The Forum on Engineering Technology (ET Forum) has served as an important vehicle for bringing together Florida’s diverse and geographically dispersed community with common issues and challenges. With the support of the Florida Department of Education, FLATE works with the ET Forum network to strengthen the consortium, share its administrative activities and projects, provide professional development, bring industry and academia together, and engage in statewide FDOE curriculum frameworks review and reform. Over the years, it has become a true community of practice. The Forum meets twice a year and has convened forty-eight times at over 24 different Florida colleges.
History
The Forum was seeded in 1996 as part of a curriculum review
of all Engineering Technology programs in Florida. Once that task was
completed, the participants agreed to meet periodically to network, exchange
ideas, discuss issues, share professional development opportunities, and review
policy and procedure updates from the Florida Department of Education and, more
specifically, the Division of Career and Technical Education. The first ET
Forum was established in April 1997 at Seminole Community College (now Seminole
State College).
FLATE was funded by the National Science
Foundation (NSF) in July of 2004 and charged with state-wide curriculum reform
for manufacturing and related technologies for community colleges and their
partner high schools and universities. In 2005 FLATE engaged the Florida
Department of Education in this undertaking and proposed to orchestrate the
reform of the Manufacturing related community college curriculum across the
state in one united effort by working with colleges with related programs and
industry partners, to define new and relevant skill sets that would ultimately
become the new Curriculum Frameworks as the A.S. Degree for Engineering
Technologies for the state. Today, the ET Forum with FLATE guidance and
leadership continues to grow strong by recruiting interested colleges; hosting
industry professionals from companies near the host institution; providing
professional development for emerging and relevant technologies; participating
in FDOE statewide curriculum frameworks reform and change related to ET disciplines and providing extensive networking and opportunities for sharing
and collaboration amongst colleges.
- The Florida Alliance for Technological Education (FLATE) including the possibility of an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding)
- An educational vendor round table presenting the “hottest” new products available
- FDOE updates which included the new U.S. Department of Education CIP code changes to the ET degree frameworks
- A tour of Broward’s ET Labs and facilities
- Review of ET specializations, new program request procedures, and manufacturing framework reviews for the school year 2023-24
- College and college ET program updates
- An industry panel focused on “Innovations using Technology” with guest speakers from JL Audio, Hoerbiger, and Terumo Aortic.
The Florida Engineering Technology Forum serves as a model organization for other disciplines and career clusters in Florida as well as technical disciplines in other states. Presentation and recordings will be available at ET Forum Google Drive and FLATE.PBWorks/Presentations.
Special thanks to Broward College for hosting the ET Forum (for the first time) and the educational vendors for sponsoring the Forum.
For more information on the Forum and/or A.S.E.T degree visit http://fl-ate.org/projects/et-forum.html
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