Minneapolis International Luncheon Speaker Announced
 ITEEA has announced the International Luncheon speaker for its Minneapolis Conference. Susan Lim is a lecturer with the Natural Sciences and Science Education academic group at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. She has been with the institution since 2007 teaching Design- and Technology-related courses for preservice and in-service teachers. Prior to this, she has worked as a teacher and Head of Department in the Secondary Schools for over 10 years. Her research interests include design education, curriculum design, learning technologies, and pedagogical practices. Currently she is involved in a publication for the preservice programme for D&T education. As a management committee member of the Design and Technology Educators Society, Singapore, she is also involved in organising the Annual D&T conference and other professional activities for teachers.
The International Luncheon will take place on Thursday, March 24, 2011 from 12:00pm-1:50pm at the Hyatt Regency Minneapolis. Details are available on the ITEEA website at www.iteea.org/Conference/conferenceguide.htm.
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Looking for Extra Money for Your Program?
 ITEEA’S Grant-Writing Workshop is for You!
Tough times for education require new measures for finding the resources to run your program. One avenue towards success is to write grants aimed at improving your program. Sometimes, writing for a grant is easier than writing an article for a journal. You just have to try it.
ITEEA is going to help you in this regard by offering the nationally known presenter and successful grant writer, Dr. Aaron Clark, DTE, as a leader of a preconference workshop at the coming ITEEA Minneapolis Conference. This program will be offered on Wednesday, March 23rd.
ITEEA’s President, Gary L. Wynn, DTE, noted that, “I had an opportunity to attend a previous ITEEA grant-writing workshop and have since received thousands of dollars as a result of what I learned. I didn’t think I was a grant writer when I attended, but today it is an important part of keeping my program successful. And Dr. Clark is an outstanding leader who will share his successes with you.”
For more information about this and other grant-writing workshops, go to: www.iteea.org/Conference/workshops.htm. |
ITEEA Member Publishes New Book
 Introduce elementary school children to the fun and colorful world of engineering with the recently published “Engineering the ABC’s: How Engineers Shape Our World”
Through lively illustrations and informative text, Engineering the ABC's:
- Enhances children's critical thinking skills
- Inspires them to discover the “how” and “why” of things that are made
- Opens their minds to new possibilities for their future
- Challenges children with fun trivia and math questions related to their everyday world
- Strengthens text-to-self and text-to-world connections
To learn more about this exciting new book, visit www.PattyOBrienNovak.com or Amazon, and be sure to look for Patty’s presentation at the 2011 ITEEA Conference in Minneapolis. |
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This Summer, Kids Can Recycle Their Way to Stardom...
 Design Squad on PBS KIDS GO!® Challenges Kids Nationwide to Transform Items from their Recycling Bin into the Next Big Thing and Win a Chance to Be on TV!
One man's trash is another man's treasure, but your kids' "trash" could be their ticket to television! To help celebrate National Inventors Month in August, PBS' Emmy and Peabody Award-winning series Design Squad is challenging kids aged 5-19 to spend their summer vacation recycling, reusing, and reengineering everyday materials to create the next great green invention. With the nationwide Trash to Treasure competition, three young innovators will win a trip to Boston to see their designs built and may appear on the Design Squad show and/or website. Entries are due on September 5, 2010, and kids can visit www.PBSKIDSGO.org/designsquad to view the official rules and send in their entries.
Three winners will be selected from this year's entrants to come to Boston to work side by side with the team at the award-winning global innovation design consultancy Continuum and see their ideas come to life. Twenty-five finalists will have their ideas showcased on the series website and will receive a Design Squad t-shirt. The nationwide contest launched online on April 5 and is open for ages 5-19. Entries will be accepted through September 5, 2010 at www.PBSKIDSGO.org/designsquad/contest. |
Students Worldwide Fly Ideas for Greener Flight and $30,000 Prize
 University students worldwide can shape the future of flight and win €30,000 in a global competition launched July 21st by Airbus at the Farnborough International Airshow in the United Kingdom.
The Airbus Fly Your Ideas (FYI) competition challenges students worldwide to develop new ideas for a greener aviation industry. It concludes with a final at next summer’s International Paris Airshow in Le Bourget, France. The winners will share the top prize of €30,000; the runners-up €15,000.
Students of any age, nationality, gender, or discipline—from engineering to marketing; business to science; philosophy to design—are invited to take part. Proposals are welcome on all aspects of the "Environmental Life Cycle"—an innovative approach Airbus uses to improve the environmental performance of an aircraft and its production process. It consists of five stages: design, supply chain, manufacturing, aircraft operations, and aircraft end-of-life.
To enter FYI 2011, students must register as a team of three to five members on the competition website by November 30, 2010. For further information or to register, visit: www.airbus-fyi.com. Project proposals must be submitted by December 10, 2010. |
St. Petersburg College, Green Energy Engineering to Offer Online Classes for Engineers
 St Petersburg College’s Corporate Training Department announced on July 16 that it will partner with Green Energy Engineering (www.GEEintl.com) to provide online classes for professional engineers who need Professional Development Hours (PDHs). GEE is a continuing education company that offers classes in DVD format to professional engineers who need to earn credits to renew their licenses.
Two GEE courses will be offered starting July 26: “Principles of Engineering Economy” and “Incremental Investment and Incremental Return.” Under the partnership agreement, the classes may be taken through through SPC’s online learning program.
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Green Resources From the IdeaGarden
 Below is a link posted on the IdeaGarden. It leads to an article titled “Green Myths Debunked” that appears on CNN.com. There are 25 green myths discussed, such as “Bottled water is safer than tap water” and “Cars are one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gas.” Or how about “It’s better to buy an artificial Christmas tree than to cut down an evergreen every year”? Really? Read all about it at: http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/technology/
1003/gallery.green_myths.fortune/index.html
Don’t miss out on more great information – join the IdeaGarden today!
www.iteea.org/Networking/learningcommunities.htm |
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Summer Fun With JASON
 Follow the Latest Argonaut Field Updates!
Right now, JASON's newest class of National Argonauts is in the field, working side by side with JASON host researchers to unlock mysteries of Climate, Space, and Forces & Motion.
Their amazing explorations will take them from Boot Camp in Washington, DC to climate research facilities at NOAA, the Jet Propulsion Lab in California, and even to a car crash demonstration at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety!
What will the Argos learn about the climate challenges facing our planet? Can they unravel the mysterious forces that move our world? Will they see the start of humankind's next leap toward the stars? These Argonauts are finding out and sharing their experiences with you!
Check out the JASON Mission Center throughout the summer as the Argos post updates right from the field!
See what the Argos are up to now! |
2014 NAEP T&E Assessment Questions
 There have been some questions about the 2014 Technology and Engineering Literacy (TEL) item development. Here are the answers:
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the operational arm of the NAEP program. They will be working with their contractor, ETS, to develop the items based on the TEL Framework and Specifications approved by the Governing Board earlier this year. NCES and ETS are just starting to plan for recruiting item writers.
Anyone wishing to serve as an item writer should contact Bill Ward at William.ward@ed.gov. Bill is the lead staff person at NCES on the TEL development, and he attended some of the Framework meetings in DC. At this point there have been no decisions on numbers of questions to fulfill the percentage requirements in the Framework regarding the three areas of the pyramid. |
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From the ITEEA International Center of Taiwan
 Lung-Sheng Steven Lee writes from the ITEEA International Center of Taiwan to let us know about the Taiwan Fellowship Program. The program has been developed to encourage experts and scholars worldwide who are interested in
Taiwan, cross-strait relations, mainland China, Asia Pacific, and
Sinology to conduct research in Taiwan’s universities or research
institutes and promote academic exchanges.
The fellowship recipients should be foreign professors, associate
professors, assistant professors, and doctoral candidates of related
departments of overseas universities, and research fellows of the same
level in academic institutes abroad. For complete information, contact Lung-Sheng Steven Lee at t83006@ntnu.edu.tw.
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Sports Authority to Launch National Youth Sports Invention Challenge
 Sports Authority has recently announced the “Sports Authority Move It Challenge,” a new invention competition designed to uncover exciting youth-created sporting and backyard games and products.
The “Sports Authority Move It Challenge” will offer exciting prizes for kids and educators. The grand prize winner will receive $10,000, with four finalists each receiving $1,000 and their nominated teacher receiving a $500 Sports Authority gift card. Teachers and students can learn more about the challenge and submit entries by going to www.moveitchallenge.com. Entries will be accepted online or by mail beginning October 1, 2010, through January 3, 2011. Complete rules are available online. There is no fee to enter the competition and no limit to the number of entries a student can make.
By Kids For Kids is working with Sports Authority to distribute fun and engaging activities for educators to use in the classroom that inspire kids to create new games, sports training devices, and fitness-tracking devices while learning the benefits of staying healthy and fit. All of the activities will be distributed for free to educators around the country.
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AFCEA Educational Foundation Announces Winners of the STEM Teachers Scholarship
 Thirty-Five Scholarships Awarded to Students Studying to Teach Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Subjects
On August 13, 2010 the AFCEA Educational Foundation announced the winners of its Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Teachers Scholarships. Funded by a $200,000 grant from AFCEA International, 35 students will receive $5,000 scholarships for the 2010-2011 school year. The students are pursuing education degrees or licensures for the purpose of teaching a STEM subject in a U.S. middle or secondary school. In addition to the scholarships, once they are in teaching positions, the winners will receive $1,000 AFCEA Science Teaching Tool Grants each year for three years, provided they remain teaching a STEM subject. ScienceTeaching Tool Grants are intended to augment the needs of the STEM teacher to enrich the learning experience of his/her students.
The scholarship represents AFCEA's three-year initiative aimed at addressing the nation's shortfall in STEM education. By increasing the number of inspired and inspiring teachers working in the field, AFCEA hopes to encourage approximately 5,000 students over a three-year period to pursue STEM studies and careers.
To see the list of scholarship winners, as well as details for next year's STEM Teachers Scholarships, go to www.afcea.org/education/scholarships/STEMTeachers.asp. |
NBC News Hosts Weeklong Series...
 ...Exploring the Greatest Challenges, Most Exciting Opportunities, and Most Innovative Ways to Revolutionize Education in America
NBC News launches its first annual “Education Nation” the week of September 27, 2010—a nationally broadcast in-depth conversation about improving education in America, beginning with an interactive two-day summit on Rockefeller Plaza. National statistics show that 68% of eighth graders cannot read at their grade level; American students rank 25th in math and 21st in science compared to 30 other industrialized countries; and most college students are “nontraditional”—spending more than four years in college or enrolling well after high school. These are only some of the surprising statistics that prove it is more vital than ever to have a conversation about improving the state of education at all levels, from early education through higher education and beyond.
The two-day summit is a call to action, shining a spotlight on the most pressing national issue of our time: Education in America. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Delaware Governor Jack Markell, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, Harlem Children Zone’s CEO Geoffrey Canada, President of MIT Susan Hockfield, National Superintendent of the Year Elizabeth Morgan, Civil Rights Activist Al Sharpton, and University of Phoenix President Bill Pepicello, Ph.D. join a host of top leaders in education to open a national dialogue and address the gap between how we perceive education and the actual results we are producing today.
Special news coverage and programming airing across all NBC News programs and platforms will extend beyond the two-day summit. For the entire week of September 27th, “Nightly News,” “Today,” “Meet the Press,” “Your Business,” MSNBC, CNBC, Telemundo, msnbc.com, and nbclearn.com will highlight educational success stories, uncover staggering truths and myths about education, and demonstrate how poor education cripples our economy and society.
For more information about “Education Nation” including a list of participants and schedule of events, visit www.educationnation.com, or follow @EducationNation on Twitter (also #EducationNation). More information about “Education Nation” will be announced as the date nears. |
Race to the Top
 The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education-news outlet based at Teachers College at Columbia University, has put together a package on round-two finalists in the federal Race to the Top competition. The package includes a Q&A with Delaware’s Secretary of Education, an interactive map that shows states’ first-round scores and the amount states are now eligible to win, a look at Arizona’s surprise selection, and predictions for which finalists will win a share of the remaining $3.4 billion.
The Race to the Top package is available at: http://hechingerreport.org/content/race-to-the-top-who-are-the-finalists_3767/
To view The Hechinger Report home page, click on the following link: http://hechingerreport.org/
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New Report Confirms Connection Between Student Learning and School Leadership
 A new report, commissioned by The Wallace Foundation, has found the strongest evidence yet of principals’ significant effects on student achievement. Learning from Leadership is the largest national study ever done, examining the effect of school and district leadership on student learning.
Principals exert the most influence by improving teachers’ motivation and working conditions, note researchers from the Universities of Minnesota and Toronto. Principals improve classroom practice by focusing the school on high expectations for student achievement and by providing teachers with relevant professional development and opportunities to collaborate.
But principals can’t do it alone—district administrators, assistant principals, parents, state policymakers, and teachers all have important decision-making roles to play. Researchers found that district leaders had the greatest impact on student learning when they focused on developing the capacity of principals and teachers, as well as providing clear direction and supportive policies and conditions for school leaders.
Click here to learn more |
News Articles
 • From NCTL News
Museum of Science, Boston
July 22, 2010
NCTL Wins Award
The Museum of Science's National Center for Technological Literacy® (NCTL®) won the 2010 Smaller Business Association of New England Innovation Award. The NCTL was the only example of innovation in education among the finalists. The fact that so many of their innovations involved engineering underlines the importance of our mission.
Learn More
United States Senate
On May 6, Museum of Science president Yannis Miaoulis testified before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on the reauthorization of the America COMPETES Act, emphasizing the importance of engineering education.
Learn More
Coalition Urges Congress to Support Engineering Education for Innovation Act
As the Obama Administration and Congress ponder reauthorization of the Elementary & Secondary Education Act (No Child Left Behind), the NCTL sparked organizations to urge inclusion of the Engineering Education for Innovation Act.
Learn More (PDF)
NCTL Teachers Honored
Colorado Springs teacher Erik Russell is an Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow. He coordinates the NCTL's Engineering is Elementary (EiE) program. Lynnfield, MA EiE teacher Cheryl Sanderson has received an Amgen Award for Science Teaching Excellence.
Learn More
• From Triangle Coalition Electronic Bulletin
NASA Team Unveils Virtual Student Engineering Competition
NASA is going virtual in its latest attempt to excite high school students about engineering and real-life design challenges facing future space explorers. NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA, and Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD are collaborating with the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), USA TODAY Education, and LearniT-TeachiT for the upcoming RealWorld-InWorld Engineering Design Challenge. The competition offers high school students a unique opportunity to work with university students and engineering mentors in a 3-dimensional virtual world to solve authentic NASA-inspired, design-based engineering problems using 21st century technology tools and skills.
NIA's team developed the competition in two phases. During the RealWorld phase, high school students use the engineering design process to develop possible solutions to one of two problems related to the Webb [Space] Telescope. Once the RealWorld component is completed, teams may move into the InWorld challenge. In a multiuser virtual world, developed by NIA, the team will expand to include engineering and information technology university students and an engineering expert. Working collaboratively, RealWorld groups will transform ideas into three-dimensional models and simulations. The top five teams will present their ideas to evaluators, including Webb [Telescope] researchers, during a special education forum. In order to be considered for the InWorld phase of the challenge, high school students and their coaches are asked to submit their final RealWorld project solutions by December 15, 2010. Teams can register for the challenge online. Registration is free of charge. More details are at www.nasarealworldinworld.org.
Source: Triangle Coalition Electronic Bulletin
July 22, 2010 - Volume 16, Number 28 Online Version
Carnegie Mellon Launches $7 Million Initiative Using Robots to Boost Science, Technology Majors
A new four-year, $7 million educational initiative by Carnegie Mellon University will leverage students' innate interest in robots and other forms of "hard fun" to increase U.S. enrollments in computer science and steer more young people into scientific and technological careers. The initiative, called Fostering Innovation through Robotics Exploration (FIRE), is sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and designed to reverse a significant national decline in the number of college students majoring in computer science, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (CS-STEM). FIRE will develop new tools that enable middle and high school students to expand upon their interest in robots, leading them from one CS-STEM activity to the next. Examples are programming tools that create game-like virtual worlds where robot programs can be tested, as well as computerized tutors that teach mathematics and computer science in the context of robotics.
The initiative will target robotic competitions such as FIRST, VEX, and Robofest that already are popular among secondary school students, but also will create new competitions for autonomous, multi-robot teams and for computer animations that will attract a broader array of students and offer new challenges… For more information and to register to receive updates for this project, visit www.fire.cs.cmu.edu.
Source: Triangle Coalition Electronic Bulletin
August 5, 2010 - Volume 16, Number 30 Online Version
Texas Instruments and the Sloan Career Cornerstone Center Join Forces to Bring More Awareness to STEM Careers
Triangle Coalition members, Texas Instruments (TI) and the Sloan Career Cornerstone Center, are teaming up to promote planning for careers in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine, collectively known as STEMM. Through TI’s Student Zone and the Sloan Career Cornerstone Center (SCCC), students, parents, teachers, and counselors have access to free, in-depth resources to help guide middle and high school students in making decisions concerning their immediate math and science education. These tools also help them understand how these decisions could impact their future careers. TI provides the learning tools and resources that enable teachers to more effectively teach critical math and science concepts and to make subjects more accessible to all students. The Sloan Career Cornerstone Center offers comprehensive preparation tips, salary data, job-hunting ideas, personal interviews with hundreds of people who offer candid insight into their own diverse careers, and updated lists of summer camps, national programs and projects, and scholarship opportunities for middle and high school students…
Source: Triangle Coalition Electronic Bulletin
August 12, 2010 - Volume 16, Number 31 Online Version
• From: Triangle Coalition Legislative Update
Education Bill Passed to Save 161,000 Teacher Jobs
On Tuesday, August 10, 2010 the House of Representatives returned from August recess for a special one-day session to vote on the Education Jobs and Medicaid Assistance Act, H.R.1586. The bill passed 247-161, with only one Republican voting in its favor.
The bill provides $10 billion to local school districts to prevent what the Department of Education estimates to be 161,000 teacher layoffs. It includes provisions that funds can only be used for the preservation of K-12 education jobs. Districts can also use the money to rehire former employees, hire new staff, or raise salaries. In addition to supporting education jobs, the bill includes $16 billion in Medicaid assistance for states. It is estimated that the Medicaid funds will save and create 158,000 jobs and prevent layoffs of police officers and firefighters.
(Read more…)
• Online Article
ITEEA member Tim Saylor is featured online in an article titled "Windber (PA) schools launch high-tech education program." Read the full article at: http://tribune-democrat.com/local/x960347023/Course-for-the-future |
NASA News
 • NASA Education Invites Students to Drop Everything!
NASA's Dropping In a Microgravity Environment (DIME) and What If No Gravity? (WING) allow student teams in high school and in middle school to design and build an experiment that will be operated in a NASA research drop tower (photo at left). This will put the students' experiment in microgravity, just as if it were in space. These are school-year-long projects of the student team's creation, not just cookie-cutter lab experiments.
Four teams in the high school DIME competition will be invited to visit NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, and operate their experiment in the drop tower. Four additional teams will send their experiments to Glenn for the drop tower staff to operate it. The DIME competition is funded by NASA’s Teaching From Space program.
Up to thirty WING teams comprised of students in Grades 6-9 will compete for the opportunity to build an experiment to be operated in the same drop tower by NASA drop tower staff.
Proposals are due with a postmark deadline of November 1, 2010. Competition selections will be announced in early December, and drop tower operations will be conducted in March 2010.
For more information about this opportunity, visit http://spaceflightsystems.grc.nasa.gov/DIME.html.
If you have questions about this opportunity, please email your inquiries to the DIME team at dime@lists.nasa.gov.
• NASA Seeks Undergraduate Students to Defy Gravity for Science and Engineering
NASA is offering undergraduate students an opportunity to test experiments in microgravity aboard NASA's reduced gravity aircraft. The opportunity is part of NASA's Reduced Gravity Education Flight Program, which gives aspiring explorers a chance to propose, design, and fabricate a reduced-gravity experiment. Selected teams will test and evaluate their experiment aboard NASA's reduced-gravity airplane. The aircraft flies about 30 roller-coaster-like climbs and dips during experiment flights to produce periods of weightlessness and hypergravity ranging from 0 g to 2 g.
Proposals are due October 27, 2010.
Interested students also should submit a letter of intent by September 22, 2010. This step is optional but serves as an introductory notice that a team plans to submit a proposal for the upcoming competition.
NASA will announce selected teams December 8, 2010. The teams will fly in the summer of 2011. Once selected, teams also may invite a full-time, accredited journalist to fly with them and document the team's experiment and experiences. All applicants must be full-time undergraduate students, U.S. citizens, and at least 18 years old.
To learn more about this opportunity, visit http://microgravityuniversity.jsc.nasa.gov.
Questions about this opportunity should be emailed to jsc-reducedgravity@nasa.gov.
• Applications Open for NASA’s Free Electronic Professional Development Network Courses
NASA’s Learning Environments and Research Network and the Georgia Institute of Technology have teamed up to create the ePDN, a new initiative dedicated to preparing K-12 teachers to engage their students in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) through the use of NASA-developed learning materials and resources.
If you are looking for a way to enhance your instructional skills, meet your professional development goals, or find new and exciting resources to use in your learning environments, apply to one of our free courses today!
Applications are now open for courses starting this fall:
Getting Started in Robotics – During this first course in " Using Robotics to Enhance STEM Learning," participants will learn how to program the LEGO NXT Mindstorms robot. Participants will become familiar with LEGO vocabulary and parts of the LEGO Mindstorms kit as they build structural components of a robot and use math, science, and engineering principles to design, build, test, and operate their robots.
Vodcasts – In this course, participants will learn how to use audio and video editing tools to create new content for vodcasts that can be used in classroom lessons or created by their students. Participants will create vodcasts using NASA materials and resources.
Apply Here!
For more information on the ePDN and the resources it offers to K-12 teachers, visit www.nasaepdn.gatech.edu. |
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International Technology and Engineering Educators Association
1914 Association Drive, Suite 201, Reston, VA 20191
iteea@iteea.org www.iteea.org |
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