News
February 6, 2019Communication and Business Experts Guide P-TECH Students
Business and communication experts met with high school freshmen in the innovative Capital Region BOCES Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH) on Monday, providing them insight on how to build a website.
For the second time in less than a week, students in the first-year program housed at the Center for Advanced Technology at Mohonasen met with outside experts in web construction and design as they work towards a goal of developing interactive websites that will be formatted in a “Web MD” style.
The websites are part of a grand project in which students are studying how society’s development influenced the evolution of pathogens and diseases and how diseases are spread. Armed with that information, students will develop user-friendly websites to inform the public. How to make those sites “user friendly” was the topic of the day for Monday’s visiting experts, who included Karen Fox and Taryn 
Farewell from the Capital Region Chamber, Walter Thorne of Advance Media NY and Adrienne Leon, manager of the Capital Region BOCES’s Communications Service.
Everything from how to properly name the pages of the website in an appealing manner to layout, graphic content and more were discussed as the experts met with individual groups of students who are learning about and designing websites to address diseases and epidemics such as HIV, Lyme Disease, the Zyka Virus and Hepatitis B.
“I think it’s great that we have opportunities like this to hear from people in the field who help us learn what we need to be successful,” said James Beadsley, a P-TECH freshman from Cobleskll-Richmondville.
P-TECH is an innovative four- to six-year program (grades 9-14) offered to students throughout the region through a consortium that includes Capital Region BOCES, the Capital Region Chamber, Hudson Valley Community College and SUNY Schenectady County Community College. The program has two campuses – east campus is at Watervliet High School, west campus at the Center for Advanced Technology at Mohonason – and provides pathways for students to earn free college degrees in Computer Science, Computer Information Systems and Cybersecurity.
The P-TECH curriculum focuses on engaging students in hands-on, project-based learning – such as coding – to be successful in careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and providing students with workplace skills that will ensure success, no matter the career path they are applied to. Through the program, business partners provide students access to cutting-edge technologies and innovations that allow them to see the real-world application of the knowledge they are gaining at P-TECH.
Applications are being accepted now for 2019-20 school year. For more information, go to https://www.capitalregionboces.org/capital-region-p-tech/
