WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — Pennsylvania College of Technology faculty shared their experiences implementing a National Science Foundation grant at the 19th Annual Conference on Information Technology Education in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Jacob R. Miller and Sandra Gorka, associate professors of computer science, presented a “lightning talk” and poster session on an NSF-funded grant aiming to extend the cybersecurity student pipeline to high schools.
The reports — co-authored by Alicia McNett, instructor of computer information technology, and Bradley M. Webb, assistant dean of industrial, computing and engineering technologies — detailed the data and lessons learned from the first year of the grant. Sixteen students from two school districts earned college credit for an introductory cybersecurity course by completing 14 content modules.
The audience for the Penn College presentations consisted of IT educators and industry professionals seeking innovative techniques to prepare students for the workplace. The Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group for Information Technology Education sponsored the conference.
In addition to the NSF-grant sessions, Gorka served as a panelist for “Revising the ABET Information Technology Criteria to Reflect the IT 2017 Curriculum Guidelines.” Gorka served on a committee with fellow conference attendee Daniel W. Yoas, associate professor of computer information technology, to draft IT criteria for the curriculum guidelines.
Penn College offers four IT baccalaureate degrees: software development and information management, information assurance and cyber security, information technology: network specialist concentration, and game and simulation programming. Students also may seek an associate degree in information technology: technical support technology emphasis.
For more about Penn College’s IT majors and other programs offered by the college’s School of Industrial, Computing & Engineering Technologies, call 570-327-4520 or visit www.pct.edu/icet.
For more about Penn College, a national leader in applied technology education and workforce development, visit www.pct.edu, email admissions@pct.edu, or call toll-free 800-367-9222.