Mr. Myers' Classroom

The Advanced Technologies Academy students are finishing the third week of college classes at the time of this writing. This school year brings many new changes with face coverings, social distancing, and hybrid courses just to name a few. The students have been handling these changes very maturely. The opening of school has gone smoothly thanks to our wonderful students and understanding teachers working together.

The DME-120 Introduction to Multimedia Applications class has been learning the basics of animation. The students have been using an Online tool called Wick Editor to create simple point-and-click interactive animations. The bouncing ball animation was the introduction project for animation. Below are a few student work examples. Currently the students are learning how to edit audio and how audio impacts the interactive media that we use everyday.

The CTI-150 Mobile Computing Devices class is the first class in the mobile app development curriculum of the Advanced Technologies Academy. The students have been learning about what a mobile computing device is and the history of mobile computing devices. The students created some very interesting presentations about the early mobile computing devices they found on the Web. Below is a student example of one of these presentations. Currently, the students are learning about the future of mobile computing devices. We have discussed many interesting topics on the matter. My favorite is when we talked about if we would implant the functions of our smartphone into our brain.

The WEB-125 Mobile Web Design class has been learning how to create webpages by writing in HTML5 and CSS3. The focus of this class is on producing websites that can adapt to the user’s screen size. There are a wide variety of screen sizes and screen resolutions out in the world today. It is more important than ever to produce websites that can be viewed easily on all the different screens available. We began the class with a review of the fundamental graphic design principles. We also went back in time to compare web design from a few years ago with today’s web design. We had the help of the Wayback Machine to accomplish this. We had an Image Optimization Challenge to see who could reduce file size the most of a provided photo while maintaining image quality.

There is a new program that will be piloted for Advanced Technologies Academy students enrolled in the CTS-115 Information Systems and Business Concepts this year.

What does this mean for students?  
Students will be taking a class that gives them college credit in addition to taking a nationally recognized certificate program created by Google. The Google IT Support Professional Certificate is set to be a nationally recognized certificate that will be recognized by employers all over the world. By completing the program, students will be better prepared to find employment in the field of IT support. If this is not a goal or path of a student, the certificate will still be an excellent resume builder for college or employment.  The skills learned will benefit them whether they enter the IT field or not.

How are students chosen?
CCC&TI has recently been working with a cohort of community colleges from several states to participate in this special pilot program.  The content in the Google IT Certificate Program mirrored a majority of the content in the CTS-115 courses that CCC&TI currently offered.  In addition, CASA students are top-notch! They will be open to participating and seeing the potential of the program.  

 What is the goal of the program?
The ultimate goal is to provide students with a quality education that prepares them to be successful in the world of work.  Having a nationally recognized credential in addition to receiving college credit for a course will increase the students’ value in the workplace.  

Will students have to do any additional work?
Course work will be supplemented using the Google IT Certificate program as a part of the normal curriculum that will be covered in class.  Since this is a pilot program it is not known exactly how far through the Google Certificate program students will get.  If the Google Certificate program is not completed, the student will not be penalized, however, students are expected to participate like they would with any other class.

 How much does this cost?
No additional fees or books are required.  The pilot program CCC&TI is a part of is paying for all costs associated with the Google Certificate.  The normal cost of the program would be approximately $250 per student.  

 What else should I know?
Since this is a pilot program, there may be some unknown circumstances that may pop up from time to time.  Students are encouraged provide feedback along the way to make this program better for future classes.  They have the opportunity to not only help themselves, but also others who may follow in their footsteps.  The instructor will be providing more details once class gets started.

Both CASA and CCC&TI are excited about this amazing opportunity.  If you or your child has any questions, please reach out to the instructor Mark Howell, mhowell@cccti.edu or call 828-726-2339.

After 9 months and hundreds of hours of production, Rocky in Space 3: A Glimpse of Hope is finally here! This is the third film in the Rocky in Space trilogy! On Friday, May 15, 2020, Garrett Lawrence, Max McMahan and Megan Conley premiered their short-film live on Google Meet to an extremely excited audience. The event was advertised on the Caldwell Applied Sciences Academy website and social media and the Caldwell County Schools social media. This is a very special project for these Advanced Technologies Academy students. It was completed on their own time outside of class time. The short-film also stars Josh Lewis and Callie Stinson. During the online premiere, the students introduced the short-film by explaining their individual roles and reviewing the first two short-films. After the viewing of Rocky in Space 3, the online chat exploded with positive feedback. While the students took questions from the online participates, Garrett, Max, Megan, and Josh sounded just like professionals on an action movie panel.

On Wednesday, March 11, 2020, several Advanced Technologies Academy students traveled to Hudson Elementary School to teach animation to the 2nd grade. Our students had a full day of teaching three classes from 9:00am to 2:00pm. The goal was to teach the 2nd grade the basics of animation. The method of instruction was to show the students how to create a flip-book with a Post-it Notepad. The 2nd graders had the opportunity to draw their own frame-based animation using a notepad and colored pencils.

The Advanced Technologies Academy students involved were: Ben Cederberg, Evan Holder, Isaac Marshall, Hannah Holton, Mary Hickein, Keagan Jump, Haylie Jarrell, Josh Lewis, Megan Conley, Gavin Johnson, Emma Moore, Angela Puerto Peralta, and Catlin Austin. These students did an awesome job! I was so proud of these students for their professionalism, maturity, and communication skills. This was such a great opportunity for the 2nd graders and high schools students and even for the teachers to experience.

On Tuesday, March 10, 2020 the Caldwell Applied Sciences Academy’s SkillsUSA members had a leadership meeting and cookout after school. Rachael Robinson, a former CASA student and currently a SkillsUSA employee, led the team-building activities. She did an excellent job and the students really enjoyed it. Lots of yelling and laughter could be heard coming from the meeting room. After the leadership meeting and team-building activities, the students ate hotdogs, chips and cookies together. This was a great afternoon of fun, laughter, team problem-solving, food, and relaxing. All the students did awesome and I’m really proud of them.

On Monday, February 24, 2020 several Advanced Technologies Academy students participated in the SkillsUSA Regional Rally. The rally was held on the campus of Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, NC. There were 565 students present competing in 91 different competitions. SkillsUSA empowers its members to become world-class workers, leaders and responsible American citizens.  SkillsUSA improves the quality of our nation’s future skilled workforce through the development of Framework skills that include personal, workplace and technical skills grounded in academics.

Other competitions included:

American Spirit – 1st place – Kathy Clark, Kylie Annis, Makaleigh Hendrix
Electronics Technology – 2nd place – Zachary Atkins
Extemporaneous Speaking – 2nd place – Allen Clark
Mechatronics – 1st place – Karli West, Tori Davis
Medical Math – 4th place – Zoey Lowman
Mobile Robotics – 1st place – Evan Aldien, Sebastian Noi
Pledge – 2nd place – Rebekah Wood