City College of San Francisco (CCSF), in partnership with Year Up Bay Area, is developing TechSpot 2.0 with the goal of creating opportunities for community college students to gain hands-on work experience in the field of information technology (IT), particularly those students from backgrounds typically underrepresented in this field.
Specific objectives for TechSpot 2.0 are: 1. Recruit students typically underrepresented in the field of IT into the Fundamentals of Technical Support certificate and/or the CNIT Associate degree program. 2. Establish a computer refurbishing, recycling and technical support center to provide students with hands-on work experience that augments CCSF's existing Fundamentals of Technical Support certificate curriculum. 3. Implement innovative strategies for sustainability, including highly competitive TechSpot service fees, A+ test preparation, and A+ testing, all of which feed back into supporting the technical support center's operations.
TechSpot 2.0 builds on a proven, successful model (CompTechS at De Anza College) and utilizes a variety of networks to disseminate project findings and materials, both through in-person presentations at various conferences and through the network of the ATE-funded Mid-Pacific Information and Communication Technologies Regional Center.
To ensure that TechSpot 2.0 engages and supports historically underserved and underrepresented students as optimally as possible, the project taps into the resources of several other partners that promote equity for special populations in career and technical education programs: the Institute for Women in Trades, Technology, and Sciences; the National Alliance for Partnerships (NAPE); and California's Joint Special Populations Statewide Advisory Committee (JSPAC).
