MOOC: Massive Open Online Course
If you’re wondering why I’ve been quiet lately, it’s because I’ve been involved with two big career-related events: My move into Academics (from IT) and preparation to teach my first MOOC, “Introduction to Sustainability,” through the Canvas network.
→ No CommentsTags: Higher Education · Sustainability
World Water Day is stacking up to be quite a celebration at Ecotech this year, including conservation demonstrations by Sonne Shields, first female winner of HGTV’s “All-American Handyman,” a children’s art contest, and much more.
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“If you would have told me just two years ago that I’d be living in Hawaii and working for a solar company, I would have thought you were crazy. However, that’s what I’m doing today and I couldn’t be happier.” ~Myers Nguyen, Ecotech Institute Alumnus
→ No CommentsTags: Clean Energy · Green Jobs · Higher Education · Renewable Energy · Solar Energy · Sustainability · Wind Energy
This is the first in a planned series of blog entries describing the occupational outlook of specific jobs for which we provide training at America’s first Ecotech Institute. Graduates of our Wind Energy Technology program are eligible for a variety of jobs, including Energy Auditors, Engineering Technicians, and Sustainability Specialists. However, the most obvious role for our graduates is that of Wind Turbine Service Technician.
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“Fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face.” ~General Jack D. Ripper, in Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
I wonder if any of the same folks who laugh at Gen. Ripper’s ridiculous remarks in Dr. Strangelove subscribe to any of the ridiculous Agenda 21 conspiracy theories? There are those who are trying to demonize cleantech jobs and the whole sustainability movement as some sort of socialist plot. Rather than laugh at them, I’m hoping we can help them to stop worrying and love cleantech.
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Solar panels don’t install themselves. Wind turbines don’t manufacture themselves. Homes and buildings don’t retrofit or weatherize themselves. In our industrial society, trees don’t even PLANT themselves, anymore. Real people must do all of that work.
To be successful, American workers need some new tools, some new training and access to some new technology. They also need a policy environment that supports employers who are trying to bring low-carbon prosperity to our country. With those things in place, we can begin to put some green rungs on America’s ladder of opportunity.
If we are smart, we will make the invention, manufacturing and deploying of clean energy technology a cornerstone of the next American economy – and create green pathways out of poverty, while we do it. ~Van Jones (2009)
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Ah, targeted advertising: It seems I can’t visit an environmental web site without receiving an ad for a “green” MBA degree program. But all these ads make me want to ask: Just who are all these green MBAs going to manage? In other words, who’s actually going to be doing all this important green work?
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Regardless of Party Affiliation, Elections Affect the Future of Cleantech
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Perhaps we should start an “Ecotext Book Club” to share and discuss books relating to the business Triple Bottom Line of people, planet, and profits. Recently I finished the marvelous 2052: A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years. Now I am reading What's the Economy For, Anyway?: Why It's Time to Stop Chasing Growth and Start Pursuing Happiness by David K. Batker and John de Graaf.
→ No CommentsTags: Critical Thinking · Economics · Higher Education
Every few months a small group of us former pupils drag our old mentor out of retirement for a “Sustainable Futures” reunion seminar. Two weeks ago, while our beloved Dr. Edward “Ed” Passerini was in town, he also graciously agreed to speak to my graduate class on Information Management. Wow. I don’t know about the rest of the class, but I was blown away.
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