Welcome to our new website!
What’s new?
Welcome to the new Center of Excellence for Information and Computing Technology (CoE for ICT) website! When it was determined the website was due for a “refresh”, the two website designers posed a series of questions so we could define what the new website should look like. What was its purpose? Why is this website important? Who is the primary audience? (As it turned out, the answer is “educators”, but it was nice to reaffirm this.) They were all excellent, thoughtful questions. This is a summary of the answers, the reasons why the website developed into what it is, and why.
In considering the purpose of the CoE for ICT website, a number of answers came to mind. We wanted to keep our educators and students aware and apprised of the ICT activities and events we offer so they have the opportunity to attend. The CoE for ICT is a resource for all of our community and technical college (CTC) educators and subsequently, students. While it happens to be housed at Bellevue College, the Center’s priority is to serve all of our state’s CTCs.
With information overload, it is still important to provide information that is of value to our state’s CTC Information Technology (IT), Computer Science (CS), and Business Technology (BT) educators, so they can stay abreast of current changes in the ICT space; issues with, and about technology; how workforce evolving needs affect the development of college programs, curriculum, and ultimately can impact the career pathway of the K-20 student; how the CTC system can help educators implement change through professional development training, keep current on emerging technology trends, as well as connect with each other to share best practices and learn from each other; and, also how we can work together to serve our students so they in turn can graduate with degrees and certificates that meet workforce and industry needs.
Considering that our Center’s purpose is to serve as a leader in ICT, it was vital to create an interactive opportunity for our educators to share, shape, and strive to stay one step ahead in building the best ICT education we can possibly build for the benefit of our student graduates and their employers. We wanted to act as a conduit, connecting our CTC system to secondary educators, K-20 students, and industry through our new “Our Community” section of the new website. Ultimately, a primary aim can be summarized as follows: Develop an online meeting place that highlights all of the wonderful things we do in the ICT educational arena in an informative, interactive and helpful way.
So, in exploring this new website, feel free to participate. Whether it’s merely to keep up-to-date on how you can take advantage of all that we offer, offer up your opinion on a blog, someone else’s post, offer up your own editorial or informative piece related to the ICT world, send in a best practice video you have created, or find out something you didn’t know, the options are endless.
(P.S. We were given this opportunity thanks to a one-time grant from the Washington State SBCTC, Jim Crabbe and Amy Smith-Rubeck, which ended on June 30, 2009. Due to the personal service contract freeze in place, we could not hire a web design and developer team to create the new website. So, we turned to the Bellevue College web personnel to create this new website. Ryan Collier and Juan Ulloa created a website that evolved into something superior to anything we envisioned. The SBCTC and BC teams deserve our very sincere thanks and appreciation.
Maureen Majury
Center of Excellence for Information and Computing Technology