Executive Summary

On October 9 and 10 in Baltimore MD, over 100 educators and engineers met to launch a collaborative effort to promote universal technological literacy. In a hands-on, highly participative workshop, breakout groups, comprised of equal numbers of engineers and educators, met to propose specific strategies and develop action plans.

With the growing influence of technology on everyday life, the general public must have a certain level of technological understanding to attain a reasonable quality of life. The TLC workshop was held to help ensure that teachers have the resources, knowledge and community support to empower our students to become productive citizens, consumers and employees in the next century.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) led other engineering professional societies in this effort to focus more strategically on how engineers and educators can best leverage each others' resources to this end. While IEEE has had a pre-college education initiative since 1984, technological change has picked up such momentum that organizations can no longer afford to work alone, but must align with each other and with the grass roots educators to effect significant change.

Leaders Agree

Workshop participants came from all parts of the country as well as India, United Kingdom and South Africa. They all agreed that communicating an appreciation and understanding of technology was a very challenging task, and that a multi-pronged approach was called for.

Presentations by notables such as Dr. Joseph Bordogna, IEEE President, Dr. William Wulf, President, the National Academy of Engineers, and Dr. Eleanor Baum, President of the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET) demonstrated the support of engineering leadership. Attendees like Kendall Starkweather, Executive Director, International Association of Technology Education and Robert Gabrys, Chief Education Officer, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center echoed this sentiment.

Strategies Agreed Upon

The attendees, though from two very diverse groups, quickly built rapport and united in their agreement that change is needed in several key areas: These are:

• There is a need for professional development for both groups to maximize their collaborative efforts.
• An increase in public awareness of the problem in necessary.
• Policy changes are necessary to enlist support of government and public leaders.
• Support for educational reform/standards development should be promoted.
• Measurable outcomes should be established and assessed.

Action Plan Created

The workshop participants agreed that the momentum gained at the event should not be slowed - that while together they should create a plan which they could start implementing as soon as they return to their schools or companies. Some of these activities can be started immediately and others are for the long term, but all are aimed at collaborating and sharing responsibility and success.

The following activities will be initiated immediately:

• A TLC Network will be formed - the entire group from the workshop will remain connected and will share ideas and plans, as well as spread the word to more educators and engineers.
• A training program for engineers will be developed - to teach them more about curriculum development, educational standards, teaching methodology and how they can serve the educational community.
• Committees were formed to link sub-groups for further activity planning.
• A meeting of the deans of schools of engineering and schools of education is planned to open up channels of communication so that teacher training can better prepare educators to teach and promote technology.
• Collaborations between engineering societies will begin.
• Spokespeople from the TLC Network will be provided with a speaker's kit to spread the word about TLC.
• Engineers from TLC will present at national and state education conferences on the need for technological literacy and how to attain it.

Barbara Coburn
Manager, Career Development and Outreach
IEEE Educational Activities
b.coburn@ieee.org
732-562-5498
Look for us on the Web: http://www.ieee.org/eab/