HACEMOS Looks to Inspire Minority Students With One-Day National High Technology Event

/PRNewswire/ -- AT&T's* Hispanic/Latino Association, HACEMOS, joins forces with Junior Achievement (JA) and its JA Job Shadow® initiative, to host more than 1,400 low-income and at-risk high school students in 22 cities across the country for the 13th Annual HACEMOS National High Technology Day.

HACEMOS National High Technology Day is designed to give students a better grasp of the opportunities available in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields—areas where minorities are underrepresented. The sessions and job shadow opportunities will enable minority students to team up with AT&T employees and experience the world of work firsthand, tour AT&T facilities, and participate in hands-on activities and interactive workshops related to careers in technology.

"AT&T's High Technology Day gives students real-world insight and hopefully will inspire them to join a high-growth field in technology, where they can establish a great future for themselves," said Delia Hernandez, national president of HACEMOS, the Hispanic/Latino Association of AT&T. "Statistics show that Latinos and other minority students are considerably underrepresented in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields. That's why we are proud to join forces with Junior Achievement as we look at doing our part to help reverse these disheartening trends."

"Junior Achievement is deeply committed to building the work-readiness of our young people so they can successfully compete in the global marketplace," added Jack E. Kosakowski, president and chief executive officer of Junior Achievement USA™. "It is through these potentially transformative mentoring and experiential learning opportunities that students make the important connections between their daily school curricula and life after graduation."

The theme for this year's National High Technology Day is "Rethink Your Future," intended to challenge students to consider rewarding careers in science and engineering. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, Hispanics received only eight percent of bachelor's degrees in these fields.

In addition to the workshops and sessions, students will be able to connect with thousands of other high schools using AT&T's Telepresence Solution®, which is an advanced, high definition videoconference, that creates the sensation of an in-person meeting. Each student group will be able to see and talk to other students participating in their respective cities.

This year, Jeff Gomez, President and CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment, will present his celebrated seminar "Never Surrender: The Kids Guide to Winning at Life," which he has presented to over 200,000 young people, parents and teachers around the world, using webcast technology. As part of this keynote, Gomez will address students nationwide drawing from his inspirational life story of being born in Manhattan's Lower East side to working on global movie and television multiplatform franchises including Avatar, Transformers, Tron: Legacy, Pirates of the Caribbean and Hot Wheels. He is now sought by executives and companies around the world as a leading transmedia producer and expert. As part of his ongoing dedication to instilling the values of leadership and empathy in young people Gomez has long supported causes like HACEMOS that reinforce these ideals.

Additionally, Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets, will speak via video to the students. Mr. de la Vega is extensively involved in nonprofit and community organizations, serving as chairman of Junior Achievement Worldwide and of Hispanic Initiatives for the Boy Scouts of America.

This year's event will link nearly 1,400 high school students from close to 55 schools in:

* Anaheim, California
* Atlanta, Georgia
* Austin, Texas
* Charlotte, North Carolina
* Chicago, Illinois
* Dallas, Texas
* Florham Park, New Jersey
* Fresno, California
* Houston, Texas
* Irving, Texas
* Lake Mary, Florida
* Los Angeles, California
* Middletown, New Jersey
* Mission, Kansas
* Norman, Oklahoma
* San Antonio, Texas
* San Diego, California
* San Ramon, California
* St. Louis, Missouri


Through the AT&T/JA Worldwide Job Shadow Initiative, a $5.5 million commitment, AT&T will provide job shadow opportunities for 100,000 students, in grades 9-12—as well as second semester eighth graders—across the United States over five years. Since the initiative started in 2008, more than 65,000 students have participated in 211 cities. AT&T employees have volunteered more than 21,000 times for Job Shadow, dedicating more than 170,000 volunteer hours, to help students learn.

AT&T's Hispanic/Latino Association HACEMOS, with over 1,500 members, recognizes the importance of educating Hispanic youth and preparing them for a technology-intensive future. Its members are dedicated to developing and supporting technology education projects in communities where they live and work. For more information about National High Technology Day, please visit HACEMOS.

AT&T is deeply committed to the Hispanic community and organizations that support education and community vitality. For more information please visit espanol.att.com.

*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc. 

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OpEd: iPads in the Public Schools

Early January saw another mostly celebratory account of iPads in schools in the New York Times, "Math That Moves: Schools Embrace the iPad," by Winnie Hu. 

Since I was Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke in 2004 when we "embraced" the iPod experiment -- giving free iPods to entering first-year students before iTunes even existed and no one had thought of one single learning application for the very popular and coveted music-listening device -- you probably think I'm jumping for joy about school districts spending $50,000 or even $400,000 on giving all the kids iPads. Since I co-direct the HASTAC/MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition, you may even think I'm partly responsible for this trend. Not so fast.

Here is the issue: If you change the technology but not the method of learning, then you are throwing bad money after bad practice. You're giving kids a very fancy toy with enormous educational potential and, being kids, they will find exciting things to do with it and many of those things will be beneficial, exciting, and will help them be more adept in the 21st century world of new forms of communication and interaction. If you leave kids to their own devices (pun intended), they will find ways to learn.
The user interface on tablet computers is appealing, the multidisciplinary possibilities inventive, and the potential for downloading lots and lots of apps for just about anything -- and even for designing apps yourself -- is fun. That makes the iPad a flexible, smart device. That is the upside.

The downside is that it is not a classroom learning tool unless you restructure the classroom.
There is no benefit in giving kids iPads in school if you don't change school. You might as well send them off with babysitters to play in the corner with their iPads for eight hours a day. Without the right pedagogy, without a significant change in learning goals and practices, the iPad's potential is as limited (and limitless) as the child's imagination. 

Duke University professor Cathy Davidson is a co-founder of HASTAC and the author of "Now You See It." This column originally appeared on her blog. It also appeared in the Durham Herald-Sun.  The Durham Public Schools district has announced its intention to use federal Race to the Top grants to purchase iPads for Durham classrooms

That's great on one level -- but it misses the real point of education as well as the full potential of the device. What iPad and all forms of digital learning should do is help prepare kids for this moment of interactive, complex, changing communication that is our Information Age. This is the historical moment that these kids have inherited and will help to shape. Are we preparing them for the challenges we all face together simply by spending our tax dollars on iPads? Yes. And no.
When we gave iPods to the incoming students, we made the cover of Newsweek ("iPod Therefore I Am"), made primetime on ABC News (Peter Jennings scowled, "Shakespeare on the iPod? Calculus on the iPod?"), and were denounced in a long, harrowing editorial in the Chronicle of Higher Education ("The University seems intent on transforming the Pod into an academic device, when the simple fact is that iPods are made to listen to music. It is an unnecessarily expensive toy that does not become an academic tool simply because it is thrown into a classroom.") Darn right! And we didn't. Here's one part of the experiment: If you were a second-, third- or fourth-year student, you were really mad that the first-years got iPods and you didn't. So we told those students if they could teach a professor to use the iPod in the classroom with a learning application, that class (and the professor) would get iPods too. Talk about incentive!
If your school district has embraced student-centered learning, if it has redeveloped its curriculum, and if it no longer thinks that end-of-grade testing measures what students today do learn and need to learn, then computer-aided learning and digital learning and learning as play are wonderful. Embrace those iPads!
But the metrics, the methods, the goals and the assessments all need to change. No Child Left Behind, our national educational policy, is based on early 20 century concepts of efficient testing that was explicitly designed to make learning imitate the production of Model Ts on Ford's assembly line. We still have that institutional basis undergirding schools in an era where there is an app for anything. Simply throwing iPads into the classroom cannot begin to educate kids about the world they are inheriting.
Another time, I'll talk about my concern about the closed nature of the iPad as the model we're embracing. That's a more complicated argument for those who don't know about open source and closed source devices and computing. Let's just say fantastic games and devices and learning tools -- including elementary kids' coding languages like Scratch -- make STEM learning inspiring and fun and help us break down another invention of the Industrial Age: the "two cultures" divide of science/technology versus arts/humanities.
New ways of learning (including with the iPad) blend these -- and not a moment too soon. Maybe those iPadding kids will demand art back in their classrooms because you're shortchanged, really, if you don't know how to create with such a fabulous tool for creativity. But even more fabulous would be learning how to write the code so you could create your own device.
That, my friends, is Lesson No. 2: Embrace new ways of learning -- not just a marvelous (but closed) and very expensive tool.
Your kids have infinite potential to learn if we give them the chance. That requires not a device but a pedagogy and a set of institutional practices that put energy, imagination, creativity, and inspiration -- across those arbitrary and limiting "two cultures" divides -- at the center of learning. You cannot replace the Model T model of education with an iPad if you still believe learning can be produced by assembly line standards and standardization. That's what we have to change! The iPads are a start, because they inspire ... but we have a lot of work today to take down the 20th century apparatus that harnesses our 21st century imagination.

Cathy Davidson

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Ribbon Cutting Scheduled to Open Southern Polytechnic State University's New $30 Million Engineering Technology Center

/PRNewswire/ -- Southern Polytechnic State University (SPSU) President Lisa A. Rossbacher and other dignitaries will cut the ribbon to open SPSU's new $30 million Engineering Technology Center (ETC) at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 11.

Lee Rhyant, the recently retired executive vice president and Marietta site general manager for Lockheed Martin, will deliver remarks to assembled faculty, staff, students, alumni and guests inside the building following the ribbon-cutting.

SPSU is the only public university in Georgia offering a degree in mechatronics engineering – the integration of mechanical and electrical engineering disciplines with an infusion of computer science and software engineering. The ETC will house this program, in addition to all of the other engineering and engineering technology programs in SPSU's School of Engineering Technology & Management and Division of Engineering. All told, SPSU offers a total of 13 undergraduate engineering and engineering technology degree programs, and three graduate engineering and engineering technology programs.

In addition to classrooms, faculty offices, computer labs and an auditorium, the three-story, 120,000 square foot structure features a large number of highly specialized spaces: an energy/HVAC lab, a fluid mechanics lab, a strength-of-materials lab, a metrology lab, an electromagnetics lab, a computer-integrated manufacturing lab, an automotive lab, engineering graphics labs, a biomedical lab and a machine shop, to name a few.

The campus' newest facility, designed by architect Cooper Carry, sports a striking light show in the main lobby and is on track to receive silver-level LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, as are all recent additions to the SPSU campus.

Students will begin attending classes and labs in the new facility with the start of the spring semester on Jan. 10.

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High School Students Can Send Experiments Flying With NASA

/PRNewswire/ -- NASA is inviting student teams nationwide to design and build an experiment or technology demonstration to be sent to the near space environment of the stratosphere, an altitude of 100,000 feet. The Balloonsat High Altitude Flight competition will launch on a NASA weather balloon May 25-27 in Cleveland.

To participate, student teams in grades nine through 12 must submit a research or flight demonstration proposal to NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland by Friday, Feb. 19. Teams of four or more may pursue a wide variety of topics in this competition, including science and weather observations, remote sensing and image processing. A panel of engineers and scientists at Glenn will evaluate and select four top-ranked proposals by Friday, March 5.

The top four teams will be awarded travel expenses and up to $1,000 to develop their flight experiment or technology demonstration. Teams will participate in three flight days to release, track and recover their experiments. In addition, students will tour Glenn facilities and present their findings at Glenn's Balloonsat Symposium. All participants visiting NASA must be U.S. citizens.

NASA will host an informational webcast about the competition Jan. 27 from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. EST. A link to the webcast and additional information about Balloonsat High Altitude Flight is available at:

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/balloonsat

This and similar education programs help NASA attract and retain students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines critical to the agency's future missions. NASA's student Balloonsat competition is sponsored by Teaching From Space, a NASA Education Office at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, the Educational Programs Office at Glenn and the Ohio Space Grant Consortium.

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Proton Energy Systems Announces $1 Million Scholarship Program

/PRNewswire/ -- Global hydrogen energy leader Proton Energy Systems announced today it is launching a $1 million scholarship program aimed at high school seniors across the nation. The Proton Energy Scholarship will recognize and award high school seniors who demonstrate outstanding achievement, excellence and promise in the field of science or technology, and who plan to pursue higher education in this field.

The scholarship program is supported and funded by Tom Sullivan, owner of Proton Energy and founder of the national chain Lumber Liquidators. The scholarship will award four-year undergraduate scholarship prizes with a total value of up to $100,000 each. Honorable Mentions, Proton Energy Achievers, will be awarded $500 prizes. Sullivan has committed $1 million to the Hydrogen Education Foundation (HEF), who is administering the scholarship program.

"Proton Energy is committed to innovation and creativity, and it is our hope that through this scholarship, we can help inspire young people with an interest in science and technology," said Sullivan. "The cost of college can sometimes be overwhelming -- especially in this economy -- and we are proud to help alleviate this burden, while also encouraging new ideas among some of America's most promising high school students in a field that holds tremendous importance for the future."

Proton Energy is the world's leading supplier of onsite hydrogen generators utilizing PEM (proton exchange membrane) technology, which creates high purity hydrogen from de-mineralized water and electricity. The company has been developing and manufacturing world-class electrolysis systems since 1996, with more than 1200 units deployed world-wide, on every continent. Proton Energy has also been involved in more than a dozen hydrogen fueling stations currently in operation around the nation, and its commitment to innovation has been recognized with contracts from the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy.

"We are thrilled that Proton chose the Hydrogen Education Foundation to administer this exciting new program," said Jeffrey Serfass, President of the HEF. "We look forward to identifying and awarding star students who will help us address the global energy and environmental challenges ahead."

The Proton Energy Scholarship, aimed at high school seniors, will play an important complementary role to two other HEF programs, the Hydrogen Student Design Contest and the H-Prize, which respectively hold competitions for university-level students and innovators seeking excellence beyond higher education.

Proton Energy Scholarship applicants will be evaluated on academic performance, strength of application, commitment to further education in a science or technology related field, financial need and demonstrated leadership, work ethic and community involvement. Deadline for applications is February 10, 2010. Winners will be announced on April 15, 2010.

For more information on the Proton Energy Scholarship, application guidelines, and to apply, visit www.ProtonEnergyScholarship.org .

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Fayette County Ranked Top Ten of Tech-Savvy School Boards

The Fayette County Public School System placed eighth in the nation among large-sized school districts in the sixth annual Digital School Districts Survey, sponsored by the Center for Digital Education, National School Boards Association and “Converge Online” magazine.

The purpose of the survey is to showcase exemplary school boards and districts’ use of technology to govern the district, communicate with students, parents and the community and to improve district operations.

"We are honored to receive this award. It is a team effort on the part of our technology department, the staff at the schools, county level and our students and parents," says Superintendent John DeCotis.

All U.S. public school boards/districts were invited to participate in the survey. Schools were placed in three categories based on size of enrollment.

The study examined and documented school boards and districts’ online presence; technology applications that allow the public to interact with school board members, administrators and teachers; as well as their access to information such as school board calendars, district policies, and technology use in the district and classrooms.

Winners reflected those school districts with the fullest implementation of technology standards in the evolution of digital education. A full list of winners can be viewed at www.centerdigitaled.com.

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Growing Demand for Online Learning Not Yet Matched by Opportunities at K-12 Schools, Districts

/PRNewswire/ -- Despite growing interest in online learning, the availability of online classes have not kept pace with demand in K-12 schools and districts, according to a survey report from Project Tomorrow(R), a national education nonprofit organization, and Blackboard Inc. (NASDAQ:BBBB) , a global leader in education technology.

According to the survey, more than 40 percent of 6-12th graders have researched or demonstrated interest in taking a course online, but only 10 percent have actually taken an online course through their school. Meanwhile, comparable percentages of middle school students (7 percent) and high school students (4 percent) have instead pursued opportunities outside their school to take online courses, underscoring the disconnect between the supply and demand of online learning in today's classrooms.

At the same time, a majority of school principals, 58 percent, say that online classes currently offered in their districts are primarily for teachers; just 31 percent say the classes are primarily for students. Additionally, while a full one-third of teachers have taken an online course for professional development - a 57 percent increase from 2007 - only 3 percent of teachers surveyed say they have taught a class online, a number that has not changed in three years. Just 13 percent are interested in teaching online, a considerable mismatch with the growing student desire to learn online.

The findings are included in the report Learning in the 21st Century: 2009 Trends Update, which offers an analysis of data from Project Tomorrow's Speak Up project, an annual survey which has collected and reported on the views of more than 335,000 U.S. K-12 students, parents and educators about online education and 21st century learning.

"While many of our nation's K-12 schools clearly recognize the advantages of online learning and instruction in teacher professional development, there remains a lag in utilizing this technology for student achievement," said Julie Evans, CEO of Project Tomorrow. "Educators must embrace these emerging technologies to enhance student learning and fully prepare today's students for future success."

"Today's students are eager to embrace technology in school but there is still a wide gap between the way they live and the way they learn," said Jessie Woolley-Wilson, president, Blackboard Learn K-12. "As schools and districts look to complement traditional learning methods with digital and online tools, teachers and principals must learn how to effectively use technology in a way that gives students more control of the learning process and contributes to student achievement."

The report revealed that K-12 students want to pursue online learning to gain more control of their own learning experience, have access to more courses and work at their own pace. When asked why learning through an online class might make school more interesting, 47 percent of 9-12th graders, 39 percent of 6-8th graders and one in four 3-5th grade students said they want to learn online to "be in control of my learning." Students do not expect courses to be easier online, but they do expect the online format to make it easier to succeed because they can review materials when they want and are more comfortable asking teachers for help.

The desire for online opportunities is best expressed through the words of students themselves. When asked, "What is the one thing that you would do to improve schools to ensure that all students had the skills they needed to be successful in life," a 10th-grade student from Alcoa High School in Tennessee responded, "I would provide personal laptops for each student and provide online classes. Every school does not have all the classes a student is interested in and online classes (provide) another option."

Teachers who have experience teaching online overwhelmingly agree: 76 percent believe that online learning benefits students by giving them greater control of their learning, compared to just 10 percent of all teachers surveyed.

School principals cited funding and teacher preparation as key barriers to offering expanded access to online courses, with 22 percent reporting that online learning was not a funding priority in their district. Specific to teachers, principals felt that teachers are not comfortable using the tools (18 percent) or teaching online (17 percent), are reluctant to try (14 percent), or their school does not have the expertise to create online courses (14 percent).

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More than 500 Educators 'Storm the Hill' to Support Technology in Education

/PRNewswire/ -- More than 500 educators from 48 states and territories took part in a once in a lifetime event during the 30th Annual National Education and Computing Conference. On Tuesday, June 30, participants met with their US Congressional delegations - including 91 senators and 207 representatives - to discuss the importance of educational technology programs and funding.

These Hill visitors expressed great concern about the Obama Administration's proposal to reduce Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program funding in 2010 by as much as 63 percent. As classrooms are moving towards technology-rich learning environments, educators are working tirelessly to ensure program funding is adequately provided to meet these needs. EETT dollars have been used for improving student achievement in reading and math, engaging in data-driven decision making and launching online assessment programs.

"Funding for education technology is at risk in President Obama's FY10 budget," says ISTE's director of government affairs Hilary Goldmann. "We know our students will be negatively impacted if this cut is realized."

"It is so important for members of Congress to hear from their constituents about the vital role technology plays in educating our students and ultimately keeping our country competitive globally," said Don Knezek, CEO of ISTE. "The educators who participated in our event on Capitol Hill did an excellent job of carrying the message that education technology funding must be a priority so our students have the best opportunity for success."

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Ga. Tech Places Eighth in World University Technology Rankings

The Georgia Institute of Technology has maintained its eighth place ranking as one of the world’s top universities in engineering and information technology.

The ranking was announced as part of the U.S. News & World Report’s World’s Best Colleges and Universities released on June 18, 2009. The rankings are based on data from the THE-QS World University Rankings that were produced in association with QS Quacquarelli Symonds, one of the world’s leading networks for careers and education.

Last August, Georgia Tech was rated seventh nationally among public universities for undergraduates in the U.S. News & World Report rankings. For the past decade, Georgia Tech has been among the top ten public universities for undergraduates. In addition, the College of Engineering was ranked No. 4 nationwide for the fifth consecutive year in the publication’s annual list of the best American graduate school programs.

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Gwinnett County Public Schools Connects Homebound Students with Alcatel-Lucent Unified Communications and Collaboration Solution

/PRNewswire/ -- In an effort to better educate the greatest number of the county's pupils, Gwinnett County Public Schools (GCPS), has extended the classroom beyond its campuses to reach homebound students through state-of-the-art collaboration technology provided by Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU). With its new capabilities, the Gwinnett district, the largest school district in the state of Georgia, is embracing the digital age and creating a more interactive learning environment for homebound students, while dramatically reducing costs across its campuses.

The new Alcatel-Lucent Voice over IP (VoIP) solution will link 114 schools in Gwinnett, providing a major reduction in telephony charges for a district that serves more than 157,600 students and employees a staff of approximately 22,000. Gwinnett is also using the Alcatel-Lucent OmniTouch My Teamwork Unified Conferencing and Collaboration solution to better connect teachers and homebound students reducing the need for travel. The county hosts approximately 60 audio-visual calls per week serving 600 to 700 students who need to be educated at home.

"Previously, our teachers would either travel to each homebound student to provide a few hours of daily instruction or use an audio bridge to conduct group lessons. Voice-only instruction lacks the graphics and visual aids that help keep young, inquisitive students engaged," said Rick Overton, Director of Telecommunications & Network Services, Information Management Division, Gwinnett County Public Schools. "Alcatel-Lucent's VoIP network and the My Teamwork solution help teachers provide a richer learning experience -- they can use video clips for a history lesson, interactive graphing for science or white-board instruction for math."

The Gwinnett County Public Schools IP network already used a range of Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch Ethernet switches to provide the bandwidth and security needed by students and faculty for on campus communications. The more recent deployment of the Alcatel-Lucent OmniPCX Enterprise provides a new VoIP solution and allows the district to centralize its main voice switches at the district headquarters, extending remote call servers with back up circuits at each school building when fully complete.

Morse Communications, Inc., an Alcatel-Lucent business partner, worked as project leader to gather requirements, customize and install the VoIP equipment, manage service cutover and train the school district staff. Morse currently is providing full-time, on-site backup support for the school system as well as ongoing service, maintenance and consultation.

"Effective and efficient communications technology is critical when creating a dynamic learning environment that makes it possible for students to connect with teachers, fellow students and other knowledge resources safely and securely -- anytime, anywhere," said Tom Burns, who heads Alcatel-Lucent enterprise activities. "My Teamwork will help Gwinnett County Public Schools expand access to education beyond the four walls of the classroom. Our solution helps school districts reduce travel requirements and transportation costs with a virtual infrastructure that brings students and teachers together when they can't reach the brick and mortar classroom."

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Georgia Tech Launches Center for Music Technology

Georgia Tech today (November 7, 2008) launches the new Center for Music Technology with more than 20 researchers from the arts, sciences and engineering. Several interdisciplinary projects already in progress will be demonstrated today at an exclusive launch event for potential collaborators.

“Our goal is to build an international center for creative and technological research in music that will redefine the way we create, perform, listen to and consume music,” says Dr. Gil Weinberg, co-founder and director of the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology. “To that end, we brought together top researchers from across campus who together can address current challenges in the field and develop new solutions that cannot be achieved in the framework of a single discipline.”

Unlike much current research in music, the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology is committed to bringing new ideas to the market, with applied solutions for businesses and consumers. Researchers are already working on ways to improve existing acoustical instruments, as well as defining new approaches for music making. “One of our new projects, called ZooZ Beat, for example, allows anyone with a cell phone to use expressive gestures to create and share music in a group,” explains Weinberg. “Other projects explore concepts like wearable devices for music therapy, audience participation in live performance, robotic musicianship, music as an assistive medium for the visually impaired and computational analysis of music at the signal level.” Other research areas include composition, machine listening, materials science, music information retrieval, digital signal processing, design and manufacturing, networked music, music perception, music theory, multimedia development and acoustics.

“It is important to note that the students who work with our faculty members bring with them a wide range of skills and experiences, from the technical to the artistic,” stresses Weinberg.
“More than half of our students are pursuing a Master of Science in Music Technology degree in a relatively new program at Georgia Tech that encourages students to explore their creativity both technically and musically. We are currently in the process of proposing a PhD degree in Music Technology, which will allow our students to deepen their education in these areas and help develop a strong intellectual backbone for research activities in the Center.”

The Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology is a unit of the College of Architecture at Georgia Tech, and jointly funded by the Office of the Provost and the Colleges of Architecture, Computing and Engineering.

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GA Tech Places Eighth in Two World University Technology Rankings

The Georgia Institute of Technology recently was listed among the top world universities in engineering and technology in two separate global rankings.

Georgia Tech ranked eighth on the list of the world’s top universities in engineering and information technology prepared by the Times Higher Education Supplement-QS. The list, considered the definitive university ranking guide in the United Kingdom, was compiled though a study conducted by QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) and published in the Times Higher Education supplement, an independent annual education survey.

Georgia Tech also garnered the eighth spot on the list of the top 100 world universities in engineering/technology and computer sciences, according to Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). ARWU ranks major institutions according to their academic or research performance in each of five broad subject fields according to a formula that factors in the following indicators: alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and fields medals; highly cited researchers; articles indexed in Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCIE) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI); the percentage of articles published in the leading journals of each field; and engineering research expenditures.

Earlier this year, Georgia Tech was ranked seventh nationally among public universities for undergraduates in the 2009 U.S. News & World Report rankings. For the past decade, Georgia Tech has been among the top ten public universities for undergraduates in the United States.

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