Earlier this summer, nearly 200 IT educators received training in Amazon Web Services, CCNA ITN, Palo Alto Networks and more at the Faculty Development Weeks hosted by the Western Academy Support and Training Center (WASTC).
Sessions were held June 10-14 at Cabrillo College and June 24-28 at Coastline Community College. Each session included five days of intensive training as well as networking and social events.
Many of the workshops were focused around information security and preparing faculty to provide the best education possible to their students in this growing field. Classes included IoT Security, Python, and CompTIA PenTest+.
The AWS and IoT classes were the most popular, according to Karen Stanton, WASTC Coordinator. “These were followed closely by the Python classes, which are picking up steam,” she said. “All of them were very well liked. Our instructor trainers were fantastic.”
A Summer Cybercamps and Competitions workshop was held at Cabrillo College. There are many popular competitions that allow students to gain hands-on experience in cybersecurity to supplement what they learn in the classroom.
“The 113-campus California Community College system is fortunate to have a partner like the WASTC to provide ICT industry-wide training at the annual Faculty Development Weeks events,” said Steve Wright, ICT-DM Statewide Director. “The training is state of the art and innovative, bringing new technologies and skills to light in a collaborative and collegial atmosphere. The WASTC FDW is cost-effective for faculty and a gift to the CCC system.”
Faculty who attended the workshops said it was well worth giving up a week of summer vacation to attend. Comments received on the follow-up survey were positive, with attendees praising the quality of the content and the accommodations at Cabrillo and Coastline.
“Just keep them coming,” reported a Coastline attendee. “My interactions with my peers were as valuable as the instructional material. Thank you for doing this especially in such a cost-efficient manner.”
A Cabrillo attendee appreciated the opportunity to network with other educators, too. “Amazing conference, exciting and informative. I look forward to the networking and exchanging resources with other educators.”
In addition to excellent training, this year’s attendees received dark green WASTC t-shirts and bright yellow sun glasses. “These made for awesome photos,” said Stanton.
Stanton said that both campuses have asked WASTC to come back next year. Faculty can look forward to attending June 8-12, 2020 at Cabrillo and June 15-19, 2020 at Coastline.
In the meantime, ICT faculty and administrators can mark their calendars to attend the Winter ICT Educator’s Conference on January 6-7, 2020 at Cisco Headquarters in San Jose. Session proposal submissions will be accepted starting in September. For more information visit www.wastc.org or contact WASTC coordinator Karen Stanton at karen.stanton@wastc.org.