Connect-ED

Shoreline Community College is taking steps to make campus life safer and easier for students and employees.

 

The Connect-ED service lets college officials schedule, send and track messages to up to six phone numbers and two e-mail addresses for each person. In all, the multi-modal service helps officials reach out to students and staff via:

• Text messages to e-mail accounts
• Voice messages to home phones, work phones, cell phones, and even e-mail addresses
• Text messages to cell phones, PDAs, networked digital signage and other text-based devices
• Messages to TTY/TDD receiving devices for the hearing impaired

In addition to emergency notifications, the system can remind students of key academic calendar dates to help make sure critical deadlines aren't missed. The Connect-ED system is also tied to Shoreline's online learning management system, also from Blackboard. Classroom instructors can use the system to notify students of schedule changes or other important information.

 

Registered students and staff are automatically included in the service and can adjust their preferences, choosing which categories of messages they want to receive and to which numbers or addresses, through the college Web site. There is no charge from the college for the service. However, text or usage charges may be incurred by the user from telephone or e-mail providers depending on the provider and the subscriber's plan.

 

Mobile Site

The mobile Web site version of www.shoreline.edu includes mobile versions of pages about programs, cost, enrollment, online classes, photos and contact information. The mobile site also includes a link back to the full college Web site.

 

Blackboard

Blackboard Learn is Web-based software that provides students and instructors a set of tools to post class materials online and easily communicate with each other. Shoreline uses Blackboard to deliver online and hybrid courses and to provide Web-based resources for many on-campus classes. Students can access Blackboard from anywhere they have Internet access.

 

In addition, Shoreline adds Blackboard Mobile Learn, giving students and faculty access to their courses, content and organizations on a variety of mobile devices including iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Android, BlackBerry and Palm smartphones. Initially, Mobile Learn was available only for Sprint customers, but through an agreement with Blackboard, it is now available regardless of carrier.

 

There is no additional fee from the college to students for any of the online services, although cellular phone companies may charge for data services and text messages.

 

Virtual college

Shoreline Community College President Lambert announced in August, 2010, that Shoreline would move ahead with a virtual-college initiative. In March, 2011, a 64-page “Blueprint for a Virtual College: Report to the President's Senior Executive Team” was unveiled by the Virtual College Leadership Team.

 

The blueprint concludes the college should take an “approach that will build upon the College's existing strengths: offering high quality online instruction at an affordable price. é Using this incremental approach, the immediate recommended goal is to improve existing online instructional offerings and to package them comprehensively, and é equally if not more importantly é to address internal process barriers in the area of student services.”

 

The college is continuing toward a vision of expanding online class offerings while continuing to serve students on the physical campus.