• Springfield Technical Community College

Springfield, MA

• Disseminates innovative, effective, and current information and communications technologies (ICT) curricula.
• Makes the knowledge of subject-matter experts readily accessible to industry and academia.
• Provides information and education for ICT students and technicians to meet industry needs.
• Shares strategies to include underrepresented populations in the ICT field.
• Pioneers the use of social media and emerging technologies in education.

ICT Center Builds Community of Practice

In 2007, the National Center for Telecommunications Technologies (NCTT) formed an Information and Communications Technologies Community of Practice (ICT COP) to provide community colleges with program assistance, a forum for the exchange of ideas, an interactive workspace, and a dynamic library. Three years later, the organization adopted a new name—Information and Communications Technologies Center (ICT Center)—and expanded its role as a resource center to become the hub of a vibrant, growing ICT COP.

As it has redefined what an Advanced Technological Education (ATE) resource center does, ICT Center has found a unique niche among the ATE community. By hurdling traditional barriers of information-sharing and utilizing emerging technologies to reach, support, and educate students, faculty, business, and industry throughout the United States, ICT Center makes content on current and emerging trends and information from subject-matter experts readily available.

ICT Center Engages Community Via New Media Technologies

ICT Center is a leader in the utilization of new media technologies to disseminate technician education information. The information, once disseminated, is used by thousands of individuals who view the information and use it to teach or to enhance their personal technical knowledge. During 2010, ICT Center reached more than 400,000 users through blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube videos, and podcasts. As a National Science Foundation ATE Resource Center, ICT Center staff members share their expertise in new media technologies with the ATE community and other community college educators. Their hands-on presentations at conferences throughout the country have prompted many educators, students, and members of the technical workforce to utilize social media tools.

Twitter is a particularly powerful outreach tool for ICT Center. Klout.com has referred to the ICT Center principal investigator’s Twitter network as “large and highly engaged.” With nearly 7,000 subscribers, the center’s tweets are estimated to reach approximately 1,800 active followers. The center’s 1,000 tweets per year translate into 1.8 million contacts of ICT-related content per year.

Twitter and the other Web-based technologies the center uses transform monologues on ICT content and issues into dialogues. They enable audience members to transition from content consumers to content producers. They facilitate real-time exchanges of expert knowledge, and they are reaching diverse U.S. and international communities.

Conferences Enhance Faculty lCT Knowledge

Conferences are another way ICT Center engages with its COP. During 2010, ICT Center shared curriculum development materials and technical information directly with 1,048 conference and workshop participants. Faculty participation in these activities has impacted the education of more than 50,000 students.

Ninety-one percent of the 132 attendees at the 2010 ICT Winter Conference reported 6 months later that they are continuing to network with other participants. Fifty-four percent indicated they were “extremely likely” to implement the ideas and concepts they learned at the conference in their classrooms.

Center Continues Incumbent Workforce Instruction

Since 1995, the center has provided curriculum development and education for more than 6,900 Verizon technicians in New York and the New England region. Since 2008, the center has worked with Comcast in Connecticut to develop a pilot program to bring current technology education to its technicians. In 2011, the pilot expands into Massachusetts.