October 22, 2009

Two grants open doors for

BBCC services in Ritzville

Big Bend Community College received a $3.5 million grant enabling the Moses Lake college to work with Heritage University to offer students three new online programs.

Programs developed through the five-year grant are interdisciplinary studies, early childhood education and applied technology.

Students can receive a baccalaureate degree in all three as well as an associate degree in interdisciplinary studies and early childhood education.

The classes for these degrees will be offered online with in-person and online distance delivery support for registration, virtual office hours, financial/career planning and transfer oriented programming.

The Title V grant awarded to BBCC is one of five awarded nationally and only one of three awarded to a community college.

It allows the college to utilize technology to increase student access and success. The online programs give students with full-time jobs or distance barriers the flexibility to continue working or remain in their home community while obtaining a degree.

BBCC has used data from the Achieving the Dream (AtD) initiative to determine what services and resources are needed to ensure students have access to post secondary education.

According to current AtD data, it is shown that distance between home and school proves to be a major barrier for many.

Small communities like Ritzville have long faced a distance barrier that requires community members to move away from the community or drive long distances to access ongoing education.

The Title V grant will allow BBCC to open its doors in Ritzville via online and recorded classes.

In addition, BBCC was awarded a Rural Utilities Services (RUS) grant of $153,000. With the assistance of this grant and through the combined use of technologies such as learning management systems, virtual office spaces and streaming live video, BBCC can create an interactive, media-rich learning environment.

These technologies are best experienced through the use of broadband Internet technologies, which is a barrier in areas of the BBCC service district.

Through grant funding, fixed base “Community Knowledge Centers” will be established to provide a location for community members to access distance learning in areas where broadband access is unavailable or cost prohibitive.

These centers will be located in Ritzville, Lind, Washtucna, Mattawa and Othello.

The Rural Washington Distance Learning Project (RWDLP) will enable the hub – BBCC – to broadcast classes live across its service district to outlying rural community-based knowledge centers.

It will utilize the Grant County Public Utility District’s fiber network within the Grant County portion of the service district and carriers of DSL connectivity within the Adams County portion.

BBCC will have the addition of three classrooms that are capable of capturing and streaming all instructor activity through Mediasite, a product that uses a recorder integrated into an audio visual system capable of capturing all of the instructor’s activity.

The content is then published using a streaming video server system and can be incorporated into the learning management suite provided by Washington Online (WAOL).

WAOL utilizes the Angel Learning management system along with Elluminate, a virtual Web office application.

It is made available to the college by the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges at a reduced rate.

This system can be used to deliver both on-demand and live classroom experiences. By incorporating the use of Mediasite into these existing systems, BBCC will provide the most advanced online interactive system available.