Information technology is changing virtually every aspect of our lives today. Databases allow research institutions to gather and calculate unimaginable amounts of data at blazing speeds, day traders execute transactions in milliseconds, and loved ones across the world can communicate with each other effortlessly through the Internet.

Community colleges are no exception to this trend. The tried-and-true lecture method remains arguably the most effective way of teaching, but community colleges as a whole are realizing the benefits of integrating technology and relevant partnerships as a means of improving the services it offers for students.

Not only does embracing the innovations of the 21st century improve the breadth of education students receive, it prepares them for the rigors of working in today’s global economy. Training students to be technologically-fluent is a great means of helping them indirectly gaining skills to bolster their resume. Below we will look at how community colleges are embracing the 21st century changes into their programs today.

Technology

Community colleges have been fervent at integrating technologies into their programs. One of the major institutions promoting such changes is the League for Innovation in the Community College. The League is a leading organization promoting the adoption of technology in community colleges. in 1997, it founded the Transformational Learning Connections Community, which is an ongoing online community promoting learning and discussion about technology adoption. Each year, the organization holds a Conference on Information Technology, which covers a specific aspect of IT pertaining to community colleges. In addition to the broad initiatives of the League, individual school districts are also bucking to the trend of technology innovation.

Columbus State Community College has integrated an open-source video platform and online relay system in order to send streaming video of courses to its diverse student body. Given CSCC’s two campuses, nine off-campus learning centers, and over 20,000 students in its education and workforce development program, this has greatly increased the scope of the college’s operations.
In addition to its video streaming services, CSCC has also integrated its assignments and database management needs to the cloud. Using Blackboard, professors can easily distribute course materials and collect assignments quickly through the online platform.

Partnerships

Prominent four-year universities have been partnering with businesses for decades as a means of bridging the post-graduation and job-search gap for its students. Community colleges have begun to follow this trend by forming their own partnerships.

The California Community College system has a website dedicated to displaying prominent business partnerships it holds with businesses. These partnerships have been established as successful ways for students to gain work experience during their undergraduate years. Its partnerships including:

As you can see, the wide span of partnerships allows students coming from many backgrounds to be able to apply their interests to gain real-world experience. Corporations also gain from these partnerships through gaining a constant stream of talented and motivated students coming from community colleges.

Obviously, technology and business partnerships are not substitutes for a quality education and effective teachers. They are, however, great ways to improve upon models that work and will continue to do so as community colleges learn how to harness their advantages.