Please join OIT at UAF TechFest 2010 in the Wood Center, October 6-8th!� The event opens at noon on Wednesday, come hear welcome comments from Chancellor Rogers and OIT UAF Chief Information Officer Karl Kowalski.� Participate in OIT's GeoCache Scavenger Hunt beginning September 27th to win prizes and a chance to win a GeoCache starter kit.� Stop by for a taste of OIT's new Hotlicks created ice cream flavor "Polar Berry Byte" and visit vendors to enter into raffle drawings.

Steve Benson from Google will be the keynote address on Thursday, October 7th at noon discussing Google capabilities and use of technology in higher education.� A grand prize drawing and ice cream eating contest will follow with emcee Charlie Dexter!��� Feel free to sign up for technology based workshops, presentations, the Halo Reach, Mario Cart, and RockBand gaming tournaments, ice cream eating contest, or attend a robotics demonstration by NASA engineer Mike Comberiate!�

Register for workshops, contests or training courses online here: http://www.alaska.edu/oit/techfest2010/

Find GeoCache coordinates here: http://www.alaska.edu/oit/techfest2010/geocache/

All UAF and UA students, faculty and staff are welcome!� See you at TechFest 2010!

The Office of Information Technology has been awarded a Sustainable Broadband Adoption grant "Bridging the e-Skills Gap in Alaska" BTOP that brings together 21 partner organizations to create a coordinated framework for technology literacy across Alaska. Partners include rural healthcare training and service consortia; state government agencies; early childhood, K-12 and postsecondary education; and social service providers.

This project will generate up to over 5,000 new broadband users in the next three years and provide an average of 12 hours of training to over 22,000 Alaskans, including school-age children, professional adults, unemployed adults and senior citizens. Alaska Distance Education Consortium (AKDEC), operating from within the University of Alaska, will provide project leadership with a goal of long-term sustainability of broadband use in Alaska.

The $4.5 m grant is being matched by $2.4 m from the partner organizations. The total project budget is $6,967,284. The cash match is $180,000 with the rest of the match as in-kind contributions directly attributable to this project.

The project focuses on building local broadband capacity in rural, isolated communities and villages and will create new jobs in health care, education, and technology assistance. The project will create sustainability of broadband use by training a cadre of 80 Village Internet Agents capable Of responding to local needs for hardware and software support. Eleven village health clinics in northern Alaska will create public use computer stations with a goal that inquiry about health topics becomes a regular occurrence. Project partners will deliver professional development and training to teachers and health care professionals via broadband technology, a huge cost savings to employers and employees. Students across Alaska will have more education choices, and more students and families will receive assistance in preparing for postsecondary education or training. The project features a technology awareness campaign that will target students, elders and individuals eligible for health care benefits, community groups, unemployed and job-seeking adults, and parents.
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OIT's Training & Development Group offers an ongoing variety of classes - signup is available through our web site - http://www.alaska.edu/oit/training

Of special note is that iTunesU and podcasting are now on our menu!� Our training space in 319B Bunnell is expected to be finished by the start of October so when you come by you'll see our expanded area now with computers to better provide hands-on training for you!

If you know of any rural staff involved in the functional areas of Finanace, HR, and Student Services, you should remind them that the 10th Rural Sites Training Conference (RSTC) is coming up (Oct 4-6) and its free and held here on the UAF campus. See the attached flyer. This is just prior to UA's 3rd annual TechFest (Oct 6-8).

Just one other reminder - did you know that besides Skillsoft as a resource for learning a variety of technology related topics, Atomic Learning is also available - http://www.atomiclearning.com

Atomic� Learning hsots a variety of short videos (2 minutes) on a wide range of software topics and are streamed to your computer. Currently it is only available on campus but by by mid-October, it should be available for off-campus students and faculty as well!

Remember OIT training staff are only a call or email away!

Chris Beks - cgbeks@alaska.edu - x6796
Gary Bender - gabender@alaska.edu - x6573
Cara Brunk - cbrunk@alaska.edu - 8385
Martin Miller - msmiller@alaska.edu - x8304