 Good afternoon and you're back here on likable science. I'm your host Ethan Allen here on Think Tech Hawaii. Thanks for joining us again. Likable science is all about how science is a relevant meaningful and fun part of everyone's life and that we all should embrace science and not consider it a isolated standalone kind of subject that lives off in an ivory tower by itself. Today I have one of your Hodges. Welcome honey from Honolulu Community College. The Pacific Center for Advanced Technology Training. If I got that right. Peacat. Peacat. Peacat. Okay great. Easy to use the acronym there. And Moneer is a software engineer and professor with that program. She's done teaches a bunch of different kinds of classes I guess. Java, application development, Android and iPhone, mobile app development, web app, animation and gaming with Unity 3D. All kinds of things sounds like you have many many things. You've taught your webmaster and technology advisor. You've offered workshops in many different places I guess on many different subjects. Sounds like you have a wealth experience. Thank you. So let me just start by asking sort of how you got involved in the whole technology end of things. I started in 1980s. Wow. I was a student at University of Hawaii and continued on to my graduate level studies in software engineering and then started working at Peacat in 2000 as a software engineer and professor. Excellent. Excellent. So what is Peacat in brief? Pacific Center for Advanced Technology Training is a consortium of a community colleges. Seven community colleges within the UH system. And the mission of the Peacat is to provide training to the state of Hawaii. As you know we are in the Pacific Rim and we are pretty far away from the mainland but we do have technology needs, technology training needs and we do like to keep our technologists in the island. So therefore Peacat was created with the collaboration with the state and the university to provide advanced technology training to the state of Hawaii. Excellent. That's a good way to sort of generate our workforce within our state boundaries and hopefully at the same time generate jobs for all these people you're training, right? Yes. Excellent. Excellent. And one of the things that that sort of brought us together on this show right now is that you guys are doing your 15th annual symposium. Correct. Wow. So we have this year is our 15th annual IT symposium and IT symposium is bringing educators in our state together from all factors. It's education in public, private and lower you know K-12 and all the way to you know higher ed to learn about what is the latest in technology and education. So our focus is really education. We want to see how we can take advantage of what is the latest in technology to enhance the learning experience of our students which helps our workforce development you know in return. Sure. Sure. And I mean it's so much is happening now in terms of education and technology. It used to be started out with education technology being a lot of just very very patient tutors right. The computer that would wait for the right answer and it would patiently keep telling you no this is wrong. But it's gotten a lot beyond that, right? Correct. Technology today is in everybody's hand. It's there for everybody understands technology to a certain level but our education system needs to catch up to that level that makes education more fun for the students to learn. So we hope that with IT symposium we bring together experts in what is the latest in technology and be able to in kind of encourage and in bring enthusiasm to our education community our teachers or professors or you know technology coordinators to see what they can do with technology in the classroom. So technology is not just in the computer science classroom it's in all levels it's not just social sciences constantly use technology so that's the focus. Yeah and as we get more and more technology it's more and more powerful of course its ability to help in education becomes greater and greater and now that we have computer programs that can beat masters at chess can beat masters at go you begin to wonder how robots now so there's a lot there and all the technologies involved in self-driving cars of course are very yeah again very relevant to education those machines that's those are machines that are learning about their environments right and they're thus should have clear applications in the education field right yes so we I know you'd share some photos maybe they'll give our audience a little bit of sense about how some of the this symposium might play out if we could get started so maybe you can describe what's right this is a photo from our last symposium basically they are sharing with audience the different ways of interacting with the screen and working with the you know audience so having an interactive learning environment we have a emeritus college in our at PCAT which we work with our senior citizens and this is where the seniors are learning about how you know create photo gallery how to create websites okay and this is as you can see there's a QR code on the screen so the audience are taking and scanning basically the QR code to be able to get the information about the session that they are attending this is from our last year okay now I just I just recently actually put loaded up an app on my phone that reads QR codes at the Bishop Museum right and then we'll we'll talk to you about this in whatever exhibit your correct yes so it's becoming very you know common now to see that it's a very you know in you don't need a lot of technology to be able to scan it QR code but the wealth of information that you can get through it it's really what the QR code is about so all our symposiums basically have app mobile app that shows the audience how to get to their classes and how what sessions are offered what time so it's very handy you're making the technology integrated into this into the symposium in a very deep sort of authentic way right yeah so you presumably have a ways for people to field questions or put questions up to panels your technology and absolutely we do that kind of interactive something like who is used that we use and we ask the audience to participate give us feedback on the session that they just listening and what do they think about the questions that the presenter might pose and kind of taking the pulse of the audience see how it works wonderful wonderful so the symposium sound like very exciting events then very exciting it's it's very I have been part of it from the inception and I always offer a session and in the in those two days that we have and it's exciting to be there exciting to attend and exciting to present I'm sure and so roughly how big is the symposium how many people do you got I mean I'm sure it must have changed over the years it does and I we have kind of a cap for the total number of people that we can take and it's about 300 350 and the audience comes from our all our community colleges from all the other islands we have DOEs all the schools from elementary school all the way to high school and we have private sector all our private high schools attend so there's a nice range of from UH from you know all the higher ed HPU shaman on all the universities that we have anybody that it's in the education field in the state is welcome you know to come others come but mostly it's geared toward education sure sure but that's I mean that covers a broad range of things because it's not just direct learning stuff in education as a whole there's all the support systems too that are yes definitely definitely we do have a large number of people who are IT support within any school within a DOE so those people really benefit from this sure sure it keeps them up to date on skills what's what's emerging now is as a good system to use yes because these systems change over time particularly changing very rapidly now yeah and what was cutting edge a few years ago is now absolutely yes you're absolutely right yeah so yeah we certainly are seeing that in your email systems your calendaring systems just all this sort of infrastructure that we now rely on so heavily that that's very very tricky to do so maybe we can look a little further down our photos our photo streams here this is actually from our last IT symposium these two they are from DOE department from actually from community colleges from other islands what they're doing is they're learning how to build a droid so the device that you see they have printed it using the 3d printer and now they're attaching the technical parts to it to be able to fly it so the sessions are hands-on some and it's very educational and interesting well it's intriguing how the technologies are merging sort of back and forth to with you just mentioned 3d printing I had a show here a few weeks ago we discussed a new a new technology where somebody has developed a company that prints houses 3d prints houses yes yeah I can do a house in 24 hours basically full of you know walls and insulation and yeah the whole thing yeah cost only $10,000 and amazing sort of how the technologies are merging and interacting with one another reinforcing each other right it's just becoming part of our everyday life right exactly and the people who are material scientists learning about the different materials that then feed back into the 3d printing right I mean you have a 3d printing shop at school and it's fascinating to watch what you can create with it right used to be used were very limited in your materials and you could only use one material yes but now it's it that again the technologies boom boom boom and people are creating very sophisticated multi-part components yes I guess I guess it's used in the pharmaceutical industries you know they use 3d printing to do sort of layered capsules so that they dissolve and give different different drugs or different dosages over different time yeah it's incredible yeah absolutely amazing absolutely amazing so how was your program then changed over time I mean you're it must constant right and that's part of the excitement being in the field for me is that I have seen the progress from very early on to today and you cannot stop learning so what Picat does what our mission is that and what I love about it is that it allows somebody like me to explore to look at new technology to learn the new technology to bring it to the classroom so that is the advantage of working in an environment where it is focused on advanced technology it is focused on education so system benefits from it and we benefit from it to bring it to the community sure because there are technologies that sort of make some head in education but then don't seem to maybe develop as fully as I should the whole idea of the MOOCs massively open online courses a few years ago sort of seemed like it was going to answer a lot of people's dreams right yes there's still MOOCs being offered and they're still going along but there's been a lot of back and forth about how effective they are or what percentage of students complete them right it is their models you know they're more mode of learning and I think that's always going to be tested and face-to-face online distance you know there are several modes like MOOCs that you know Khan Academy is another one so there are a lot of these come around and the answer question is not that they are not effective but it they people gravitate toward one or the other and as you know people decide which way is going to win so we focus in some online you know environment learning we do a lot of custom training so we do go to the client and train them we write clear a column in the area that it's needed so we are very actively looking at all possible modes of delivery yeah excellent we discuss this in our I work at Pacific resources for education learning and we work with a lot of the remote island communities in Micronesia where they have very bad internet and we're talking about now loading up servers basically with appropriate software and all so that they'll have sort of locally available education it'll be simple they'll have tablets or whatever to access it from and then we'll need the internet to be up and running to have the education still rich educational experience sure yeah again sounds like stuff that sort of we are doing our parts you'll probably give us some good advice well I'll tell we're gonna we're gonna continue this conversation but we're first gonna take a brief break here ammonia Hodges is here from Peacat Pacific Center for advanced technology training good and I'm Ethan Al host of likable science and we'll be right back after a brief break aloha you can join the Hawaii farmer series every Thursday from four to five on fake tech and I'm your close Matthew Johnson here with Justine Espirito and we are so thankful to have this show to use as a forum to get to know all the movers and shakers in agriculture in Hawaii and hear kind of their background in history as well as their perspective on what they're doing and also the future for agriculture in Hawaii so join us every Thursday you can tweet in your own comments and suggestions and be a part of the conversation at think tech high and we hope to see you every single Thursday and you're back here on likable science I'm your host Ethan Allen here on think tech Hawaii with me today and think texture goes is linear Hodges from Peacat the Pacific Center for advanced technology training about that right and we've been talking about Peacat and pretty about the Peacat IT symposium that's coming up and when is this coming up it's going to be on May 25th and 26th and the program starts around 8 o'clock 848 30 and then goes all the way to 330 in the afternoon okay and our audience are mostly educators from lower from K through 20 and also the university student and professors and faculty and staff are invited right and symposium is really geared to encourage people to come together to learn about new technologies learn about how the maybe so older technologies are finding new life being used in new ways collaborate with their friends figure out ways to make technology work better for them right correct yeah so we have sessions that are hands-on and people sit around and solve a problem and they have a moderator and the moderator basically talks about the topic of the technology and they build or they work on a solution to a technology problem that they might have this year we also have every year we have new sessions as you know technology is changing so we bring in new technology into the platform one of the areas that we're focusing is in software engineering coding coding is becoming very popular between our students and now we are learning that students in elementary school also can learn to code so in order to equip our faculty and are you know with the technology that it helps them even if they are not a coder hard to encourage their students to become a coder we are taking in this new device called Altino which is an auto that device that is like build like a automobile and what you do is you learn how to operate this with code so the students learn if I want the auto to go forward what are kind of coding I need to do so they write that code and because of the engagement they have with the interaction with the device they have they're actually learning a lot of content and information they learn about speed and they learn about math they learn about how to code the device and they learn you know what it does so we have faculty from schools we have actually ocean it and Kamehameh school are the partners in this endeavor to bring this technology to the classroom so I'll be offering a session in this IT symposium to show our educators how to take advantage of this device to teach coding in any classroom it doesn't have to be a computer science it could be your social science environment and exercise I will do probably is going to be something has to do with the person going from point a to point b and students need to collaborate together how to get to point b and along the way how to solve the problem and write the right code to get their device yeah I've been amazed to watch coding is now almost considered sort of a basic fundamental skill for kids people talk about well every child needs to learn to do this now it's going to be the way that they communicate basically it's going to be as basic as reading or writing or fundamental arithmetic and the coding is really a problem-solving and problem-solving is a really a natural way for us to think we problem solve every second in our life so to think that we need a age specific to learn how to problem solve I think that was the idea that was you know that's why we had computer science mostly offered in the college level but now we realize that students in elementary school also can learn to think that way and it's natural for them because that's what they do sure problems have to be posed a little differently a little different context a little little different tools to solve them right but basically so you must then yeah have really interesting things from the students coming up who have come up through a learning coding from very early age they must presumably have a very sophisticated understanding of coding by the time they get to be college age definitely yeah and even even through my years of teaching I have experienced that that the students today are in a totally different platform in learning the technology and coding right because the students who you're seeing today this kind of technology has been part of their lives yes since they were small children correct whereas many of us learned a little later in life yes we had to learn how to think and how to solve and they know it already I hadn't thought about that but they probably does it profoundly reshapes the way they approach problem-solving exercises yes that's huh fascinating wonderful and so what do you what do you hope the people will take away from the symposium we're hoping that we more than anything where we create enthusiasm and encourage them to learn the tools that are offered or sessions that are effective to take it to their classroom to learn from this and be able to enhance and advance what they teach to the students right because as you as you point out now it's really sort of infiltrated all the different fields so you no longer necessarily have to teach computer science as a sort of a separate thing right computer science is part and parcel of reading classes writing classes science classes math classes whatever yeah I can do social science simulations experiments on social networking right all with with computer assistance to make it more lively more engaging to the students a richer more meaningful yeah excellent excellent what that sounds that sounds very exciting then so how is how is PCAT supported that's an organization PCAT is a as I said it's a consortium so we do have funding to the state and because of the funding we have we are able to offer a very competitive price for the training that we have so if you go to PCAT or you can see the array of courses and sessions that we offer there and the prices are very compatible very reasonable I should say compared to the private industry and the reason is because we do have a support helps us to do that okay so that is the funding source for there and most of us that work at PCAT we are a state employee as a faculty or staff therefore that also another way that it gets getting funded yeah okay well that that sounds good and then the symposium maybe they have a separate pool of money for that or you symposium sometimes we have sponsorship right so the sponsors provide some of that sometimes we have the PCAT provides the campuses provide some resources that we all come together that's not make it happen that's great that's that's how you make things really move ahead that's how you move the needle here is by bringing all the diverse groups together right you said you mentioned ocean that I know actually I'm headed over ocean after this for one of their tours yeah no they're a fantastic group they've got all kinds of good stuff going on there they think way ahead of the curve and a lot of ways I believe so they are the one brought the Altenew so they will also have a session themselves on it and this IT symposium regarding that and they do a lot of work I know with the whole design thinking idea yes design thinking which again sort of ties into this whole creative problem-solving approach right yes definitely yeah so that's that's pretty neat to see how there's a ties to different different groups and different approaches right so PCAT is not just within education IT symposium focus is on education but PCAT really has a reach into industry into international students we bring international students here for training we have partnership with other universities in Japan and Korea and so we've had many occasions where PCAT really works not only with the industry but also with education partnership well good I mean that's that's so needed you know you can't have your education system and your industry running well talking to one another right you're supposed to be educating people in part to work in the industries and support the industries who in turn will inform the education system yeah that's good to see that you're doing doing your your part for that here and so where do you see PCAT going in the next five years ten years is it growing getting bigger that would be a question to ask the director of the program but I have seen it for the past 17 years where it was started and where it's heading so I see us evolving more and more as time goes on to becoming more and more integrated into the STEM program we work closely with the high schools now and with partnering with industry and high school trying to bridge the education that feeds workforce development in a way that benefits all the constituents within our state so we evolve constantly and depending on who's in charge we always have a different focus and different angle but technology is moving forward so we move forward yeah absolutely I mean we're not gonna get away from that right that's sort of a given is that it's gonna gonna keep advancing now and it's it's an amazing amazing field to find yourself in and and it sounds like you're having a lot of fun doing that which is what's really good and it seems like you're so if you had advice for students who are sort of entering the IT field what but what would you say to them and I might be biased this answer that but I really think software software everything is a software from your operating system from your networking from security you know we do a lot of cybersecurity sessions with the students during the summer during you know whenever we have time and a lot is focused on program software you heard it here software you know well thank you thank you so much it was wonderful to have you here and I very much enjoyed and learned a lot about the the picad in this IT symposium again maybe we can pop that up on the on the screen of the website for the for the IT symposium yes it's picad.org slash ITS in caps okay and then the word the last word is the symposium okay so picad.org slash IT symposium is the website wonderful well thank you so much and we shall give you good luck on the symposium and exciting to have you here look forward to further conversations thank you very much thank you for having and when we hope we'll see you next week on that for another edition of likable science here on Think Tech Hawaii