Hi everyone,

In a recent blog Mark Viquesney mentioned the NSF funded eSyst project: A Systems View of Electronics as having valuable resources for faculty teaching electronics or mechatronics course work. This is true and please go to http://www.esyst.org/ to view and access these resources.

The eSyst project was started to help begin the change of moving electronics education courses from component based study and circuit analysis programs toward programs that start at the big picture or systems view and then drill down to the i.c. component or circuit functions. The reason for this change is that our legacy electronics programs have not changed for more than thirty years but due to technology changes the electronics technicians job roles of today have changed drastically and in many cases to a point where they are no longer needed.

eSyst is creating resources to address these changes and supply an implementation approach that faculty today can begin to move their existing core courses towards the systems view and begin preparing electronics technicians for current and relevant electronics systems technologies. The core courses we have identified for change are: DC/AC Circuits, Solid State Devices, Digital Fundamentals, Micrprocessors (Microcontrollers), Data Acquisition and Measurement, and Electronics Communications. You will find an Implementation Guide that contains suggestion changes for each course, the new student learning outcomes, and a list of developed resources to be used for lab activities. Once you are familiar with the changes, you can review all the resources on line at the eSyst web site.

Starting in September 2009 and going out for six months the eSyst project will be hosting a series of webinars; one each month on how to implement each of the develop sets of resources for each of the six courses. Stay tune for details on this exciting new webinar series. I will post the schedule and registration link on the eSyst website next week.

Thanks for reading the blog and continue to look for other great online resources by visiting and searching http://www.matecnetworks.org/.

Tom McGlew