CITERA Project Overview
Comprehensive Information Technology Education in Rural Appalachia (CITERA) is a comprehensive project for students and teachers that emphasizes career and educational pathways and provides information technology (IT) skills and knowledge to West Virginia 7th through 9th grade educators and students. CITERA creatively integrates IT concepts into national and state Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) curriculum standards. During summer workshops and yearlong follow-up activities, participating teachers receive over 120 contact hours.
The CITERA team members include the WVHTC Foundation, Fairmont State University, the EdVenture Group, Inc., and nine school districts of North Central West Virginia, who represent the full range of expertise needed to accomplish project goals.
Significant Accomplishments
The CITERA Project is in its third year of operation. To date 53 teachers and 100 students have successfully completed the program. The 2007 workshop is the last one funded by the current grant.
Some benefits to participants include:
- Exposure to real-world projects using cutting edge technology;
- Communication with IT professionals to discuss educational and work requirements of IT employment;
- Learning about Educational Pathways to IT careers;
- Learning new technology to enhance lessons;
- Reviewing inquiry-based learning approaches;
- Reviewing technology standards and 21st Century tools; and
- Developing engaging lesson plans.
ExPEDITE Project Overview
Expanding Pathways for Educational Development and Information Technology Experiences (ExPEDITE) is a project that provides students clear educational pathways to an Information Technology (IT) career.
This project meets the growing IT workforce demand for science and engineering technicians, and improves the technology education of students and the educators who prepare them. ExPEDITE brings together three primary elements: secondary education, higher education, and traditional and high- technology industry, representing a full range of experience from theory of teaching to IT application and employment.
The ExPEDITE team is comprised of highly qualified education and IT professionals from the WVHTC Foundation, Marion County (WV) School System (MCSS), Pierpont Community and Technical College (PC&TC), and Fairmont State University (FSU). The ExPEDITE project develops the next generation of IT professionals, while considering regional and national industry needs.
Significant Accomplishments
Over the last two years, the ExPEDITE project staff has:
- Provided Information Technology internships with local area companies to eight (8) high school students, eight (8) community college students and eight (8) university students, including the WVHTC Foundation, Aurora Flight Sciences, National Biometric Security Project (NBSP), WBOY, Fairmont General Hospital, Information Research Corporation (IRC), and Innovative Management and Technology Services (IMTS);
- Provided Information Technology fellowships to four (4) Marion County High School teachers, four (4) Pierpont Community & Technical College professors, and four (4) Fairmont State University professors;
- Developed and published a career awareness brochure highlighting ten (10) area Information Technology professionals. This brochure features 50% women and a culturally diverse representation of the field; and
- Developed a set of recommendations that will aid in seamless educational pathways in the area of IT for secondary and post-secondary programs in Marion County, PC&TC, and FSU.
ACTIVE Project Overview
Advancing Content Through Interactive Virtual Environments (ACTIVE) is a two year project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Research in Disabilities Education (RDE) Program. The purpose of ACTIVE is to create an interactive learning environment that allows exploration of the solar system, integrating NASA Earth and space science data, through touch, sight, and sound.
This project incorporates an emerging technology called Haptics into the learning environment. This technology allows force-feedback and tactile sensations for users while interacting with virtual objects. With the aid of Haptics, the learner can explore scientific concepts through several of their senses – including the sense of touch. This enables persons who are blind or visually impaired to experience and interact with data normally delivered only through visual presentation, such as elevation height map data. Haptics also reinforces scientific concepts for the sighted students by engaging another learning modality.
The ACTIVE project utilizes the SensAble PHANTOM® Omni™ Haptic Device.
Project Goals
- Develop advanced technologies for the education of students who are blind or visually impaired;
- Promote access to Earth science and solar system data for students who are blind and visually impaired;
- Develop effective educational tools to support science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curriculum standards; and
- Develop educational tools that are effectively deployed by classroom teachers.
Seven Lesson Plans were developed for use with the Haptics device:
- Review of the Solar System
Relative Sizes
- Gravity Holds It All Together
- Gravity on the Planets
- Volcanoes
- Impact Cratering
- Erosion
The ACTIVE team members are: the West Virginia High Technology Consortium Foundation, West Virginia School for the Blind, Alderson Broaddus College, Davis & Elkins College, and NASA IV&V Educator Resource Center.
Déjà Vu Project Overview
The primary goal of the Déjà Vu project is to develop a transparent checkpointing and recovery (CPR) algorithm for large-scale distributed/parallel systems within the context of Grid infrastructures. This allows large scale computational clusters to recover from system failures on any subset of nodes used by an application.
Key components of this research require implementing cluster-wide checkpoint state and resource management and augmenting the Globus Toolkit. This work is a joint effort by Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center and the WVHTC Foundation.
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