SIGCT (Computing Teachers) Wiki: Calling all tech-savvy girls, coders, gamers, and web divas

NCWIT seeks high-school-level young women to apply for the NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing! The NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing honors young women active and interested in computing and encourages them to pursue their passion for technology.
Who is eligible to apply? The competition for the 2012 NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing is open to any U.S. high-school-level female (grades 9-12). 

Jim Brazell serves as the launch CEO of PassionTag, Inc. Jim is an evangelist for innovation and cultural transformation of businesses, communities, and schools. As a New Orleans native he lives by the passion of Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez (let the good times roll). Transplanted to the San Antonio-Austin region in 1988 for work in high tech enterprises, Jim has launched over one dozen successful companies. His loves are his wife Lisa and daughter Ava Marie (pictured below). 

In addition to advocating classical contemporary education like that of Boston Latin (first American public school, 1635), Clark Magnet for STEM+Arts (CA),  or Philadelphia's Performing Arts Charter School (String Theory Schools), bringing innovation practice in STEM, CTE, the arts, and humanities to schools, Jim's VentureRamp, Inc. is a high technology start-up accelerator. 

In the past ten years, Jim has helped 12 start-ups including PassionTAG.com, Numedeon, Inc. (whyville.net), Knexient.com, IceCentric.com, SixIntel.com, DaVinciMinds.com, NovusSecurity.com, DevicePoint, Inc., TechEdMagazine.com, SecureOrbitLabs.com, TimberviewCaptive.com, and Mesquite Captive. He has also helped many communities and regional high technology initiatives with innovation practice.  

PassionTag is founded by a very creative team that has cracked the code on how to connect people with the friends, causes, and brands they love--including schools. If you are interested to learn more, read the story page of the company's website and think mobile phone, photo, and your school logo. We are being a bit vague for now.

PassionTag is a free app that will be available for download on mobile phones in 2013. Thank you for all of your support over the years, straddling the line between commercial and school innovation is often seen as a line that no one person crosses. Jim has challenged this notion time and again by using innovation as the bridge between education, business, and the world. Innovation unifies these traditional silos.

In the end if we focus on creating new knowledge, new languages, new processes, new systems, new images, and new art we create history. This history, future history, transcends the silos of disciplines, the functional lines of departments, and the notion of industry clusters. Innovation, what's next leaps past today to achieve what many believe to be unattainable: change. 

METHOD: TRANSDISCIPLINE

The pairing of English with art:

• Allows for a project-based-learning approach to teaching English, offering students the opportunity to engage with literature and other texts as they seek to explain thematic content in literature and nonfiction through the creation of art and media of their own design.
• Highlights the importance of reading and writing skills in decoding the messages of an increasingly media-saturated world.
• Empowers students to participate in the world around them by utilizing their writing and media productions skills in real-world situations, such as video and audio Public Service Announcements for causes they care about.

APPLY NOW at http://bit.ly/spring13hssapp

For more information, e-mail ucci@ucop.edu  

Application deadline is 11:59 p.m.  

Feb. 25, 2013.

Texas Cybersecurity, Education, and Economic Development

A presentation focused on better protecting the infrastructure of the state's cybersecurity operations with existing resources and through partnerships between government, business, and institutions of higher education.  Examines specific actions to accelerate the growth of cybersecurity as an industry in this state.  Reports out the current state of their effort.

Cyber Security Program of Study

The presentation will discuss cyber/cyber security academic programs and creating a pipeline from middle school to PhD.  This discussion will include existing secondary to post-secondary programs.    The demo will include SooperMinds -- a program capturing the curriculum/programs on-line and available to students, parents, teachers and counselors.  Can be scaled across Texas. 

Two different high schools with one Common Goal: IT Certifications

Holmes High School and Southwest High School have been working together to implement and provide  a strong and successful IT Certification program whose end results have met the need for high school students to obtain Information Technology (IT) certifications that increase their marketability, salary levels, and career advancement opportunities in this particular field.  It's working and can be scaled across Texas.

Cyber Patriot

Premiere national high school cyber defense competition created to inspire high school students toward careers in cybersecurity or other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines critical to our nation's future. A practical application of skills reinforcing academic programs to produce the workforce we need.  We had 140 Texas teams (55 in San Antonio) in 2012-13.  The Texas Governor has a stated goal of having every high school in Texas participate.  San Antonio hosts the 2011-12 National Open Division Championship team -- the Alamo Academies ITSA.

Cybersecurity Innovation and Research Consortium

A partnership of schools working together to serve their community, the state and nation...and deliver capabilities that will make a difference, with a focus on technology clusters, assisting in curriculum input to help ensure local education offerings are meeting the needs for post-secondary and careers for secondary students.  Growing from San Antonio to statewide across Texas.

The Alamo Area Academies (including the Information Technology and Security Academy)

An innovative training and educational partnership, provide education, experience and job opportunities for high school students seeking to jump-start their futures and make a seamless transition from high school to college and/or to the workplace.  Qualified students receive training in high-wage demand occupations during their junior and senior years of high school.  They earn one year of college credits and enjoy paid internships introducing them to careers in key local industries.  Participating employers benefit through access to a continuous pipeline of skilled, college educated employees trained to their specifications.  David Hendricks, San Antonio Express-News business columnist/writer, says it best in his 9 April 2011 column when he writes that your Alamo Area Academies are:  "Perhaps the biggest education success story of the past decade in San Antonio...."   Our premier high school program in San Antonio -- a model for others in Texas.