Much More Than a Social Network

The K12 Engineering Education Podcast

Today's guests present a smorgasbord of resources available for K12 engineering educators, starting with the website www.LinkEngineering.org, an online toolkit to support PreK-12 engineering education. Guests Dr. Elizabeth Cady and Dr. Linda Kekelis explain what LinkEngineering is. It's hard to sum up the website in one word. Produced by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), it's part social network, part resource database, part review site, and part Q&A site. A bit like LinkedIn, Yelp, and Quora, morphed together, but for engineering education. And it's still evolving. Listen to this episode to learn more, as well as to hear about role models, philanthropy, gender equity, and toys. Dr. Linda Kekelis, Ph.D., consults on STEM programs and research to help increase access for girls and underrepresented youth; she was the founder and former CEO of Techbridge. Dr. Elizabeth Cady is a Program Officer for engineering education at the NAE. Among other projects, she staffs LinkEngineering and administers the Frontiers of Engineering Education symposium, which recognizes and supports innovative engineering faculty members.

Resources mentioned this episode:

● LinkEngineering - http://www.linkengineering.org

● National Academy of Engineering - http://www.nae.edu

● EngineerGirl - http://www.engineergirl.org

● TechBridge - http://techbridge.org/

● Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Enginergizing and Employing America for a Brighter Future (2007) - https://www.nap.edu/catalog/11463/rising-above-the-gathering-storm-energizing-and-employing-america-for

● Linda Kekelis's blog entry on LinkEngineering - http://linkengineering.org/Discover/698/14392.aspx

● TeachEngineering - https://www.teachengineering.org

● GoldiBlox toys - http://www.goldieblox.com/

● The Connectory - http://theconnectory.org

● Changing the Conversation: Messages for Improving Public Understanding of Engineering (2008) - https://www.nap.edu/catalog/12187/changing-the-conversation-messages-for-improving-public-understanding-of-engineering

● Online Ethics Center: http://www.onlineethics.org

● Linda Kekelis - [e-mail]

● Elizabeth Cady - [e-mail]

Our opening music comes from "School Zone (radio edit)" by The Honorable Sleaze, our closing music is from "Late for School" by Bleeptor. Both are used under Creative Commons Attribution Licenses: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 Subscribe and find more podcast information at: www.k12engineering.net