The
42nd state-wide Forum on Engineering Technology (ET Forum) held on March
28th and 29th was hosted by the Suncoast Technical
College – Sarasota Main Campus. This was the first visit to Suncoast Technical
College which provides quality technical education to meet workforce
to address the issues
concerning our field of technical education development and community needs with their programs in automation and
manufacturing. This spring forum has been one of the most attended since 1996 with
70 participants from 17 FL State and community colleges, three technical colleges
and three state universities. The Forum provided ET and related discipline area
faculty administrators and educators direct interaction with industry
professionals and Florida Dept. of Education program supervisors. 
The Florida Engineering
Technology Leadership Council and the Engineering Technology Forum was
established in April 1997 at Seminole Community College (now Seminole State
College). Since 1996 the ET Forum has
been hosted in 23 Colleges around Florida.
The membership includes the
department heads and the leaders of the technology programs in the State of
Florida. The Forum is a viable means for industry and educators across
the state to meet regularly to discuss issues of the educating of tomorrow’s
advanced manufacturing workforce. The Forum is building capacity in faculty
across the state and securing a community of practice around manufacturing and
technology education in Florida.
This year theme of this Forum was innovations using technology and
best practices related to technology education, AS to BSET articulation,
industry collaborations, grant initiatives, professional development, issues
forum, and included some of new projects and updates. Thursday sessions
included topics such as technical trends and vendors’ round table, Florida
department of education updates, PathTech LIFE updates with its new PathTech
LISTEN grant, college updates, industrial and workforce roundtable, Suncoast
technical college technical tour, articulations AS/BSET and new articulations.
In addition, great topics were presented such as IPC-connecting electronics industries
- educating/training the next generation, smart automation certification alliance
(SACA), and National
Coalition of Certification Centers (NC3).
On Friday morning, the forum
continued with more college issues, with discussions on how lab fees and what
can and cannot be included. Other topics included - advanced technology
updates, FLATE updates, and smart factory and eLearning. The meeting summary
with more details, will be posted on FLATE’s wiki
PathTech LISTEN, is a newly awarded national
interview study of Engineering Technology graduates by the University of South
Florida-Department of Sociology. Currently the group is finalizing the
interview questions and protocols. This survey study will focus on both
educational and career pathways. For more information contact Dr. Will Tyson (wtyson@usf.edu).
ET Forum Survey results
A total of 30 attendees
responded to the survey the following: an impressive 100% of attendees who
responded to the survey said that they are planning to use the information
presented at this workshop and they will use the information they have gained
with a colleague or peers and that they will recommend the forum to other
colleagues, 89% of respondents agreed that the forum was an excellent overall
professional development value.
Special Thank you to the 2019 spring ET Forum sponsors for their generous support!
Bluegrass Educational
Technologies, Hyatt Consulting Group, D. C. Jaeger Corporation, Learning Labs,
Southern Educational Systems, Technical Training Aids, Suncoast Technical
College
Presentations
and material for the ET forum are available online at Made in Florida 2019 Spring
ET Forum at SCSC. For more information, please contact Marilyn Barger (mbarger@flate.org).
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