Registration has now CLOSED.

This December, we are again offering Winter Working Connections exclusively ON-LINE.

But please note that this is not an asynchronous on-line program. Everyone is expected to log in every day all day according to the schedule. Your track is a synchronous track.

Working Connections IT Faculty Development Institute offers cutting-edge, cost-effective professional development opportunities to current community college IT/convergence faculty (at non-profit schools only) that is often only available through expensive commercial training. Working Connections makes the newest technologies and industry trends available to attendees, as well as encourages the kind of networking and collaboration among educational and business leaders that can strengthen any IT educational program.

Working Connections training workshops offer several tracks that cover a range of the most in-demand topics in IT. The goal of Working Connections is to provide attendees with the expertise needed to teach their respective track in a subsequent semester, bringing the most current information to their classrooms either as a stand-alone course or as supplemental information to an existing course.

Since 2003, more than 1000 faculty members have attended the National Convergence Technology Center's Working Connections professional development events, learning about more than 120 unique IT topics in that time. In the past four years, through an annual survey of Summer Working Connections attendees, the CTC has learned that an average of 75% of faculty chose a discipline that they were not currently teaching, which ended up in over 780 courses and impacted the creation of 72 new degrees or certificates. By the National CTC's calculations, over 149,000 students and faculty have been impacted by Summer Working Connections training since the program began.

Dates
December 13-15, 2021 (Monday, Tuesay, Wednesday)

Venue
All on-line. Details will be provided to attendees in advance of the training.

Tracks
1 Introduction to Alteryx Designer and SparkED
2 Introduction to Bitcoins, Blockchains, Ethereum, and Smart Contracts
3 Microsoft Azure Administrator Certification (plus Thu December 16 and Fri January 21)

At Summer Working Connections in July 2022, a track will be offered to teach faculty attendees how to implement a hybrid cloud group project in their classroom. Because that July 2022 track will require intermediate-level cloud technical skills, we are offering two foundational tracks - Microsoft Azure Administrator Certification and AWS Cloud Architecting - that will run five days.

In other words, AWS Cloud Architecting and/or Microsoft Azure Administrator Certification will be a pre-requisite of the planned July 2022 hybrid cloud track.

Registration

Please note that registration ends on Monday, November 22, 2021.

Attendance Eligibility

Please note also that because of limited space and budget, we only allow FOUR faculty members per school to attend.

Cancellation Policy

If you must cancel your registration, please notify Mark Dempsey immediately (mdempsey@collin.edu).

The last day to make any registration changes (switch a track or cancel without providing a substitute) is Monday, November 22, 2021. Changes made after that date may result in a suspension from attending the next two Working Connections (Summer 2022 and Winter 2022). For those who are suspended from attending Working Connections for the next 12 months, both you and your supervisor will be notified. Again, please note that after November 22, track switching is not permitted.

Certificate Policy

Only those who attend every session are eligible to receive a Certificate of Completion for Winter Working Connections. Because of the online environment, attendees must be proactive in making sure they are marked “present” if they miss roll call. It is your responsibility to make sure the instructor knows you're there each morning and afternoon.

Surveys

All attendees are required to complete a survey before they log off for the last time at the end of the program on Wednesday, December 15, 2021. Failure to do these surveys may result in a suspension from attending the next two Working Connections (Summer 2022 and Winter 2022).

Questions?

For more information about Winter Working Connections, contact Mark Dempsey (mdempsey@collin.edu).