Maryland Education Enterprise Consortium and UMBC Announce Agreement with Google

 

"The Maryland Education Enterprise Consortium (MEEC) and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) have announced an agreement that makes Google Apps for Education available to the 189 K-12 and higher educational institutions in Maryland that are members of MEEC. Google Apps, which is free for educational institutions, currently provides email, documents, group pages, chat and other products to over eight million students.  

 

UMBC’s decision to migrate to Google comes after engaging in conversations with students, faculty and staff. “As we discussed options for outsourcing email with students, they overwhelmingly recommended Google because it works exceptionally well with their mobile lifestyle,” said Mike Carlin, UMBC assistant vice president of IT. “UMBC will immediately set up the 3,000 new students enrolling for classes this fall on Google email and will provide the 10,000 existing students with the option to convert their accounts over to Google in late August 2010. By the start of the spring 2011 semester, we anticipate having all students moved over to Google.”"

In our last meeting, we discussed briefly the importance of relationship in recruiting team members for our project(s). I like doing recruiting, and in most cases I find a good match between the needs of my project and my friends, colleagues and contacts. When you think about how many people you know from work, the neighborhood, the community, and civic organizations, the possibilities for garnering appropriate expertise - not to mention diversity - are limitless!


If you need to develop the infrastructure for your team, you might find the following suggestions helpful:

• Know your "elevator pitch." Keep it factual and accurate, and talk to people in everyday parlance (they don't have months of CT discussions under their belts like we do!)


• Share your passion for the project. Tell them why you are involved, and what "grabs" you about the content, the goals it has, or working with the rest of the team.


• Give them some references to check out, including the BLOG, NSF information, Wing's material, or anything else you find interesting.


• Invite people to the AdCom meetings so they can see what it is like to work with this group. Offer to go to the meeting together, if that helps!


• Give a clear vision for the work of your team, the time commitment involved, and what role you think they could play. Make this a discussion of what interests THEM about the topic.


• Be sure to mention the contributions they could make to this effort, both in the short and long term. Let them know their value to our efforts!

In my experience, people will get involved if they think there is a long term goal that is worthy, and if they know others are enthusiastic about it and will value their input. So, start making your list! Here is a tool that will help...

Our friend and colleague, Bernard Gibson, recently shared this list of background research with the Task Committee. Bernard is leading a project to develop and pilot Computational Thinking infusion strategies for post-secondary audiences.

• Mathematics and Science Integration:  Models and Characterizations – Lessons learned from similar endeavors. This research demonstrates that integration of “math and science” will be difficult at best...
• Preservice Mathematics and Science Teachers in an Integrated Teacher Preparation Program for Grades 7-12:  A 3-Year Study of Attitudes and Perceptions Related to Integration – this study highlights the integration of math, science and technology and people’s perceptions of them. Of note that was no change in the “teachers’ perception of integration – they consider it very valuable. NOTE:  People still fear the “M&S” words (Math & Science).
• An Infusion Strategy for Career Education. Career Education Monograph Series: Volume 1, Number 2 – This body of work looks at the potential keys to getting teachers involved – make sure they are offered the opportunity to develop the work themselves (not handed to them) – looks at the RICE approach. NOTE: We are looking at infusion strategy in our work – we need to consider how to motivate and keep instructors involved.
• Doctoral Student Attrition in the STEM Fields:  An Exploratory Event History Analysis – We are losing some of the very people we need to  support/teach  our STEM related work – a 20 year study of over 10K individuals shows us why? NOTE: This is more of a justification for why this work has to be interdisciplinary in nature.
• Pedagogical Utilization and Assessment of the Statistic Online Computational Resource in Introductory Probability and Statistics Courses – New generations are more excited and more comfortable with new technology. NOTE: Statistics Online Computational Resource (SOCR) provides interactive tools that can be helpful in enhancing instruction.
• Technology Infusion Strategy. Beginning with a Pilot Project is the key. This project speaks for itself: NOTE – this is very simple and yet warrants consideration by the team.

Bernard recommends these online resources for surveying research, curricula and related academic material:

• Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) – great resource for finding more information that pertains to CT and our topical discussion
• Accessmylibrary.com

Hello all,

Do you recall our CPATH discussions around the creation of innovation hubs? Well, I'm pleased to present to you, the iHub, which is just getting started.

A good opportunity to extend our computation thinking pilot with that initiative. After all, isn't the ability to innovate, computational thinking, or is it the other way around? :)

Now imagine the possibilities of CPATH+iHub+Cloud Computing. Speaking of which, I had the opportunity to meet with the team at Salesforce.com this week in San Francisco, and as part of that work I did some research into their service offerings which I would be happy to explain to the team.

As I've discussed with Phil, we can seek to leverage the platform not only as a collaboration tool, but as an education tool for our students.

The platform is highly customizable and integrated, and no programming ability is required. It has Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn type functionality, and represents the next generation of enterprise collaboration.

If you have doubts that this is the future, I invite you to read:

1. Ballmer Says He Has Bet the Company on the Cloud

2. IBM launches Academic Skills Cloud to speed delivery of technology to colleges

3. U.S. Scientists at National Science Foundation Given Access to Cloud Computing

These are the type of tools and skills our students will need, with technology tools they are accustomed to, without the need to program, very popular among SMB businesses, and increasingly among larger enterprises, coupled with the excitement of Cloud Computing, and fully accessible via iPhone, Blackberry.

The Software as a Service application can be used to teach sales, marketing, lead and account management, and other related business concepts, as well as website development, application concepts and customization in a non-threatening (traditional CISE) approach, so both business and computer classes can collaborate on the tool in real-time.

Everyone has a dashboard that monitors their progress, so professors and administrations can monitor activities in real time as well. The environment is a rich, modern, and collaborative, with multi-disciplinary potential, in a non-intimidating, internet accessible, technological approach, with familiar internet paradigms, that facilitates interactivity, and yet has business value.

All with 3 levels of underlying complexity transparent to the end user:

1. Software as a Service (SaaS) which is simple.
   
2. Platform as a Service (PaaS) - customization with no need to program, and
3. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - the underlying hardware infrastructure - virtualization, grid, and other more complex concepts.

iHub news excerpt:

"We don't do innovation," said Eloisa Klementich, the agency's deputy secretary of economic development and commerce, referring to BTH. "We're not the scientists that are driving it. So the question is how do we create the ecosystem for innovation to occur?"

The effort to create that infrastructure started about nine months ago. The idea was to find key areas across the state with assets such as research parks, technology incubators, universities, community colleges, business accelerators and federal laboratories. After several meetings and an application process, BTH recently announced six areas designated as iHubs:

The six inaugural iHub memebers are Orange County, Sacramento, Coachella Valley, Northgate, i-GATE (Innovation for Green Advanced Transportation Excellence), and San Francisco Biotech.

The main component of the program is collaboration. By building a network of cutting-edge companies, forward-thinking organizations and research institutions across the state, Klementich said, California will benefit from greater exposure, smarter partnerships, more jobs and a fusion of new ideas that would establish the state as a global innovation powerhouse.

But again, there's the issue of money. The recession rages on and, at this point, the iHub program has no federal funding. But BTH will be "aggressively applying for federal grants," Klementich said."

We can discuss further at our next meeting. I've also been discussing cloud computing with the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance (SARTA) and there will be an upcoming CC regional education session that is being planned.

For more on cloud computing and innovation, I invite you to read my blog at http://innovation.ulitzer.com

Ray DePena, MBA, PMP

IT Industry Business Innovation Consultant