President's Message

From: Nathan Balasubramanian

Thank you for visiting us at CTEA Online. Everyone likes a winner. Technology and technology education afford us the opportunity to make everyone a winner. After reading this message, I hope you will join us in our quest – to rekindle every individual’s desire to innovate, to learn and to share.

Hi, I am Nathan Balasubramanian, your President of the Colorado Technology Education Association (2006-2007). A physicist by training, physics (understanding how everything works) and science education had been my passion. However, as I received my Masters in Educational Management in January 2003, after analyzing student interviews on their career development plans in the years preceding, it became clear to me that our classrooms can become compelling environments for learning only when the different subject areas we teach are somehow made relevant to students’ individual career development plans.  

How could I tie physics and students’ career development plans? It became self-evident when I started teaching applied technology and pre-engineering at Angevine Middle School in Fall 2003. The more challenging and seemingly simple problems I gave the students, the more I found out that learning became contagious (check out these videos). By design and choice, the hands-on nature of our physics, technology and pre-engineering classes afford us numerous opportunities to spontaneously bring out students’ innate creativity and innovative tendencies.

This past year, as I returned to teach physics and physics engineering technology at Overland, I found that the high school students were equally creative and innovative. Without doubt, applied science, technology and pre-engineering education in K-12 classrooms play a critical role in developing students’ “higher literacy skills” and enhancing their career development plans.

At CTEA, we recognize the importance of promoting best practices among teachers, furthering students' career development plans, and our role acting as catalysts of change. We serve many constituents – including, teachers of traditional industrial arts, technology education, pre-engineering, applied technology, information technology, digital media, science and mathematics; TECA students; administrators and vendors. As we plan on reaching a wider audience, we face some challenges.

First, we have heard numerous ideas/recommendations about how we might serve you better. This is our opportunity to listen and act on them. Second, with a renewed emphasis on core subjects in schools, funding for technology education is being cut back. This is our opportunity to disseminate studies which show that technology education actually helps increase student achievement school-wide. Finally, time, as always, is a constraint. This is our opportunity to use and communicate effectively with our website.

Again, I am honored to be your President this year and thank you for giving me an opportunity to serve you. As you join me in our quest to further CTEA’s mission – to rekindle every individual’s desire to innovate, to learn, and to share – please do not hesitate to contact us with your questions and comments.

Nathan Balasubramanian
CTEA President 2006 – 2007