What changes do you anticipate in the Bellevue College service area over the next 1-10 years that will impact the college, and how might BC need to respond to those changes? [Use the speech bubble to the right or the reply link below to respond]
The BC service area covers the school districts for Bellevue, Mercer Island, Issaquah, Skykomish and Snoqualmie Valley. The outlined area in the NE corner of the map is the Bellevue College district. The color represent population density.
Access to Bellevue College main campus will be a challenge within ten years. The East Link Extension of the Light Rail will change the way Bellevue encourages housing and development (http://www.soundtransit.org/x6886.xml). This will impact student housing, transportation, and access to jobs. Additionally, I-90 development may trigger tolling (http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/projects/I90/CrossLakeWATolling/). While these items spatial changes are not included in the service area map, student origins are not limited to areas outlined on the map. Also, these infrastructure and policy changes signal the future of the Puget Sound Region. Finally, currently policy-makers in Bellevue and regional authorities (PSRC) are preparing for these changes now by developing plans for areas around the Bellevue College campus – required municipal comp plans updates (every ten years) are due in 2014 (http://www.ci.bellevue.wa.us/comp-plan-update.htm)
Thanks for pointing out that BC students often come from outside the formal service area. It’s also the case that many students select a campus based on public transportation access. As you suggest, the college will need to coordinate with regional transportation authorities. Thanks for the comment, Patrick.
Assumption: The vast majority of courses will assume that students have access to on line resources while in class, on campus, and at home. Accordingly, it might make sense to require all students to have a device that is appropriate for accessing the web, and our financial aid policies should accommodate the problem this might impose on low income students.
Assumption: Rooms that can host courses with computers are in high demand, and already a limiting factor on what classes can be offered each term.
Assumption: Acquiring BS systems for classrooms and maintaining them is costly.
Suggestion:
* We should have a minimum spec requirement for a portable web access device for all students. Teachers should be able to design course assuming that all their students have full access to the web.
* None of our classrooms, labs, or libraries should have computers. Every room should be capable of hosting any class that uses computer resources, as each student will have a web / cloud access device. (We should have a pool of 1 day loaners for students who forget to bring on a given day.)
* Our courses should be implemented entirely in the cloud. Canvas already provides most of what we need. Beyond that, students need a way of running Office (WORD, PPT, Xcel), which can also be done entirely in the cloud with Office360. (We might also consider switching to Google’s version of Office.)
* Classes that today require lab computers (e.g. programming, SQL, etc) should use Amazon AWS or Microsoft Azure virtual servers. (I am currently teaching a programming course with this model to try out the theory.)
o One complication here is, for the students’ web access device to make full use of a Virtual Machine to learn , for example, C# or SQL, the student’s device must support the Remote Desktop Connection capability. All windows systems do, including the low cost Surface RT. It is also available on Mac’s and I see there is a $14 Android version of this tool available, so it is quite likely students could also choose Google Chrome Notebooks too. There is a good chance Microsoft itself is going to support all these platforms:
http://www.macrumors.com/2013/10/09/microsoft-preparing-to-launch-new-versions-of-remote-desktop-for-ios-and-os-x/
Thanks Kurt – It will be interesting to see how this comes to play. I agree that we are moving to a cloud-style of computing in academia (and the community), and it will be more common to expect students to have a device. But we’ll also still need to think about how we get a device of some sort in the hands of all our students (many who have limited resources or access). Maybe we can balance this by moving to cheaper (or free) textbooks that they can also access through their device. That way it replaces the cost of books (another issue that seems to be coming to a tipping point). In any case, I think we’ll have to be ready to support this change.
Only suggestion I would add is make more hybrid / online classes so there are less people commuting to campus on a daily basis. Oh, and parking…