With today’s ever changing world of technology, trying to pace education along side of that evolution can be a very challenging experience for students and teachers. Roy Pignatiello in his article “New Skills for a New Generation”, argues that many educators are not reaching out to regional businesses and corporations for possible help. At Euclid High School, near Cleveland, Mr. Pignatiello explains how a partnership with Cisco has allowed for many different avenues for the students and the educators to take. They have opened up the Cisco Networking Academy program, which educates the high school students on entering the under populated world of IT professionals. Implementing this into the school has been a large success, offering students an actual look into a career and getting to work with the actual equipment they would be using. Not only are they exposed to this career, they are eligible to earn up to 16 credit hours, depending on what programs they complete. Some of Mr. Pignatiello’s students have actually earned scholarships and jobs right out of high school in the IT field.
Reading about the success of this Cisco Networking Academy at Euclid High School is a very interesting and very cool idea. I would have loved during my high school education to have an option at having an opportunity to explore a profession or a career early on. I think having this early exposure can be very beneficial to students. Especially at a time in their lives when they may not be completely sure what path they should take.
There very well are some drawbacks in my mind that pop up, mainly being the availability and accessibility of these corporations or businesses. Not all of them may be able to or willing to work with schools in the same way that Cisco has in Euclid. Another issue may be just general funding and support from the school systems. There may not be availability for schools to partake in this type of education for their students. Some schools may not be willing to go beyond the tried and true subject matter that has been a part of the system for many years.
It is hard to deny the success that can be seen from the work that is being done by Mr. Pignatiello and the students at Euclid High School. Giving students access to early college credits and also showing them a beneficial career path, with advancements is what some students greatly need. Hopefully more and more of these types of curricular changes can be made to high school across the country to expose students to these types of career paths they might not otherwise choose.
This article fits under NETS Students 6, the students at Euclid High School were able to use and gain understanding of networking equipment that Cisco Systems uses. This gave them a great advantage and early understanding on how to use the same equipment that they may be using in thier jobs.
Pignatiello, R. (2009). New skills for a new generation. Learning & Leading, 37(August), 32. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/digital-edition-august-2009.aspx
This is something that I had been thinking about for a while now, how come more schools don't set up agreements with corporations to help students get an idea of what it is like? In high school we had a multimedia class that was taught by an actual employee at CBS news. The class offered us a chance to film videos and earn college credits while doing it. To this day it is one of the classes I learned the most in. In some cases hands on assignments can help a student learn more than a textbook and tests.
ReplyDeleteIt was great to see that a group of kids from this class had the opportunity to participate in the Cisco Network Academy program. I am in favor of cooperation between schools and companies to help better educational opportunity.
ReplyDeleteMy only concern that if these 15 kids are offered this opportunity, there should be similar opportunities for other kids with different interests offered.