Posts

The Electrical Trades Center (ETC) is the apprenticeship program for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 683 (IBEW) and The Central Ohio Chapter of National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA). Technology is a large part of the electrical construction industry and so it makes sense that it is a large part of the apprenticeship and its training program.

In 2005, the ETC still had a very limited use of technology in the classroom. A computer lab was just about all we had besides a few data projectors and a tv to play VHS tapes. The computer lab was used for an introductory to computing course and AutoCAD training. All students were required to take the introductory computing course where they learned about software, hardware, RAM, files, email, etc. The AutoCAD course was one of a large handful of electives that the students could choose to take as part of the final year of training.

The years from 2005-2015 have brought about significant changes to the training program and the individuals being trained. The widespread use of variable frequency drives, programmable logic controllers, Building Information Modeling, solar panels, LED lighting, industrial and building automation systems, network connected devices, and fiber optics for instance have dictated the need to ensure the apprentices are equipped with the necessary skills and aptitude to use these technologies. In order for these students to be prepared for the workforce of the 21^st Century, it was decided that the same technology that is necessary to work with these new state of the art systems would need to be intimately integrated into the training program. Not only would computer skills, programming skills, and an understanding of these new-fangled technologies be important, but even the use of cell phones and the myriad of apps, messaging and documentation capabilities that they offer to ensure that our workforce has the skills, knowledge and aptitude necessary to compete and be successful in the electrical construction market.

An emphasis has been placed on making the ETC a technology rich environment. Any student accepted into the apprenticeship is required from day one to have a laptop or tablet capable of working with our learning management system or LMS. The LMS is Moodle based and has courses in it for every available course in our apprenticeship. This system includes simulations and virtual labs, online homework, embedded videos, links to pertinent websites amongst other digital content. The use of the LMS has been a major change to the way the ETC instructors teach and the students learn.  The students are also required to have email addresses inorder to create the account for the LMS. We utitlize a second database for recording attendance and reporting grades and this is call RollCall by PowerVista. The students also have accounts for this so that they can log into a web based browser to view attendance, on-the-job training hours, academic achievement, costs of materials for courses among other important features.

Much of the technology layers from course to course. For example, while the students are learning about construction drawings they use many of the mark-up tools that are part of the AutoCAD package so that when they take the AutoCAD class they are already familiar with the platform, how to navigate the ribbon with the tools, and what many of the tools do. To accomplish this, the instructor uses “scaffolding.”  During the beginning, the instructor provides contingency support, soon the teacher begins fading from teaching them how to use AutoCAD and focuses more attention on the drawings themselves eventually transferring the full responsibility of using the program to the students and solely focusing the attention on how to read and interpret construction drawing.

These are just some examples of the types of technology that is being used at the Electrical Trades Center. The state of the electrical construction industry was the driving force behind this change. The technologies that were integrated were purposefully chosen to provide students with real world experiences using the technologies. The processes and methods also had to change or the students would have the experienced the same bland training that had been going on for years. It is not just about the technology, the methods to deliver the curriculum are equally important when making these decisions.

This is but one particular example. It is not necessarily the answer for all training programs. Each situation is dynamic, with many parts that will justify different means. It is evident that these changes were not only necessary but it is equally evident that these processes must continually be analyzed to ensure that the ETC is Central Ohio’s premiere electrical apprenticeship program. .

Today, I am going to talk about a fantastic organization that I have the pleasure to serve. It is called Rebuilding Together Central Ohio. RTCO, as it is known, is part of a leading nonprofit in safe and healthy housing with more than 40 years of experience. Together, with our corporate and community partners, we transform the lives of low-income homeowners by improving the safety and health of their homes and revitalizing our communities. Locally, RTCO’s affiliates of skilled and non-skilled volunteers, donors, and other partners help make year- long emergency repairs to residents homes, lend tools to neighbors, and revitalize communities within Central Ohio participating in the Rebuilding a Healthy Neighborhood event. In addition, RTCO houses one of 70 tool libraries found in the United States.

RTCO’s primary mission is to help low income, veterans, and elderly homeowners with modifications and repairs to allow them to safely remain in their homes. For the cost of one broken hip, ($65,000 in lifetime medical costs) RTCO can install 1,000 grab bars. Many older, low income homes pose far greater risks. Moisture and mold, pests, toxic exposures, fire and electrical hazards along with trip and fall hazards are just some of the risks that RTCO is able to mitigate so that the homes are safe, warm and dry.

Why is this so important? Many of these homeowners are left to decide whether they are going to use what little they have to make the much needed repairs, purchase food, or pay for crucial medicine. No matter which decision the homeowner makes it is a bad one. The homeowner’s health in all of these situations is at risk. RTCO can make the decision much easier and help relieve undue stress and make their environment safer.

Back to the tool library. You are probably wondering why you have not heard about this sooner. The tool library, allows residents of Franklin County to become annual members and check out tools with no additional costs as long as the tools are returned.  The annual fees are setup with a tiered pricing structure which allows the low income resident’s annual fees to be waived. For the individuals that are not considered low income a modest contribution of $40.00 is all that it takes. There is also an extremely affordable $20.00 rate available for students and seniors.

The tool library works just like a traditional library. If you are a member you are able to check out a tool for a defined length of time. There is no limit to the number of tools but RTCO asks that you be a good steward for the rest of the public and use common sense when checking tools out. There is a whole host of tools. In fact, there are over 200 different types of tools and over 5,000 individual hand and power tools available. Some of these include ladders of all sizes and types, floor sanders, lawnmowers, powered post hole diggers, variety of saws, hand tools, etc. All of these can help our neighbors make a difference at an extremely affordable cost.

The Rebuild A Healthy Neighborhood event this year will be in early May and will be located in Whitehall. If you would like to find out how you can be involved or to learn more about the program the link is here. http://www.rtcentralohio.org/

As the legendary Woody Hayes would say, “You can never repay someone for the help they provide you but you can pay it forward.”

GO BUCKS!

Integration, convergence, and disruption are important to understand as technology relates to the classroom. Without an understanding of each of these concepts, one may set themselves up for failure when trying to implement any technology. The focus of this discussion is to examine all three of these concepts so that we can be better equipped to use technology in our classrooms.

Integration is the use of technology as a tool to allow students to apply computer or technology skills to learning and problem solving. It is much more than just having computers in the classroom. The curriculum should drive the use of technology not the other way around. Technology must be used as a tool on a daily basis not as a separate subject. Some examples of technology tools that can be use are video projectors, virtual field trips, SMARTBoards, including URL’s in your monthly calendar, using websites to enhance history lessons, and using graphing calculators.

Convergence is the process or tendency for unrelated things to evolve similar characteristics. Technology convergence is the process by which existing technologies merge into new forums that bring together different types of media and applications. One of the best examples is a cell phone that is used as a flashlight, camera, web browsers, and mapping tools. Some examples of devices that use convergent technologies are tablets, gaming systems, laptops, smart watches.

Disruptive technologies are technologies that have revolutionary effects on other products. These are the “game changers”. They change or disrupt the way that we do things. They may not always be well received initially but their effect is too great to ignore. Some examples of disruptive technologies are graphing calculators, SMARTBoards, Google Apps, Instant Messages, Social Networks, Creative Commons, and Wikipedia.

It is no secret that electricians use their minds and hands in almost equal amounts. For instance, when bending conduit first the formula has to be used to determine at what location on the conduit to set the bender and then the bender must be manipulated to deliver the correct angle of bend needed. For many years, the apprentices at The Electrical Trades Center learned all of the related technical instruction using the lecture based method with very little time devoted to hands on training. That was until they tried an experiment in 2001. There was a need to begin exploring ways to improve the quality of the motor control training by adding a large amount of time to hands on labs to help the students gain real world, working knowledge.

What was discovered is that the apprentices became extremely proficient in motor controls far exceeding what any prior apprentices had ever shown. In addition, the class became wildly popular with the students. The response was overwhelming. If you were to ask any apprentice, former or current, what their favorite class is that they took or are taking I will guarantee that answer is “motor controls” without a doubt.

A few years ago, we were reflecting on our motor control class because it was becoming popular all around the country. Many other programs were asking us for tours and for us to show them how we were doing this. It was during this conversation that the light bulb really went on. Why would we not do this with everything we teach? Why had we not thought of this sooner? We have been developing hands-on, project based learning for all of our courses since that day. The apprenticeship experience has become a rich learning experience that involves both cognitive and mechanical learning using project based learning and the results have been energizing…. No pun intended!

E-texts from my perspective seem to be gaining massive traction in classrooms. I am not certain if this is because the students like the lower costs and additional features or if it is a sly move on the publishers’ part. Are they encouraging the professors using their products to use the e-texts? Are the lower costs the publisher is providing trumping the usability and true desire of the products? I may never be able to answer these questions but I can some of my experiences to help shed light on the advantages and disadvantages and why I feel they have become more popular in recent time.

I have taken many online courses and some have required a traditional textbook, some electronic only, and others either/or. I initially hated e-books. I like the feel of a paper textbook. I also like the feel of quickly thumbing to a section that you need to get to and find the e-books sometimes more cumbersome. On the flip side they offer some convenience. The ability to access the pages of your book from anywhere or anytime is extremely convenient. I also enjoy no longer toting a heavy bag around filled with all of my textbooks. Some other great features are the interactive content that is sometimes added and review problems that can provide real time analysis of how you are doing.

This past summer I spent some time speaking to an employee of a well-known text book publisher. This person provided some great insight into the business of textbooks and e-textbooks. The number one issue for the publisher is the inability to control the market with the paper textbooks. Traditional textbooks are only purchased once and then can be resold any number of times to additional users. This is the biggest problem the publisher faces that it wants changed. They feel that if they can prevent the resale of the books, their profits will increase by large margins. E-textbooks are the solution. The access codes required for the books prevent used book sales and force anyone wanting or needing the book to purchase their own access code. Professors are, more and more, requiring a student have access to the interactive areas for homework and labs. Many of the publishers are using this avenue as a means to control how many customers they end up with. If a student wants to purchase or rent a used textbook they will still need to purchase the e-content access code. Often the e-content will now include access to the e-textbook for free!

I am by no means an authority on the subject but I hope that you found my experiences to be of some value.

I am extremely interested in making social media an important component of what we do at the Electrical Trades Center. There are many advantages of using social media in education.  Among those, one of the biggest may be increasing student interaction.  The second biggest reason would be to increase marketing to help make our opportunities and activities known about.

Listed below are the advantages that I found at https://www.academiaapps.com/advantages-social-media-education/. These advantages come way of the University of Minnesota:

Advantages

1. Social Media can increase student collaboration.
2. Faculty can use social media as a way to get students to participate.
3. Social Media can be useful for team projects.
4. Social media can provide a richer experience for resources such as videos, resource websites, and tutorials
5. Video Conferencing in the Classroom is also a significant benefit. Using social networking sites such as Google Plus will allow the use of Google Hangouts.

These are great reasons to use social media. There of course are disadvantages to using social media. Maybe a better way of phrasing this is are cautions. I am not sure that there is a reason not to use social media but there are things to be mindful of to ensure that negative things do not occur by using them.

Disadvantages

1. Students can get distracted and start using the social media for their personal purposes and not actually pay attention to the educational content.
2. Posting inappropriate content can also be a significant disadvantage.
3. Relying too much on social media for communication can stifle a student’s ability to interact in person.

This past week we had what I thought would be a very simple assignment. Produce a 5 image story. No text. Just images. Piece of cake, right? Wrong. It was much tougher than I thought to find the right images that would ensure that someone would be able to follow the story with no narration or text. I had at my disposal around 100 images from the story I wanted to retell and it was still more difficult than I thought it would be. I was happy with the final product.

I decided to try out Prezi as my platform to deliver the 5 Image Story. I had never used Prezi so this would be a great opportunity to get familiar with the tool. Prezi, at first glance, was very user friendly. I did have some difficulty adding and subtracting paths. Overall, I would rate Prezi very intuitive and visually appealing.

Below you will find the link to my 5 image story. During the summer of 2011, the IBEW local 683 participated in the Extreme Makeover Home Edition here in Central Ohio. We wanted to do something special for the neighborhood as well the person receiving the remodeled home and decided to install a 12,000 Kilowatt Photovoltaic system on the Tray Lee Community Center located in the Amercrest neighborhood near Joyce and 12^th Ave. Eleven IBEW craftspeople worked for two days to install the system which has allowed the Trey Center to operate with free electricity and to spend those dollars instead on the activities it offers its residents.

http://prezi.com/to0oznz8myjn/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

This week we learned about digital citizenship, open educational resources, copyrights, fair use and creative commons licensing. I have to admit, I had given very little thought to these topics in the past. I get very immersed and caught up with the topics I am teaching that I for the most part do not even pay attention to what obligations I have to ensure that I have permission or the right to use digital content that I may find on the internet.

Now, I do not want you to get the wrong idea. I am not out blatantly using content illegally but the point is that I need to do a better job of making sure what I use is being used properly. It is my obligation however to ensure that I make use of good digital citizenship. I am going to think twice now before I copy something to a PowerPoint, make copies of anything for my students, or use music and video in class.

Creative Commons is one great solution to this issue. I have been using Tony Kuphaldt’s website, http://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/socratic/ for some time and knew that it was available to use but did not really have an understanding of Creative Commons, the licensing and that so many other items were available. The ibiblio website in their words is “Home to one of the largest free information databases online, ibiblio.org has something for everyone. Visitors can browse through our eclectic collections catalog and contributors can host and share their unique collections with millions worldwide.”  If you get a chance surf over and give it a look. I was surprised at all of the different posts that are contained in this database.

At The Electrical Trades Center we use a program called PowerVista RollCall. This is our database that we use to track applicants, students and completers of the apprenticeship. RollCall can be viewed at http://www.powervista.com/. Prior to migrating to RollCall we used a program designed for apprenticeships called NTAS. It was a great program but the company that produced it quit supporting it and it became irrelevant. The great thing about RollCall is that it is a comprehensive administration solution that was designed for adult education training facilities in mind. Some of the great benefits are that it allows our instructors a one stop shop for attendance and grade reporting. It work seamlessly with Quickbooks which allows our students to pay for textbooks and materials and any other outstanding debts that they may have incurred. It also provides the students with instantaneous progress reports which they can access from the web. The Powervista team is also extremely responsive to support needs, report writing, form writing and uploading the initial data. Apprenticeship includes both on the job training and related technical instruction and RollCall allows us to generate contractor referrals and upload student’s monthly OJT or On the Job Training data. We can view monthly reports or specify time ranges or cumulative. RollCall is very customize-able whether it be adding complex drop down lists so that you can find the data you need, or adding or deleting data that is shown in a window. We are extremely excited about the ease of use and value that this program has proved to be.

Welcome to u.osu.edu. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!