In the spring, the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges released a report detailing resources for developing partnerships between community colleges and their communities titled Prosperous Places: Putting Your College and Community of the Map. The report is designed to be:

“a toolkit to help colleges build “prosperous places” by creating high-impact partnerships, gathering data, and creating programs that meet critical workforce needs. Creating a highly skilled workforce advances both the signature industries that make Washington competitive in the global marketplace, and the local employers who create the very fabric of our communities.”

There are some good questions to think about here (see pages 7-8) and several resources that are designed to help colleges think about their community connections. 

Check it out, and feel free to comment.

The “Internet of Things,” also referred to as the “Web of Things” or the “Internet of Everything,” is the evolving vision of more and more devices connecting to smart networks and interacting with humans and with each other through the Internet. June 2012, the Internet switched over to Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) to prepare for the increasing number of devices with unique IP addresses that want to transmit and receive data. In addition to the expanded Internet, key technology enablers include device miniaturization, more powerful and lower cost microprocessors, and smart sensors, location devices and actuators. Currently applications are focused primarily around smartphones as hubs of connectivity. However, an increasing number of “smart devices” and “smart sensors” are taking on an IP address and connecting to the Internet resulting in ever more complex systems and interactions. –Michèle Royer, Ph.D, Office of Economic and Workforce Development, BC

For an infographic on the Internet of Things, click here