Project>Login has gone from a vision shared by a small number of Maine's innovative leaders into a statewide initiative due, in large part, to your work. I've never worked with a group of such consistently talented, and dedicated volunteers who are so passionate about a shared goal. Thank you!
Thanks to Pam Joy from WEX and and Tracy St. Pierre from USM, Project>Login's marketing and branding platform was launched in February, and the campaign videos are now viewable on our website: http://projectlogin.com Now that the foundation is built, Educate Maine staff is now expanding the campaign, both via online communications and with our print materials. Here are a few recent highlights. Since early April, we've had over 1,100 people visit our website over 1,800 times, with more than 7,000 page views and we're always improving the site. We have already made over 20 changes, and have a pipeline of over a dozen more to come.
Our Facebook page now has over 450 fans, with our posts regularly reaching 200-400 people, and our fans themselves have over 100,000 friends, which amplifies our reach.
Finally, Project>Login has been featured in stories in all of the state dailies, and in Maine Biz, EdWeek, as well as an AP story which appeared in papers from Providence to Washington DC to Seattle.
Campus Networking Receptions
Up to 80 students and 15 employers attended each of the university campus receptions in Orono, Portland, Augusta, Farmington, and the final videoconference with Fort Kent, and there has been near universal interest in continuing these campus receptions on an annual basis. So, I'm pleased to report that Liz Rensenbrink from Tyler Technologies will be working with UNUM's Marcia Leander to take the lead and plan the second round of receptions for October and November, when many companies begin recruiting for summer internships. Marcia has a new role, which I'll mention in a few minutes.
Paid Student Internships
Regarding those internships: many companies and organizations posted and filled summer internships before Project>Login launched, but all wanted to hear from students throughout the year as they seek the best candidates possible. So, we've created a new and permanent list of internship positions on our website at http://projectlogin.com/explore-internships, and we've already identified 60 positions this year. This goes a long way to fulfilling the original goal of helping employers provide paid internships to 30% of UMS CS/IT/CE students who want them in 2013. We've also had requests for internships for 1st and 2nd year students, so we will communicate that desire in the next year.\n\nI'm also pleased to report that Andrea Roma has stepped into the lead volunteer role, and we will benefit from her experience as she and her team gathers materials to help companies without internship programs get started.
At the end of the school year, the UMS student retention team conducted a beta test of a new student success survey, stewarding it through an initial cycle of faculty outreach, survey design, institutional review, distribution, and data gathering. Next, faculty will be invited to comment on the survey questions, and a refined survey will be ready to go to all USM computing and IT students in the fall. Those results will help the universities determine which academic support will most benefit student success. I'm pleased to report that Rosa Redonnett from UMS and Bonnie Stearns from USM will be co-chairs of this continuing initiative.\n\nAs part of this next cycle, I have already spoken individually, and in groups, with leaders and faculty at Orono, USM, UMFK, and UMF, and I will be inviting all UMS CS/IT/CE faculty to consult this summer.
The Phase 1 website already contains information for students, parents, and educators ? and we want to continue to encourage people all around the state to submit more resources about relevant academic programs, co-curricular learning activities, and professional opportunities. So, I'm pleased to announce that we've expanded our website to include a resources sharing feature. A prototype is at http://connect.projectlogin.org/ and you can use it starting today, although we won't announce it widely until its fine-tuned. Let's say you know of a new academic program or a coding club that is open to the public. Open a new browser tab, go to http://connect.projectlogin.org/, click on Share a Resource and fill in the title, excerpt, web address, and categories. Once it is verified, the resource description and link will be found whenever anyone searches for any of the categories you chose. So with a statewide cadre of reporters, we will be able to gather many more online resources to help our students and educators. We can then distribute the best via our website, email, and social media channels. For this initiative, I'm pleased to report that Morgan Cuthbert, who's a Milliken award-winning middle school teacher from Yarmouth, will be leading the effort to research and expand our collection of resources this summer.
So, that's what we're doing to sustain and grow our first-year initiatives. New Initiatives
I have had the opportunity to meet with faculty and leaders from Southern Maine Community College, York County Community College, and Thomas College over the past month to build gain a deeper understanding of their computing and IT programs, and am scheduling meetings with Husson, Northern Maine Community College, Eastern Maine Community College, and Bowdoin this month. We've provided a letter of support for a new 2 + 2 degree program being developed by USM and SMCC, CMCC, and YCCC. I've also met with leaders at the Maine Community College System regarding their application for a federal grant to support new certificate and associates degree programs in IT. Whereas our first-year goals focused on academic programs at the University system, we will work with each campus to identify their capacity for growth and will develop parallel goals to enhance student success and increase graduates in year 2.
Expansion to High School and Adult Learners
For year 2, we will be working to increase the number of qualified high school students and adult learners applying for admission to computing and IT programs, and we'll be working with our participating colleges and universities to develop their goals for this phase. So, how can we help make that happen? We know that people who are sparked (or 'intrinsically-motivated') by computing and information technology will be more likely to persist along pathways toward these careers. So, with our year 2 initiatives, we will reach out directly to those high school and adult learners and those who guide them ? and steward them toward the academic programs and learning activities most relevant for them. First, to determine which activities will most effectively draw these well-matched students toward our partner campuses, in the next 2 months, we will consult with representatives from organizations that support them including principals, guidance counselors, workforce development directors, and curriculum directors and we will select two high schools and one career center to help us prioritize and test four proposals that have been proposed and enthusiastically supported by volunteers and constituents across the spectrum. I have already begun our expansion to high school and adult learners.
All of our proposed initiatives now have lead volunteers for the coming year, and we'll be convening the full teams in June to define goals and milestones, with a timeline for having prototypes ready to test in the fall and wider rollout at the beginning of the year. Career Awareness Campaign
Pam Joy of WEX will be lead advisor on the next phase of the Project>Login marketing campaign, which will be designed to help high school students and adult learners from all backgrounds decide if they can see themselves" doing these specific kinds of work before they make a commitment to begin an academic program that may or may not be a good match for them. We will focus on 5-7 computing and info-tech career strands recognized by the federal Department of Labor and Education from entry-level to advanced positions across multiple industries ? and capture their distinct 'personalities,' work environments, and employee interests.\n\nAlthough this is only a preliminary list, this is intended to make clear these careers actually draw people with quite different interests and abilities.\n\nWe will profile young professionals who exemplify excellence and exude enthusiasm, who benefitted from Maine education, and who choose to stay and live here in Maine. We will capture the experience of working in a team, on a compelling product or service, and applying both technical and interpersonal skills. We will test prototype materials with our pilot high schools and career center, fine tune, and release. Our working title: "What's it like to be a professional in this field?'
Each of these 5-7 career strand pathways is supported by a particular collection of academic, co-curricular, and professional experiences all of which cross boundaries between education, organization, and business. So in year 2, Glenn Wilson from USM will be leading a group to develop a clear model to present multiple pathways and supports as they lead to career entry points, from entry level to advanced occupations. With that model will be able to integrate our marketing materials and the resources we're gathering academics, activities, events, and professional experiences into online dashboards targeted to each strand, all within our expanded website. Our working title: 'You can get there from here.'
Jim Smith, CIO for the State of Maine, will be leading a group to determine the feasibility of producing a Maine info-tech event to increase in-person connections between professionals, students, and educators. Initial tasks will include investigating similar events in Maine and around the country, determining resource requirements, and identifying partner organizations and sponsorships before making a go/no-go decision.
Marcia Leander will be leading an initiative to develop a speakers program that connects professionals with students and educators at colleges, high schools and clubs, both in person and via videoconferencing. Initial tasks will include seeking participating professionals, reaching out to colleges, schools and clubs to determine need, and collecting resources for professional speaking.
Community Collaboration Projects
Our final proposal to be tested arose in many conversations: we need to promote the kinds of collaborative team projects that engage professionals, college students, high school students, families, and educators, together, and help integrate those projects with specific academic programs and career strands. So, we will investigate and promote the many existing collaboration models in Maine and elsewhere, including robotics programming, cybersecurity challenges, Code for America, civic hacking, and others. One of our primary objectives will to connect high school and adult learners with those activities that interest them, and identify gaps that can be filled.
Finally, to keep track of this work, we've expanded our website in a second way: to include spaces for volunteer groups to share discussion, documents, and events. I have begun inviting early adopters and posting the year 1 goals, research, and documents, and you can register at connect.projectlogin.org to join the discussions.
So, that's a quick overview of what we've been doing, and I will be sharing this quarterly status with you in the coming week. If you expressed interest in helping us move up to the next level and if you haven't already heard from me yet, you will soon. And feel free to contact me with any questions you may have. In the meantime, I encourage you to register for an account at connect.projectlogin.org to get connected with each other. Thank you for being with us tonight, and I look forward to our future work together!
