference 2015!  Collaboration is the name of the game, and we all need to hear about what you do well.  Don’t be modest—you have lots of tools in your bag and we would love to [some of us need to] hear about one or two of them.

You will have 75 minutes for a presentation on either June 18^th or 19^th at Cal Poly Pomona.  

• Technical
• Educational Pathways
• Jobs
• Industry
• Student Competitions
• To infinity and beyond…

Also if you would like to hear a presentation on a specific topic, please send that request and we will try to make it happen.

To submit your proposals please send me:

1.    Your Name

2.   Title

3.   Short presentation description

  

Come show us what you got!

  

General Conference Information

Pre-Conference

June 15 – 17

Academy Conference

June 18 - 19

·      36 short sessions—full descriptions will be posted at a later time on the WASTC site
·      2 Key Notes
·      Appreciation Event (live band, food, and industry contacts)

Cost for one or both conferences

            $99 for WASTC Academies

            $150 for all others

To register and find more information, see the WASTC website: www.wastc.org

Best regards, Karen

--

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

Linux Treasures: 11 Sublime Native Linux Apps That Will Make You Want To Switc

makeuseof

Justin PotOn 4th March, 2015
Linux

Why should you use Linux? To use some of the best applications made for any platform. If you don’t believe me, here’s a list of great Linux apps.

You can find all of these in the default Ubuntu repositories, and likely in the repositories of whatever Linux distro you use.

FocusWriter: Beautiful, Distraction-Free Writing
Almost every job requires that you spend at least some time writing, but it’s a hard thing to do in the web era: distractions are everywhere. Focuswriter helps by blocking everything else on the screen. Even better: you can set up a gorgeous background, giving you a calm place to focus on what you need to do.



If you’re looking for an easily customizable distraction free writing app, you found it.

Pithos: The Best Looking Pandora Client, Period
We’ve highlighted some great Linux radio apps, but none come close to Pithos. This Pandora client is the best we’ve seen on any platform.



You can see what’s playing, complete with album art, and even see (and edit!) what’s coming up. There are some great Mac apps for listening to Pandora out there, but nothing quite as nice as Pithos is on Linux.

Zim: Your Personal Desktop Wiki
Evernote is all well and good, but if you really want to organize your thoughts in a way that’s easy to browse later it’s hard to beat a personal wiki. And Zim is possibly the best personal wiki software out there.



How useful this is for you will depend completely on how you use it, of course, but this app is seriously useful for organizing your life.

GPodder: Possibly The Best Podcast App Out There
If you’re a podcast fan, you know how frustrating the search for a decent podcast client can be. The assumption seems to be everyone is using iTunes, so why bother? That’s not the way the gPodder team thinks, and we’re grateful.



This program is the best way to manage your podcasts on any platform, and while there are ports out there for Mac and Windows gPodder just doesn’t feel at home on those platforms.

Bluefish: Great Editor for HTML and More


If you occasionally need to edit HTML files, you need to check out Bluefish. This editor includes quick tools for doing just about everything. It’s not easy to use, granted: this is certainly an HTML editor for programmers, but it’s one of the best apps out there for what it does.

Music Player Daemon: Amazing Lightweight Music Player
This one isn’t easy to use – it’s kind of a bitch to set up, actually. But once you get it working, it feels like magic – especially if you have a device with it attached to your stereo.

Music Player Daemon (MPD) isn’t like other music software: it runs in the background on your computer, and can be controlled with a number of different clients. Some of these clients are graphical, others are command-driven. The real fun: a client on one computer can control the daemon running on another computer. Imagine a Rapsberry Pi hooked up to your stereo, which you can control using any other device in your house.

If this sound interesting to you, check out the documentation. It’s a little hard to get started with, but the results are worth it: this is the best music player out there for Linux.

Guake: Drop Down Command Line, In One Keypress
Most Linux users grow to love the command line in time—it’s just a matter of learning the essential commands. Guake gives you fast access to commands: just press a single key and a prompt launches.



Press the same key again and it goes away. It’s the fastest way to type a command, and it willchange the way you work with the terminal.

GParted: World-Class Partioning Software
Every time I need to edit partitions on my Mac or Windows machines, I wish I could use GParted—the ultimate partitioning software. It handles partitioning in a way that’s easy to visualize, and offers support for all major filesystems.



Happily, you can use GParted on any computer whether you’re a Linux user or not, thanks to the GParted Live CD. Keep one around—you never know when it might come in handy.

FBReader: A Simple EBook Reader
When it comes to ebook reading software, most apps try to way too much. FBReader is a refreshing exception to this rule, offering you the ability to read books and not much else.



Seriously: I wish I could find something this simple for Mac, but I can’t. Happily it’s available for Linux.

Minitube: Beautiful, Fast Interface for YouTube
Search for something on YouTube, get instant results. Then watch all of them. Minitube is a simple thought executed well, and is great for older computers that struggle with flash.



It’s the best way to watch YouTube videos. And yes, it is available on Mac and Window for a price—but the Linux version is free.

Package Managers: The Best way to Install Software


Whether it’s from the command line or a GUI tool like Synaptic (pictured), package managers are the best way to install a bunch of software quickly—and get all of your updates from one central program. Windows and Mac have their app stores, sure, but those closed ecosystems can’t match Linux package manager’s flexibility. You can add additional repositories to install software from unofficial sources. You can install multiple programs by typing a single command, or by checking them off in a list.

Every distro comes with its own package manager, but all of them are miles ahead of what’s out there for other systems.

What Else? Let us Know
I could go on. Most of the default apps that come with ElementaryOS, a minimalist Linux distrocould fit in here, for example.

But rather than expand on my tastes, I’d like to hear about yours. Which amazing Linux apps have I missed? Let me know in the comments below, so your fellow readers can benefit.

Image Credits: Colorful gemstones Via Shutterstock