Membership Notes

Membership Notes

Jorge Fernández Daher

Activities in Uruguay Chapter
In this issue, we have a report from our Chapter in Uruguay. A very important event was organized locally with many results.

From May 9th – 10th, the Teacher in Service Program (TISP) from IEEE, a Latin-American workshop, was held in the Montevideo Sheraton Hotel. This event was declared by the Ministry of Education as of National Interest and was supported by the “Consejo de Enseñanza Secundaria” (Secondary School Council), the “Universidad del Trabajo del Uruguay” (Technology University of Uruguay) and the local IEEE Section.

More than 250 professors from secondary schools and technological schools, both private and public, attended the workshop. Also more than 20 engineers and 14 officers from IEEE Region 9 attended the meeting coming from different countries like Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina and Brazil.

One of the goals of the workshop was to train professors in new ways of teaching subjects related to technology. This allows for a better relationship with students and generates a stronger motivation in them. The administrative committee for this event included officers and members from the Uruguay Section and the Power and Energy Society and Instrumentation and Measurements Society Joint Chapter.

Benefits and metrics
Attendance Goal: 280 people. We had 250 professors from different schools, 12 volunteers from Region 9 and 20 volunteers from the Uruguay Section. The goal was achieved!

Benefits (short list):

  • Consider new ways to teach
  • Participation of different sectors and teachers
  • Well aligned with science and technology education standards
  • Social networking and discussions on ways to teach science
  • Workshop with different teachers and different subjects
  • Materials easy to find in the local market
  • Crafts hands on modules, design test and optimize design
  • Good approach to technology and engineering
  • Teamwork, creative ideas, motivation, event coordination
  • To be able to work with real models instead of only with a blackboard.
  • To make teachers think in ways to communicate practical issues
  • Lot of suggestions and ideas to develop and investigate in a Group
  • Very good idea to spread scientific concepts through practical implementation

Benefits to the Uruguay IEEE Section

  • IEEE was written about in the local media
  • The event was declared of National Interest by the Ministry of Education
  • Funding was granted by the EAB to extend this workshop during one year in the whole country
  • More than 30 students, not members of IEEE, attended the workshop and were introduced to IEEE and its benefits
  • Two Student Branches were reactivated during the event and two more branches decided to start reactivation
  • The IEEE membership was increased in 10% with 27 new student members

Benefits to the Chapter

  • Thanks to the support of the I & M Society new students became members.
  • The I &M Society supported the publicity of the event, preliminary meetings with students and membership development.
  • The Power and Energy Student Chapter was created in the Universidad de la República.
  • Students from the Universidad de la República decided to create the I & M Society Student Chapter. Six new students became members of our Society
  • Students from the Universidad de la República Branch are meeting weekly with the student counselor and the Chapter Chair, Nicolas Daoudian, to coordinate technical activities. They are planning technical visits to industrial facilities to understand automation and measurement systems and equipment.
  • There are plans for new research and development projects in technical areas of our societies.

If you want to learn more about this workshop you can contact the Uruguay Chapter Chair, Nicolás Daoudian (ndaoudian@ieee.org) or Gustavo Giannattasio (gianna@ieee.org). There is also a blog at http://wwwtispmontevideo.blogspot.com/

New chapter
We are glad to welcome a new Chapter, the North Jersey Section. Congratulations to all the members that worked hard and to the Chair, Russell Pepe. We wish them success in all their activities.

Web site
Our web site has been renewed and updated with more information. If you have a look to the membership section you will see the links to the different chapter web sites. Remember the URL, http://ieee-ims.org/main/