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Over the past several years, social media has become an essential marketing tool for many ATE projects and centers. Still, it’s not always easy to know how to effectively reach out. The Pew Research Center’s Social Media Update 2014, published early last month, can help. The report tracks how people are using social media, providing valuable insight for all of us in the ATE community who want to reach targeted audiences - whether they are students, industry partners, or other educators. 

Here are the top five tidbits that ATE PIs need to know about how social media is trending, based on the Pew Report:

1. Facebook is still king

Despite some bad press in 2014, Facebook easily maintained its lead as the most popular social media platform in the world. According to the Pew Report, 71 percent of Internet users subscribe to a Facebook account, and more than half of those account holders interact with their pages multiple times daily. Compare these numbers to LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter, who all capture the interest of between 23 percent and 28 percent of Internet users, and there is no doubt that Facebook is still the social media platform of choice for must users – something to consider when posting information about your ATE project or center.

Marcus Maximin talked about his family and his maritime technology apprenticeship at the 2014 Advanced Technological Education Principal Investigators Conference in Washington, D.C.

The notion of family as a motivation, inspiration, and support comes up again and again when Marcus Maximin talks about the four-year maritime technology apprenticeship program at Tidewater Community College.

He acknowledges it can be "tough" working eight-to-10 hour days and then going to class two evenings a week.

"To tell you the truth, what keeps me going is my two boys. They are 12 and 4. And every time I walk in that door I get a hug and that, "Daddy!" That keeps me going. I do it for them," he explained.

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One of the central concerns of every ATE project is getting the word out to the people who can benefit most. And ATETV is designed to do just that. Its current series is composed of 250 video segments, and each video can be a ready made recruitment tool. In fact, ATETV already has an audience of over 400,000 web viewers, more than 100 cable access stations in 42 states air their videos, and over 300 colleges and organizations have requested or downloaded ATETV’s custom clips on a panoply of ATE related content.

Inside an ATETV Video Shoot

ATETV boasts an impressive production schedule. According to ATETV creator and executive producer Anthony Manupelli, it all starts with their network of educational partners in the ATE community. They work with these field experts to identify interesting projects, faculty, and students that will be suitable for ATETV videos. Through a series of pre-interviews, the producers of ATETV suss out things like what’s being taught and how, who’s involved, and what the impacts of the project might be. If they find that the program is a match, they start working with an institutional contact person to determine everything from the schedule on shooting day to permission to record to a confirmation of insurance certificates.

The Marine Advanced Technology (MATE) Center, organizer of the student ROV competition, is at Monterey Peninsula College in Monterey, California.

The remotely operated vehicle competition sponsored by the Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center has a pivotal role in two movies and a new book. It is the backdrop for Spare Parts, a feature film being released in January, a new book with the same title, and Underwater Dreams, a documentary released in theaters this past summer.

The central plot feature of all these works is MATE’s remotely operated vehicle (ROV) competition in 2004 when the underwater robot constructed by a team of immigrant Hispanic students from a Phoenix high school beat other high school, community college and university teams, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Jill Zande, MATE’s associate director and coordinator of the center’s ROV competition, is working with the feature film’s marketing team to attract attention to the center’s educational activities and marine technology careers.

“We’re excited that the films and book are calling attention to STEM programs and the powerful impact that they can have on students and student learning. They also demonstrate what students—no matter what their background or socioeconomic status—are capable of when given the opportunity," Zande said.

The MATE Center’s Facebook page currently includes a video summary of the 2004 competition (Carl Hayden Community High School's champion ROV appears at 4:12).The trailer for the Hollywood version starring George Lopez, Carlos PenaVega, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Marissa Tomei is online too.

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The newest NSF ATE RFP stipulates that grantees funded under this solicitation archive appropriate materials and resources with ATE Central. In the following interview, Kendra Bouda - ATE Central's Metadata and Information Specialist - defines archiving in the context of ATE, and explains why it’s important for ATE projects and centers to think about archiving early in their funding cycle. She also touches on the new NSF ATE requirements, outlines licensing protocols, and offers advice for grantees just getting started with the process.

Chris LaBranche enjoys the precision work he does as a tooling technician at Dymotek.

Chris LaBranche signed up for a career day field trip to get out of classes his senior year in high school. "I had no intentions of going and looking for work or a career," he said.

But the CNC machine and other industrial equipment on display as well as the conversations with machinists and others manufacturing employees caught his attention. Then Asnuntuck Community College staffers told him of the generous scholarships and paid internships available to their manufacturing technology students. By the time he learned of the 90% employment rate for the graduates of the one-year certificate program, LaBranche was set on a manufacturing career.

"That got me hooked right there. I wanted a job right out of school," LaBranche said. He is now a toolmaker for Dymotek Plastic Injection Molding in Ellington, Connecticut.

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At ATE Central, part of our goal is to connect ATE faculty and students to relevant, helpful information and meaningful opportunities. Below are brief overviews of five such opportunities, including a really exciting competition from the National Science Foundation (NSF), several internships from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and an online learning opportunity from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Please pass this post along to students and colleagues in your network and let us know about other programs, events, and opportunities you think would be helpful for others in ATE to learn about. We will be happy to post them on the ATE Events Calendar, cover them in a blog post, or promote them through our ATE Central Connection newsletter.

During a panel discussion at the ATE Principal Investigators Conference last week, Matt Glover, senior director of Global Information Technology for AMX by Harman, talked about interviewers' positive impression of Chelsea Hall-Fitzgerald, who will complete her associate degree from Collin College in December.

Six months ago, a rainbow-haired Chelsea Hall-Fitzgerald had just completed a computer networking certificate at Collin College. She also worked part time in a big box appliance store.

Today, her hourly wage as a full-time project coordinator for AMX by Harman is three times what she made as a clerk, and she is on track to complete her associate degree at Collin College in December.

Hall-Fitzgerald became an information technology (IT) technician before graduation because the humble attitude, tenacity, and, most importantly, excitement for IT that she demonstrated during a student presentation got her a interview for a job initially advertised as requiring a bachelor's degree.

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As members of the ATE community know, apprenticeships work. A number of recent reports have focused on the economic advantage that such programs provide. Notably, after completion, 87% of apprentices in the United States find jobs and the average starting salary of apprentice completers reaches upward of $50,000 a year. After six years, earnings of the average apprenticeship participant are 1.4 times greater than the earnings of non-participants.

In addition, apprenticeship programs in the United States don’t only help those who participate in them; they help the larger community as well. A recent Washington State study found that, for every $1 the state government spent to help a community college student enter and finish an apprenticeship program, tax payers received a whopping $23 on the investment.

Kyle Koopmeiners, a student lab leader at InnovaBio, tests a synthetic version of human brain-derived neurotrophic factor for a client of the non-profit commercial research organization operated by the biotechnology department of Salt Lake Community College.

There is an obvious industriousness to the students entering the lab marked InnovaBio along the wide hallway occupied by the Biotechnology Department at Salt Lake Community College (SLCC).

Arriving at different times throughout the day, the students stride through the door to bench spaces marked with their names, check lab notebooks for instructions about their assigned experiments, don lab coats and gloves, and get to work.

Ten years after the non-profit, contract research organization began at SLCC with the support of an Advanced Technological Education grant from the National Science Foundation, InnovaBio continues to provide student interns with commercial biotech research lab experience. InnovaBio has 21 interns this fall, and has served more than 220 students since 2004.