Fall Working Connections Debuts
The National IT Innovation Center recently hosted the first-ever Working Connections professional development event outside of the summer and winter months. Working Connections provides no-cost training to IT faculty on in-demand, cutting-edge technologies and skills to help students across the country stay current with industry needs. Across several weeks in October and November, 39 faculty members from 28 schools attended either “AWS Cloud Developing” or “AI Foundations” as online workshops. Longitudinal surveys are planned for spring 2025 to measure the classroom impact of this training.
This “edition” of Working Connections ran one day a week across several weeks: “AI Foundations” for seven Fridays, “AWS Cloud Developing” for five Saturdays. Despite NITIC’s skepticism that faculty would give up Saturdays for hours of online training, attendee surveys suggested otherwise. Of the 30 people responding to the survey at the conclusion of the training, 85% would prefer Saturday half-day online workshops if given the choice between Friday and Saturday; 82% would prefer Saturday full days.
IT faculty members interested in attending future Working Connections events should subscribe the NITIC’s mailing list at: https://www.nitic.org/contact/. An online spring workshop is planned for March and April. The traditional Summer Working Connections model of five consecutive days returns May 19-23 in Ohio, July 14-18 in Texas, and July 28-August 1 online.